But it would be foolish for him to behave any other way than he was now. Silent. Waiting. Deadly, she knew.
With very little provocation he would and could leap across the throne room and tear out Lucian’s throat. That she knew for certain.
That was how she found herself bundled off to her room high up in a tower, with Andrei put in the one adjoining.
The temptation that she felt to open up the door between their rooms was real. But she knew that she couldn’t do that. She knew that it wouldn’t be met with welcome, not right now.
Because she was going to marry Lucian. She had made that decision, she had made that bargain, and for the good of her people, she couldn’t turn back.
No matter how much she wanted to.
Marriage had never been about her feelings.
And it couldn’t be now.
Chapter Seven
IT HAD BEENfour weeks since they had arrived in Alabria. Andrei hated everything about the place, and he hated the king most of all.
He was mercurial, ruthless and odd. He didn’t seem to respect anyone or anything but himself. Andrei also found it dishonoring of Emerald, in a strange way, that the man allowed them to stay in adjoining rooms. Not that either of them had used the door. He was standing in his control. He was here to protect her, to protect the Crown, the throne, and not to pleasure himself.
It was something that simply couldn’t be done, and yet she haunted him at night when he tried to sleep.
His every waking moment was taken with his desire for her.
And he did not know how he might combat it.
It didn’t matter. At this point, he wore it like a righteous mantle. Accepted it as part of who he was. The cost of protecting her.
He was being a martyr, and he knew it, but both he and Emerald occupied positions in life that demanded they martyr themselves.
What other choice was there?
Onyx was flying to Basilia with his wife, preparing for the marriage ceremony, and Andrei couldn’t say that he was looking forward to seeing his friend face-to-face. But this meeting between the kings would be very important, one last chance for all of the diplomacy to fall apart, he figured.
There would be a rousing party in celebration of the wedding, and Andrei couldn’t imagine what sort of party a king like Lucian might throw.
“Not a very fun one,” the housekeeper said to him when he’d asked. This was the benefit of the way that he moved between worlds.
He could get information that other people could not.
“In what way?” he asked.
“Lucian likes to display his wealth and power. He doesn’t especially like to share it.”
“I see. And are the rumors about him true? Has he murdered his other wives?”
“Oh,” the housekeeper said. “I think those rumors are greatly exaggerated.”
“Youthink?”
“Yes. Lucian is coldhearted, that much is true. He is ruthless, but I don’t believe that he’s a killer, because it simply wouldn’t benefit him. To kill someone implies passion. And I don’t believe that he’s ever felt passion for anyone, or anything but himself.”
“You don’t paint a kind picture of him.”
“He doesn’t paint a kind picture of himself. But then…” Her face softened. “I remember when he was a boy. Before there were troubles in the country. Before the attempted revolution. His own father was a monster, and then he was caught between a monster and a righteous horde bent on ridding this entire nation of a royal family that was corrupt. They tortured him.”
Andrei nodded, not shocked at all. These were things that he knew from reading about the country. “Yes. And does he see it as his sworn duty to torture everyone else around him?”
