“Stark.” He looks my way, but neither of us slows down. “Set your anger aside, if you can. What do you think I should do here?”
Stark’s voice is full of thinly veiled tension when he responds. “I don’t trust their king at all. This could still be an elaborate trap. I don’t see how we could possibly take him at his word.”
We pass out of the city as we walk, into the wilderness, a rough and stony wasteland that separates Brightbane from the scorching desert beyond. The sun is starting to set, and the rays paint the landscape in reds and oranges and yellows. It looks like another world.
We skirt around a large rock outcropping, and I wind down to the left until it’s at our backs, shielding the city from view. I sink down to my haunches. Right here, all we can see is rock and scrub and the sun’s dying rays, no city spires in sight.
The city of Brightbane could almost be just a tale from a storybook. Almost.
I chew on my lip, thinking over Stark’s words. “I agree. But I’m trying to think it through. A trap? For what? It’s clear Lucien hates Alistair. Wants him dead, once and for all. We’re united in that goal, at least.”
Stark steps over to stand beside me and leans against the rocky surface at his back. “And after Alistair is dead? Once the entirety of the Astreonan forces are inside our land? What if his end goal is to take over Nocturna for himself? How will you possibly turn back his armies at that point?”
Fair enough. I gaze at the horizon, eyes unseeing. “Does he strike you as that ambitious, though?”
That surprises a laugh out of Stark. The sound warms me, even as anxiety still swirls in my gut.
“No, I suppose he doesn’t,” Stark concedes. “It seems like he barely even wants to be king of his own country.” He sighs. “Still, we don’t know him at all. We’re basing this on impressions from a single meeting. We don’t know the truth of his personality or his actual desires.”
I nod and look up at Stark where he looms above me. “You’re right. I think… I think we should hold him off, then. At least for a couple of days. Then I can spend some time getting to know him, find out his real intentions, before we commit to any course of action.”
Stark’s face darkens.
“What?” Why does he look like he’s about to kill something?
And why does that idea make heat instantly bloom between my legs?
Stark grunts. “The idea of you getting toknow him…”
For fuck’s sake. “Get real, Stark,” I snap, rising back up to face him directly. “I’ve made it perfectly clear how I feel aboutyou. You’re the one holding back. You have absolutely no right to be jealous of anyone, especially over something this absurd.”
Stark just looks at me, face impassive. Frustrating, stoic man. Suddenly, he’s the last person I want to be talking to.
“Fuck this,” I mutter. I brush off my clothes and turn to go. “Thanks for the counsel. I’ll see you later.”
I start to leave, but my progress is cut short by his hand encircling my wrist. Stark’s fingers close tight around my arm, and I’m pulled back into him.
I let out a small, surprised sound. His warmth on my skin is doing funny things to my heartbeat. I briefly collide with his chest as he yanks me back, and the places where we touch are searing, branded.
When I look up at his face, his eyes are dark, intense, aggrieved. My mouth goes dry.
“Meryn,” he starts, voice gravelly. “For a brief second tonight, I thought we’d lost you. I was worried that you were gone and that I didn’t have a chance to tell you—you are everything.”
My heart pounds, blood rushing through my veins. Heat gathers, low and dangerous in my belly.
“You’re tenacious and headstrong and so fucking powerful that even thinking about it gets me half hard.” His voice is husky, and his eyes pin me in place. I can’t look away. “And that yousharethat power? That you open yourself up to me and encourage me to use it with you?”
He swallows, and I’m drawn to the movement of his neck, so close to my lips. I want to lick the stubble showing there, trace his tattoos with my tongue. I clench my jaw and meet his eyes once more.
“I’ve never known someone like you, Meryn Sturmfrost. I spent so long hating you and resenting your existence—all the time I’ve fucking wasted being mean to you with the excuse of trying to make you stronger. And it never broke you down.”
At that, I can’t stay silent. “I’d never let you break me, Stark Therion.”
His low laugh goes straight to my center. “No. You wouldn’t, would you? You sank your sharp edges into me instead.Youbrokeme, princess—but in the best way. You’ve taken the vision I have of myself and destroyed it before my very eyes. If I’m a bad man—you make me want to do bad things for the right reasons. Youaremy right reason.”
His words stoke the heat inside me until I’m burning with it. I’d do anything, damn the world and everyone in it, just to get his mouth on mine.
There’s still a distance between us, though. I can almost taste it, the way he’s holding himself back, at a remove.
