She couldn’t imagine anything worse. She could not be followed into her new marriage, into the country by… She couldn’t. The way that Andrei made her feel, the things that he aroused inside her…
Those were secrets that she kept locked down deep. For so many reasons they were impossible. They always had been. If her brother’d had any idea that she was lusting after the man sent to protect her, then he would no longer be her protector. He was like a brother to them, or rather he was supposed to be. The problem was, he had never quite felt that way to Emerald. At least not after she began to understand why men and women were different, and what made a man beautiful.
Andrei was beautiful.
He had black hair, deep olive skin and a perfectly sculpted face. The cheekbones and jawline of a model, but the ruthless intensity of a warrior. He was a puzzle. For no matter how long she knew him, she would never be able to get entirely down to the depths of him. He was a code that was impossible to crack. If somebody could have, it likely would’ve been her or Onyx. Given as long as they’d known him. But there were certain things he never spoke of, and emotions that he never showed.
He’d been sixteen, like Onyx, when the king and queen had died. Emerald had been twelve. She had been certain she’d seen tears glistening in his dark eyes that day, but he’d never spoken of it.
He’d never shown his emotion openly.
Even when he’d been a boy, lying in bed, just waking up to discover his parents were dead, his manner had been stoic. Grave.
It was his way.
But he hadn’t left her alone in her grief. He’d held her while she wept, maintaining his own solid strength while she dissolved. Onyx had been the king, and while he’d been there for her as much as he could be, he’d been consumed with managing a whole nation rocked by the death of its monarchs.
Only Andrei had been able to concern himself singularly with her.
Theirs was a bond that defied words. And beneath that bond were feelings in her that defied what was possible.
“Of course I will,” he said. “I will be a nonnegotiable addition to this envoy.”
“But you livehere,” she said, panic rising inside her. “You can’t uproot your entire life to follow me to another country.”
“My service to the Crown is my life, Princess. Whether that service takes place here or in Alabria is of no consequence. You are my mission.”
He was always doing things like that. Always undermining the emotional connection they felt they had with him. Always making it about duty and honor and his place. He wasn’t royal, that much was true, but he was their friend. To her, he was a great deal more, whether he would ever know that or not.
Whether he would ever admit it or not.
You are my mission.
If he were any other man, it would be easy to take that as a declaration of some kind. But Andrei just meant that literally. She was a mission. A task for him to see to.
And he was ruining this. She needed to be away from him. She needed an ocean between them, a potentially psychotic husband between them. She didn’t fear Lucian, because she’d gotten to the point where being near Andrei was the real source of her fear.
How long could she bend before she broke?
She was hoping to never test it.
“This is ridiculous. He’s not going to make a political alliance with us and thenkill me.”
“I will assess the situation,” Andrei said. “With your permission, Your Highness, I will send a missive to the Crown and let them know exactly what the princess will require as she evaluates whether or not she truly wishes to enter into this union.”
“I’ve already agreed,” Emerald said.
“And we shall add stipulations,” Onyx said.
She threw her hands into the air, rage, desperation and her own throbbing heart making her lose control. “God spare me the interference of relentless alpha males.”
She meant that in the most derogatory fashion possible.
Storming from the room didn’t really help her case. She was trying not to be childish. But she had brokered the deal herself. It was a triumph of international relations. She was throwing herself on this altar, a sacrifice for the greater good of the country.
Well. That was exactly what Onyx was objecting to. But he didn’t have the right. She wasn’t weak. She knew that her duty was to the country. She knew where they were having difficulty, and she knew where she could make things better. Easier. King Lucian was the most difficult ruler spread across all the islands in this little belt of countries and principalities. She could tame him, then she could help everyone.
She remembered her mother, so beautiful and serene. She truly believed that her parents had loved each other, but she also knew that her mother had left a small village on the farthest end of the island that previously hadn’t been joined together with the nation of Basilia. She had united the tribes there and the rest of the country. Had brought services to them. Had changed the lives of everyone for the better.
