Those lovely brown eyes look up at me, her cheeks pinched in a smile. She’s ravishing when she’s smiling. Ravishing all the time, really.
“C-come in,” I stutter and shift to open the door and step back.
She sweeps into the room with a lethal elegance. I can only imagine how stunning she would be with a gown trailing after her. I’ve seen her in combat and in training. Striking and swiping, as skilled as the rest of my men. She moves with a keen hunger, a confident grace. Over the last year I’ve found it amusing to watch her take down soldier after soldier, their egos strangling them as they anticipated an easy win. Only to find their self-confidence entirely misguided.
Her back is to me as she stops at the bookshelf, gliding a fingertip absently across the tomes. I barely have enough focus to shut the door.
“I was told you wished to see me?” she asks, stopping with her fingertip still on the shelf. Reluctantly, she turns to me and drops her hand to her side.
“Yes.” I clear my throat and walk toward her. Three shelves to her left, I reach up to pluck out a dusty black book and hold it out to her. “I thought you…might want to have this.”
Her eyebrows pull together as she slowly stretches out her hand and takes the book. Cautiously, she brushes a hand over the cover, wiping off the dust. When she reads the title,The Mirror in Millton, she gasps andlooks up. Offering it back to me, she says, “Respectfully, I can’t take this, my king. There’s only one known copy of it.”
“It’s already yours.”
She shakes her head. “It’s far too generous of a gift.”
A small grin perks at the corner of my mouth. “You’d refuse a gift from your king?”
Her eyes narrow as she stands her ground, the book still suspended between us by her skilled fingers. “How did you know?”
I can’t stop the grin widening. “I overheard you speaking about it during dinner the other week with another guard. And I thought that…perhaps it could bring you comfort in your homesickness.”
Her calculating eyes flick from me down to the book. “Some might call that eavesdropping.”
I chuckle at her lack of fear in offending me in any way. “My apologies, then, I couldn’t help myself, knowing you might appreciate it more than I. As you can tell by the dust, it would likely be kept in much better condition in your hands.”
Blinking rapidly, she closes her mouth and begins to shake her head. The book is still held between us.
I take a step closer to her, nudging it in her hand back to her. The same book she had spoken of in hushed whispers. The myth hidden in Millton, that of a magical mirror no one has seen in ages. It makes sense her parents would have told her about it as a child. Though, how they’d know about it without having theonlycopy of the book is beyond me. As soon as I heard her speak of it, I knew without a doubt what I had to do.
“Open it.” I encourage.
Hanging on to my gaze for a long moment, she shifts her attention down to the book in her hands and opens it to the title page. Tucked away is a folded envelope. She takes it, flipping it over, and recognition falls over her face at the name stamped on the back.
Her eyes flick back up to me. “But…” She takes a deep, trembling breath, then shakes her head. “We aren’t allowed correspondence with our families.”
“As the King, I think I can bend the rules as I see fit.” And I can’t admit I’m afraid of losing her to the call of homesickness. I want her to be happy here. She’s by far my most skilled warrior, and I can only imagine all theother things we can accomplish with her in the Close Circle. “That, and your mother has been relentless in trying to get a letter to you.”
Perhaps her stubborn will is hereditary.
Her bottom lip begins to tremble before she bites it still. “I…I don’t know what to say?—”
“You don’t have to say anything at all, Marcella,” I whisper with a smile. I’ve never seen her in such a tender emotion. She’s always cold, professional, and deadly. Feeling as if it’s a disservice to admire her in such a state, I begin to turn back toward my chair.
She grabs my wrist, her touch turning me to stone. As I slowly shift my gaze back unto her, she surprises me completely. Enveloping me in a tight embrace, burying her face against my chest. “Thank you,” she whispers into my coat.
For a moment, I don’t breathe. Scared I might wake up from the dream this must surely be. As she comes to her senses, flinching at my rigid stance, I give in. Wrapping my arms hesitantly around her. Until I hold her like she’s something I never want to let go of.
“I understand what it’s like to miss a home and family,” I murmur with eyes closed, shaking my head into her hair. It’s a mistake being this close. Inhaling her scent.
I draw back away from her before the moment grows too intimate. Her smile widens, as does mine. When she leaves my office, I linger on the spot I saw her last. Staring there at the door for a long while.
For the first time in a long time, I keep replaying the memory of her arms wrapped around me. The warmth sparking like embers in my chest.
Before I let it grow into something more, I shut it out. And turn back to my work.
Forty-Two
