Chapter twenty-seven
Evander
Three times now, Evander had left Valenna and, in doing so, he’d packed his heart away and left it behind.
Sitting by the campfire, waiting for sunrise, Evander looked up with foolish hope at every snapping twig or scuttling creature, half expecting her to come.
“You don’t want her to come,” he mumbled to himself. “That’s the whole point.”
But he did want her to come. No one relishes the thought of dying alone, even self-contained exiled princes.
His pragmatism was hanging by a thread. He knew if she followed him, he would not be able to resist his passion for her.
The sun touched the mountain where it rose out of the forest, a wall of gray rock that groaned like the mountain was turning over in its sleep. Evander built up the fire and let Hera wander off to find something to eat. His head hurt behind his eyes. Squinting, he scanned the sky for Raska; he hadn’t seen the bird since he left Torsten’s hut. He’d passed out of Bernice’s purview, but he didn’t feel safe.
Thinking of Raska put Evander on edge, and he started to his feet when he heard twigs cracking in the trees. Drawing his knife, he stood behind the fire, bracing for a fight. Expecting Bernice, or Raska, or some new foe.
A figure blundered into the clearing, and his heart lit up.
It was Valenna. She was breathless, her hair tangled with leaves, and an expression of grim determination on her face. She picked up a pinecone and hurled it at him. He ducked, and it sailed over his head.
“You almost convinced me, but it didn’t work!” Valenna shouted, marching toward him, her arms rigid at her sides, her hands balled into fists. “You always do this! You run away from everything!”
“I thought we agreed …”
“Because I went temporarily insane!”
“We agreed that we can’t be together,” he said, but already his arms ached to embrace her, his lips to claim hers. “Our parents tried to kill one another, our homelands are at war, and without my oath tattoo, my chances of getting the powder and surviving are dismal.”
“That’s enough!” Valenna cried. “I’m a grown woman, I’ve been to battle, and I’ll fall in love with whoever I want, and for some absurd reason, I want you.”
“Please.” His breath came rapid and heavy. She was so beautiful—there wasn’t an inch of her body or a corner of her mind he didn’t adore. His defenses crumbled brick by brick.
She continued, dangerously close to him now, just beyond her reach. “And I don’t care who your parents are, or where you were born, or whether you will drop dead tomorrow. There is no future for me but you. I love you, you infuriating man!”
He could feel the heat radiating from her. She was a fire-breathing dragon.He had to have her.
“If you love me,” she said, “then you have no right to turn me away. I won’t abandon you now. If we get three years, or three weeks, or three days, I’ll spend them with you, and that will be enough.”
Evander’s love and fear and guilt braided together. “Valenna, you are a stubborn woman who doesn’t know what’s good for you!”
“Yes, I am!” Valenna replied.
He crossed the space between them, closed his hand on the back of her neck, and pulled her toward him. She pressed her mouth to his, arched her chest against him. His fingers twined in her wild hair.
“I love you,” he said against her lips. “Oh, you mad, irritating, wonderful woman. I love you recklessly.”
“Never leave me again,” she replied.
“I never could,” he said. He trailed kisses down her neck, across her collarbone. She threw her head back, and before he realized what was happening, she was beneath him on the ground, and he was bending over her, her hands sliding under his shirt and touching his back, his chest. He wanted her like he wanted oxygen—more. All of her—every inch of her body under his hands.
But something nagged at him.
Not here. Not now.
She deserved better.
He broke away, panting. “This isn’t right.”
