“But what?”
“I called her Ember one night early on, and she basically banned me from her bed.”
“You’re kidding!”
He shook his head as a particularly nasty memory over Alura’s violent reaction went through him. She’d assaulted him like a pissed-off lorina, and left him with bleeding welts on his neck, arms, and chest. “She was convinced you and I were cheating to get back at her.” He slid his sleeve up so that she could see the four deep scars on his forearm. “That was from one of her more stellar tantrums. She’d scratch and bite every time I got near her. So I learned to stay away for fear she was going to cry rape or something worse.”
Ember flinched as she realized something worse had definitely happened. She’d accused him of murder and seen him innocently convicted of it. “Why didn’t you divorce her, then?”
“To what end? You were done with me. Last thing I wanted was to listen to my family tell me how disappointed they were that I couldn’t even manage to hold on to my pleb wife for more than a year. Quin was married almost fifteen years. Lil nine. And theirs had been political marriages, assigned to them by my father. They’d have barbecued me had I filed for divorce. Especially my mother. She was traditional Ikarian.”
“Meaning?”
“A Triosan religion where no one gets divorced. Ever. It’s why my uncle Aros never married. He wanted Cairie as his wife, and if he couldn’t have her, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life locked into a loveless marriage with someone else. He kept waiting for her to abdicate her throne and live with him.”
That made her feel terrible for both of them. “I am so glad I’m not royal.”
Bastien tsked at her. “Ah, baby, you’re wrong about that.”
“Why? Because I had your son?”
He shook his head. “You were always a monidara to me,” he said, using the Kirovarian term for empress.
Ember hated the effect those words had on her. The weepy feeling they awoke. She’d forgotten how sweet her irascible captain could be.
Just like his son.
“I hate you so much, Bastien.”
“Most people do… Andarions, too.”
Bastien quirked an eyebrow as she switched on autopilot and then turned around in the seat to squat on her knees, between his. “What are you doing?”
Ember pulled his helmet off, without answering. The expression on his face was comical. He looked as if he expected her to slap him.
Instead, she loosened his hair until it fell free from its restraint over his shoulders and she could run her fingers through it. A tiny smile played at the edges of those lush, masculine lips.
“You look so feral with this hair.”
“I am feral.”
“No.” She toyed with the soft strands, reveling in the way they slid across her palm. “You’re still that man who jumped into a hole to play hero. The lunatic who scaled a building without the proper gear because you thought I’d been captured.”
“Yeah, I should have got more intel before I jumped the gun on that one.”
It wouldn’t have mattered. Rash was his middle name. Carless.
Most of all, loving.
Ember traced his lips with her fingers as her memories ran loose. He’d been so scared for her. By the time she heard what had happened, he’d rescued six of their soldiers. “You did get an accommodation and medal out of it.”
She wrapped her legs around his waist.
He sucked his breath in sharply as the center of her body collided with his groin. “Don’t toy with me, Ember. This is cruel.”
“I’m not toying with you.” She slowly unfastened his flight suit. The new scars on his torso tugged at her heart. But nothing prepared her for the horrific Ravin brand that ran from the center of his chest to his pubic bone. That had to have been excruciating. She couldn’t imagine how much it must have burned.
And then they’d turned him loose with it, still raw and bleeding, to fight for his life.
