Their companionship was still easy and comfortable, but also different. A new, tentative layer wrapped around them, something glittering with nervousness and uncertainty and a little twinge of fear.
Of course, she was scared. Actually, she wasterrified. Not because she thought he would hurt her.
Because she knew he wouldn’t. Only that inevitably, her brokenness would claw its way out, and she would be the one to hurthim.
She hadn’t cared after the incident with Nik. She’d only been desperate for safety, for security, for comfort. For all the things Sebastian could offer her, things that no one else could. But the more time that had passed, the more she was getting in her head about it.
Typical.
“Do you need something, Cee?”
Ciana jolted.
Sebastian hadn’t even looked up from the pages of his book, but the corners of his mouth were curled ever so slightly into a smile.
She crossed her arms, fidgeting with the lacy details in her dress. “No. I’m fine. Just bored.”
“I offered to bring you a book. You said no.”
“But books areboring.”
“You just haven’t found the right one.”
Ciana heaved a sigh, even as Sebastian’s low chuckle had her toes curling in her slippers.
He’d stayed with her again last night. Had hardly left her side since the night they’d kissed. They were orbiting each other, and yet he wasn’t getting any closer. Even when she’d fallen asleep, wrapped tightly in his arms, he hadn’t given her anything more beyond a chaste kiss on her forehead.
And that was fine. She was still terrified of all of this. She still wasn’t sure what she wanted.
Right?
Gods, her mind was a mess. Meanwhile, her body was quite literally on fire. A single moment more of this and she feared she would combust.
No. Wait. She was a grown-ass woman. She didn’t have to sit here, stewing in her thoughts and trauma and insecurities. She was confused, and she needed to deal with it.
Ciana unfolded her hands, clapping them on her legs. Sebastian lifted his gaze from his book, meeting hers with a lifted brow.
She blew out a deep breath. “I think we should talk about the other?—”
A knock cut her short.
Ciana snapped her gaze to the door, anxiousness striking like flint in her stomach. While she’d spent all this time with Sebastian, she hadn’t seen Niktael once. Not since she’d shoved out of his arms and fled the archives like one of Kol’smudaewas chasing her.
There was no way a man like that—a king accustomed to power—would ignore the kind of slight she’d given him. She’d been waiting for the formal summons—waiting to be told her access to the archives had been revoked. That she had officially failed her queen.
There was another knock, and shereallydidn’t want to get up to deal with how badly she’d fucked all this up.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to.
Sebastian was already standing, bookmarking his page and unfolding from the chair. He strode smoothly across the room, giving her a reassuring smile as he passed, something warm and knowing in the glint of his hazel eyes and the tilt of his lips.
The heat that crawled up her chest and into her face made his smile tip a little higher.
When Sebastian opened her door and saw who was waiting on the other side, that smile fell into a neutral frown. The flutter of anxiety lit again in Ciana’s stomach as she jumped to her feet.
She’d been expecting one of the palace guards. They were who usually brought her messages from the king.
What shehadn’tbeen expecting was the king himself.
