The sunlight reflected off her hazel eyes, illuminating the greens, browns, and golds, dark lashes so long they brushed her cheeks when she blinked. So impossibly beautiful, so defiantly fierce, and though she hid her fear over what was to come, James could feel it in his own heart. “The Tempest Seas are at their worst this time of year,” he said softly. “No matter what schemes Alexandra and Katarina have concocted, there isn’t much they can do besides stop trade until the calm season comes. William won’t send Harendell’s navy into a typhoon, and Katarina knows all too well what happens to a fleet in Ithicana’s storms. There is time for you to get home and warn them.”
Ahnna’s throat moved as she swallowed, and James swore she leaned closer to him, her breath warm and sweet as she asked, “Where will you go once we reach the coast and I steal a boat?”
No part of him wanted to let her go when they reached the coast,and the thought of her sailing into the storms by herself on a tiny vessel with a broken arm made James feel unwell, but he wasn’t ready to open up that argument. “Cardiff. I’ll tell my uncle everything, and then go to speak with William in secret. My brother has his faults—no one knows that better than me—but when Will learns what Alexandra has done, he’ll want no part of this. She murdered our father and then tried to use his death to start a war. I’d not go so far as to say he’d turn on her, but he will stop her plots in their tracks.”
Ahnna tilted her head. “You think William will believe you?”
There’d been a time not that long ago when there would have been no doubt that his brother would side with him. They, along with Ginny, had been thick as thieves as children, always ready to defend each other to the end. But Lestara’s voice filled his head, whispering,He asked me more times than I could count whether Ahnna had put a spell on you. Wept when I told him she had not, because he so desperately wanted a reason why you’d choose her over him.James shoved away the voice. “He’ll listen. So will Virginia, and my sister loved our father a great deal. She won’t let her mother get away with murdering him.”
Ahnna gave a tight nod. “If Alexandra learns you are alive, she’ll try to kill you. She won’t risk you destroying her plans, and you no longer have the protection of your father. Harendell is no safer for you than it is for me.”
“I’m aware, but given I’m the only one who might be able to sway William away from his course, it seems worth the risk.”
She didn’t reply for a long moment, but then she said, “Does William know you are the rightful heir to the Twisted Throne?”
It was a fact that he kept forgetting. Or perhaps his mind just wanted nothing to do with it, so it kept pushing his legitimacy to the deepest corners, where it could be ignored. “Until the night of the ball, I didn’t even know myself that my father had married my mother.”
“But Alexandra knows the truth. Do you think she told William in order to turn him against you?”
James considered the question, as well as his brother’s character. “He’d take the knowledge poorly. It would rattle his confidence. And there is no need for it given that Katarina and Carlo were supposed to get rid of me. If Alexandra learns I am still alive…” He shrugged. “Who can say for certain what she’d say or do?”
“Would it turn William against you, if he knew?”
James rested his elbows on his knees, not wanting to dig too deeply because it would rip up old wounds, both his and William’s. “You saw the way my father treated him, Ahnna. I never asked for his favoritism and did my best to discourage it, but my father was the way he was. I had the skills he valued and I was the son of the woman he loved, and it always felt like he hated William for being the legitimate one. But for all his mockery and cruelty, Will was heir, and my brother clung to that fact like driftwood in the open sea. It made himmorethan me, which made all the rest tolerable. To have that taken away…” He sighed. “I don’t know how he’ll respond, but I do know he won’t take it in stride.”
Silence stretched between them, the only sound the rush of the river, but then Ahnna said, “Do you want to be king of Harendell?”
“No!” The word tore out of him, and James gave his head a sharp shake. “No, and I never have. That was my father’s dream, not mine, and I want no part of it. No part of rulinganynation, just so we are being clear.” He met her gaze. “When my father explained his vision of my future, it felt as though he didn’t even know me—or, perhaps more accurately, didn’t care what I wanted. It was all about putting my mother’s son on the throne. I think it has always been about her, because he could not let her go, no matter what it cost him.”
Ahnna sighed. “My parents were like that. The sort of love they write songs about, but in its own way, it was as harmful as hate because they didn’t care who they hurt if it was done for the other’s sake.”
“All I wanted was peace with Cardiff,” he said quietly. “And you. I wanted you. I still want you, Ahnna.”
Her gaze broke from his, her eyes fixed on his knees. “That’s not possible.”
“Why?” James knew he shouldn’t push this. For one, the Amaridians were on their heels and neither of them was paying an ounce of attention to their surroundings. Two, he had no right to her after everything he’d done. But he could not let her go. Could not give her up. “Because of circumstances? Or because you don’t want to be mine?”
Her breath caught, and he took hold of the sides of her face, her wet hair tangling in his fingers.
“You shouldn’t touch me,” she whispered. “I’m not yours to touch.”
“Then tell me to stop. Tell me that you’ll never be mine again.”
Ahnna made a soft noise of protest but didn’t answer. Didn’t pull out of his grip. James’s heart hammered in his chest, his pulse a loud roar, because there was only one power in this world that would keep him from making Ahnna his again, and that was Ahnna herself.
Reaching down, he retrieved a sword and pressed the pommel into her left hand. Then he angled the tip so that it dug into the muscle above his heart.
“James…”
He waited a breath for her to tell him to fuck off. For her to shove the sharpened blade deep for his audacity, but when Ahnna did neither, James lowered his head to kiss her. A soft brush of his lips against hers, but the feel of her turned his hardening cock rigid. “You are so beautiful. The most exquisite woman to walk this world.”
She shook her head slightly in protest, not of the kiss but of his words, and it drove James to madness that she’d deny such an obvious truth. Kissing her again, he trailed his tongue up the scar bisecting her face, the taste of her skin making his cock ache. She shuddered in his grip, his name a whisper on her lips.
He kissed her again, sliding his tongue into her mouth and tightening his grip on her hair. Her tongue stroked over his, and James fought the urge to knock the sword aside and pull her into his lap. The urge to strip her naked and bury himself inside her over and over until hisname was not a whisper but a scream of pleasure. Instead, he kissed her jaw, catching the lobe of her ear between his teeth and relishing her moan. “I love you.” The words escaped his lips, the truest thing he’d ever said, though he’d denied it for so long.
A sharp sting exploded across his chest, and Ahnna pulled away from him, dropping the sword with a clatter. “Stop. What I want, what you want…it doesn’t fucking matter, James. I’m going back to Ithicana and you know it will be war, one way or another. A war we stand on opposite sides of, because I don’t believe for a heartbeat that you’ll fight for Ithicana. You never have.”
Blood ran in rivulets down his torso, but James barely felt the sting of the shallow wound. “Ahnna—”
