With one hand, I steadied myself on Charon’s back, while with my mouth, I bit the middle finger of my glove and tugged it free. “Charon is nervous about the other dragon. He needs to heal before we arrive.”
“I am not nervous,”Charon chuffed.
I rolled my eyes at his response. It served to distract me from Hart’s hand, which remained outstretched, waiting for my touch. We’d done this half a dozen times. Still, saliva coated my mouth. An excess swallow felt unnecessary, just likemy explanation, but I couldn’t help it when I was asking for Hart’s lust.
Reaching for his hand should be easy. Maybe that was why I hesitated. I knew otherwise. I knew how quickly that hand could move to violence to protect me and how capable it was of stoking my own lust as it mapped my body. I bit the inside of my lip in an attempt to erase what I thought I knew. Then I made the mistake of looking at him.
Fucking Chaos. My stoic, brooding guard taunted me with his every breath. Wisps of chocolate brown hair flicked with the wind around the hard lines of his face. Scruff covered his sun-kissed skin from our days of travel. His perfect posture sketched a portrait of determination, though what drove him now, I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Then the deep, forest green of his irises found mine, and I wanted to forget the wordCursed.
I wanted to forget the Cursed King. I wanted to forget the goddess-cursed game. And I wanted to forget the curse that now bound me to Hart.
The weakest part of me wanted to fall into his strong and steady arms. Let him help me forget the loss of my uncle, the separation from my parents, and the choices I’d made that had upturned my entire being, if only for a few stolen hours.
I blinked away the connection as something smoky coated my tongue.
No. Hart’s deception might have been the worst of all—the one I hadn’t seen coming.
I had thought Alaric missing. The prince had considered him dead. I had known King Rodric stole freedoms from his people as he took and manipulated their emotions. All that had been understood. Known.
I hadn’t expected Hart to be King Rodric’s son.
I hadn’t expected Hart to be the Cursed King—therunaway prince responsible for this entire mess. And I certainly hadn’t expected to learn this in the throne room when the Sibling Goddesses arrived to bicker over their game. A game in which my life was a playing piece.
Cursedmight be an understatement.
Hart’s nostrils flared. I still hadn’t taken his hand. His eyes met mine again, and that same insolent challenge from our first meeting remained. “The magic requires touch.”
“Want me to buck him off?”
The line of Hart’s lips flattened, and I assumed Charon spoke to him as well.
With a deep breath, I reached for Hart’s outstretched hand. I’d grown used to the way my hips rocked gently with every beat of Charon’s wings. The days of travel felt like a lifetime. No matter how much I wanted to turn away from Hart, to scoot forward on Charon’s back and put as much distance between us as our current transport would allow, I wouldn’t when Charon needed this.
“I’m aware. Just as I’m painfully aware that lust creates healing magic.”
His mouth tilted into a smirk. “And here I thought you’d forgotten.”
My hand inched toward his. “I’m only doing this for Charon.”
“Understood.” Hart’s brow raised in an unspoken provocation even as his response said otherwise.
A short, sharp shake of my head served to remind me I didn’t know this man. Any illusion of knowing him had shattered with the purple glow of the stolen adamas he’d wielded in the throne room. The man who’d been my partner in plots of treason and my confidant through uncertainty had disappeared. In fact, he might never have existed. Everything Hart did had only served to protect the source of his power: me.
“Your goddess saw fit that my magic can only come from you,” I said.
The slight curl to his lip that had formed with his taunt flattened as I named Themis his goddess.
While he was distracted, I clasped his hand. A tingling sensation danced across my skin where we touched. I’d hoped to catch him off guard. Hoped the lust wouldn’t flow so seamlessly between us. His smirk returned as not a moment of hesitation passed before magic flooded the connection. He hadn’t required any time to source lust.
Another surge of magic pulsed between us, and he answered my unasked question. “What can I say? You inspire me, Chaos.”
Once playful, forbidden, and secretly powerful, the name chipped at that box of unwanted feelings locked deep in my chest.
Hart held my gaze, and as much as I wanted to look away, I didn’t.
Did Hart ever think of the night in Forest’s Edge when I’d played at being a human seeking his Blessed touch? Or did he think of our night together?—
No. I was sure he didn’t think of me at all.
