My clothes were soaked through. The cold settled into my bones in the places where pregnancy had already made me vulnerable, and a shiver ran through me before I could stop it.
Solomon’s jacket came off. Around my shoulders, wordless, automatic. The lining was dry and it smelled of him, cedar and iron, the scent my bond recognized before my brain and my body warmed against my will.
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“You were shivering.”
“I can shiver. Shivering is my choice.”
He didn’t respond. Because Solomon never argued with statements he considered irrational, which was somehow more infuriating than if he’d pushed back.
I pulled the jacket tighter. Cold and stubborn. Both true at the same time.
Giselle’s voice played in my head the way it had been playing for days. On a loop, uninvited, persistent.You haven’t forgiven them, you haven’t committed to them, and they’re still rearranging their entire world around you.
The flinch I’d hidden in that clearing hadn’t gone away. It had followed me into the drainage tunnels, into the compound, into Thiago’s office where I smiled through his lies while Giselle’s accusation sat in my ribs and pulsed.
Because she wasn’t wrong.
Not entirely. Not in the way I wanted her to be.
“Your soldier thinks I’m using you.”
Solomon’s head turned. “Giselle spoke out of turn.”
“She spoke out of turn. She was also partially right.”
The rain filled the gap between us. His jaw tightened but he didn’t correct me, which meant he was either giving me space to work through it or he agreed and wouldn’t say so.
“I’ve been trying to find the part where she’s wrong, Solomon. I’ve been turning it over for days and I can’t find it.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears.
“Sheiswrong.”
“She’s not. Lucian risked his throne and is bleeding from a wound I put there. You have to abandon your duty to the kingdom. Percival went rogue and starved in a forest for weeks. And I’m walking between your camp and my father’s compound, taking from both sides and committing to neither.”
“That’s not what’s happening.”
“Then what is happening? Because from where I’m standing, three men upended their lives to be here and I can’t even tell them I forgive them.” My hands were fists inside his jacket pockets. “What kind of person does that? What kind of person watches someone bleed for her and can’t say the words?”
“A person who was hurt.”
“Everyone was hurt, Solomon. Everyone in that camp has bled for this and I’m the one still holding a grudge because three men made a choice to protect me and I didn’t get a say in it.”
My voice cracked on the last word.
“Maybe she’s right. Maybe my anger isn’t worth what it’s costing all of you. Maybe I need to just get over it and commit and stop punishing you for a decision that was never going to have a good outcome either way.”
His hand reached for my arm.
“Don’t.” I shoved it off. Palm against his forearm, pushed hard. He let me. Just absorbed it the way he absorbed everything.
“Don’t touch me when I’m trying to figure out if I even have the right to be angry anymore.”
His hand dropped. Rain pounded the overhang. Neither of us moved.
Then Solomon did the last thing I expected.
“You have every right.”
