Despite all of my trolling, we’d kept a pretty strong line between us. His invitation to stay wasn’t really crossing that line, but it moved it.
We were married, but Rigel wasn’t romantically interested in me. I was pretty sure I could do the salsa with daggers—a thing hewasdeeply interested in—strapped over every inch of me and he wouldn’t even twitch.
But this invitation was almost a bigger deal. He wasn’t just supporting me, in a way he was letting me in.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes.” Rigel slapped my feet as he passed by. “As long as youstayon that side of the bed.”
I knew how to deal with joking, that put us back on familiar territory. “Oh come on. I’m not going to ravish you in your sleep.” I rolled my eyes as I rearranged the pillows for sleeping.
“You have an obsession for my abdominals,” Rigel said. “I’m not taking any chances.”
He met my gaze, and I cracked—laughing in a night I didn’t think it would be possible to find joy in.
I slid my feet under the covers. “You’re a pretty perfect consort, Rigel.”
“I don’t know that anyone else would agree with you.”
“That doesn’t matter.Ithink so, and you’remyconsort,” I said.
Rigel lay down on the top of his bed, still fully clothed.
Considering the time I’d busted into his room in the early morning and he’d been shirtless, maybe he really was worried I was going to try something.
I grinned, and my eyelids slowly shut.
The endless tirade in my mind that reminded me of the day’s horrible failure quieted, and I drifted off, thinking that it really was better to be with someone than alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Rigel
I’d been fairly certain there was no way Leila was going to stay on her side of the bed.
I’d heard enough of her restless sleeping habits through the walls—she kicked at her covers, rolled across her mattress, and moved around a lot—to know better.
What Ihadn’texpected was that she would creep her way across the mattress and burrow down in the covers half underneath me.
Between using the blankets and my body, she’d made a cave for herself. Only the top of her head poked out of the blankets, and she’d snuggled into me and pressed her head into the bottom of my jaw and my neck.
I glanced at the window. Even though I had heavy draperies, I could see the light around the edges. It had to be mid-morning by now.
And even though the queen had invaded my space within an hour of falling asleep, I hadn’t woken her up.
Why not?
The answer was pretty simple: because I didn’t want to.
She’d looked wrecked the day before. The failure of the wards had all but debilitated her.
I’d been surprised she’d taken it that hard.
It’s only the second ward failure she’s been in power for, and it’s an incredibly difficult thing to withstand.
The other Courts only managed to minimalize the loss when their barriers failed. As far as I had heard in the whispers of rumors, Queen Rime was the only one who managed to hold her barrier strong, and that’s because her siblings—the Winter monarchs in other North American regions—came and helped her.
Leila was trying—which is more than I expected after the rule of Queen Nyte.
