“Oh, get off your high horse. She’s one of the girls now. Look, Sylvie, he’s amazing. Idealistic and naïve, sure, and way too trusting, but he’s the God-King for a reason. I don’t think there’sever been a God-King that deserved it more than him. Which is ironic—”
“Quinn.” Taran can’t stop looking at the door. This must be something Ronan doesn’t want me to know.
“She needs to know, Taran. She’s going to be protecting him now at times when we can’t be there. You know it as well as I do. Have you ever seen him like this? Ever in your life, Taran?”
“No,” Taran admits, sending a frisson down my spine.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, just that he’sobsessedwith you. And look, I won’t lie. I’ve been a skeptic. Openly hostile to the idea, you might even say. But after tonight, I’m onboard. Sail us the fuck away, Sylvie. Sail us into the fucking sunset. It’s about time he gets to be happy.”
Obsessed?My heart is pounding. Quinn is practically bouncing on the couch next to me; she’s so enthusiastic, and I’m feeling sick.
He’sobsessedwith me. He has talked to them about me.
Fuck fuck fuck…
“There’s just one problem—godsdammit, Tare, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you think she doesn’t need to know.”
Taran is clutching his head like dealing with Quinn is physically hurting him. “I just think he’d want to tell her—”
“What are you two doing?” asks Ronan as he reenters the room.
Quinn and Taran—Ronan’s best friends—try to look innocent but fail, unsurprisingly.
“I’m trying to explain to Taran that Sylvie needs to know what happened tonight. What really happened.”
“Leave us,” he says, and Quinn and Taran exit without a word, although Taran does, at least, look apologetic.
“I hope you realize what kind of friend you’ve made there,” he says to me once we’re alone, gesturing to where Quinn went. “She’s never going to give you a day of peace.”
I don’t care about that right now. Not when I finally get to be alone with him again.
“Sylvie,” he sighs as he sits down next to me, wrapping his arms around me.
He leans back on the couch and pulls me to his chest, and I rest my head there against his heart. It’s beating fast, but it relaxes some as I stroke his arm. He strokes my back in response and idly runs his fingers through my hair.
In his arms, nothing else seems to matter. Not our plans, not the war, not what happened tonight, none of it.
It feels so amazing just being held by him.
But I’m greedy. I want more. I want him to kiss me. I want him to push me down on the couch and kiss me until the sun comes up. Until I’m begging him to show me where his bed is—
“I have to tell you something. Quinn is right; you need to know.”
He groans regretfully as he lifts me off of him and turns me to face him. When he looks at me, I can tell I wasn’t the only one thinking of needing more.
There’s a moment before he speaks where I think he might change his mind and just kiss me. I can see it in the purse of his lips, the tension in his jaw. He’s so lovely in the candlelight. The way it catches on the gold in his hair, the honey in his eyes. The way it glimmers on his skin. I want to touch him so badly, and I know he wants to touch me…
But he stops himself, letting out a breath. He scowls, and shame washes over him. It hunches his shoulders.
It makes him look small.
“I couldn’t feel the assassin tonight,” he finally admits. “The man in the royal box. I didn’t sense him there.”
Is that it? “Quinn said it was because there was too much going on—”
“Quinn lied because others could hear. Only she and Taran know the truth. I’m losing my magic, Sylvie. I couldn’t feel him because I’m losing my magic. If you hadn’t acted, I would have died tonight.”
