I grab her wrist, coiling a hand around her nape.
“Don’t test me, Warrick.”
Her eyes drift to my angry mouth, and heat flares across her gaze. Desire racks through me like a bullet, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have to not devour her mouth again.
“So, I’m just supposed to be a docile little wife?” she says, disgusted. “We keep our separate bedrooms and eat dinner together?”
I can imagine her in my house. Strange how I barely sense her sister in my space, but I know if it were Haven, her touch would be visible. Her presence impossible to ignore. Her lavender scent, tinkling laugh, and that little dip in her lips when she teases me would drive me insane.
“It is a political match,” I say. “It was never meant to be about romance. Duty over love. Always.”
Haven shakes my hand off and continues ahead of me. Somehow, my words did the opposite of soothing things over. It pissed her off even more.
I run a frustrated hand down my face.
I don’t know why I am so terrible at this whole thing. Usually, the women I speak to at events or formal dinners are trying hard to impress me. Being the Commandant of the Forge and the next potential leader of the Continent makes me a desirable catch.
They would spend hours flirting with me while I would just stare boredly at them. They never cared if I spoke or listened to them. I could simply be. But Haven doesn’t give a damn about my position or my upbringing.
And why is it that the one person who thinks the worst of me is the only person in this damn world whose opinion matters to me the most?
chapter
forty
Haven
The silence is overbearing. The only sound that carries through the collapsed tunnel is the crushing bite of pebbles splintering under our boots and the fluttering wings of a flock of pigeons that tear off into the distance, the second they hear us coming.
I’ve been berating myself for the past half hour while Ender and I navigate the rubble, searching for the tunnel opening that should be somewhere up ahead. My thoughts keep circling back to that moment in the service room.
The memory sends an unwelcome shiver down my back. I can still feel the ravenous trail of his tongue inside my mouth, and the punishing grip of his fingers on my thigh. I’ll be wearing his marks for the next few days, because Ender kisses like a man possessed.
It’s a shame I despise him so much as a person, because I could really get used to kissing him.
“Almost there,” he grunts.
Two words.
A step up from the clipped one-word commands he’s been doling out all day.
“There!” I point sharply. “An opening.”
The tunnel mouth is mostly blocked by fallen stone, except for a narrow gap near the top. It’s wide enough for one person.
“I won’t fit,” Ender says after a quick assessment.
“I’ll go,” I reply. “I’ll get out and call for backup. They have to be close by.”
I expect him to refuse. Or at the very least express suspicion that I won’t come back. Because I am tempted to leave him here to rot. But he just nods.
“That’s a good plan,” Ender says.
He crouches without a word.
“Sit on my shoulders.”
I don’t want to be anywhere near him right now. A small, bitter part of me aches at how quickly he shut me out after that kiss. It’s not like I expected flowers or a declaration of love, but he didn’t have to look so regretful or act so abrasive after. His disinterest couldn’t have been clearer. Message received. Loud and clear.
