“Ed,” I mutter, choosing gentleness. “Storms pass. It’s okay to rest.”
I suppress another tremble when his free hand eases my mug from me. Porcelain clinks, meeting the counter. Before I can form any words, he grasps my shaking hands, and I feel the twin tremor inside him.
“I know, but—” he exhales, positioning himself directly between my knees. I feel the press of his hips against my thighs. “I need something steady when this happens. Something to anchor me, like Mum says.You’resteady, Chess.”
The compliment lands in the centre of my chest, the blade twisting painfully. Its hilt is made of precious diamonds, glittering with the sincerity of his words, but the steel cuts terribly. Something is bleeding, and I tell myself to ease him back, but I’m frozen solid.
“Tell me,” he pleads, pupils star-bright. The grip around my hands cinches, gentle and possessive all at once, and the intimacy feels dangerous now. “Tell me that the wind’s lying to me. Tell me that tomorrowwillbe brighter.”
This isn’t the boy who chased Percy and me through the corridors; this is a man staring at me as though I’m medicine. I page through all other instances when he’s been this restless, but there are no references to work from. No clear instruction on what to do next. He’s always been tactile; I know that, but never like this.
Never between my legs and watching me with restraint.
A throat clears from behind him. Everything snaps sharp. Eric fills the doorway, posture impeccably straight and shoulders squared. I never heard the door open; he might as well be a spectre moving through walls. His face is expressionless as always, but those eyes sizzle, fixated on Edmund and heavy with fury.
His gaze slides down to Edmund’s hands around mine, pausing dangerously on how he’s slotted between my legs. Red burns in my cheeks, and the back of my eyes begins to itch.
Edmund drops my hands and backtracks as though burnt. “Your Highness,” he clears his throat.
Eric ignores him and stays staring at me. He notes my relief, the rapid rise and fall of my chest, and the mortification seeding in me. His gaze softens a fraction, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “Cousin Edmund. Give us the room.”
Unlike last night, my cousin makes no move to heckle the prince. Between now and then, something has changed, and the stuttered beat of my heart tells me it’s this moment here. It makes my eyes sting and my throat tighten because Edmund knows Eric now has leverage. Knows that needling him wouldn’t bode well. Knows that this intimacy was wrong—and yet he did it anyway.
He did it anyway.
My cousinbows his head at me, spitting out a small, “Still on for reading, yeah?”
I nod before I can stop myself. Ghostly hands move me, warning against shattering him.‘Anchor’, he called me. I can’t let him sink. Can’t let go, not until I’ve got help from his father and sister.
And then he’s off, offering that too-deep bow again to Eric, who says nothing, just watches him leave. My heartbeat settles into something steadier when he shuts the kitchen door, and it strikes me as strange, this level of comfort in the presence of this man that’s practically a stranger yet somehow safer than Edmund.
His voice is dark. “You’re not on for reading.”
The command—because that’s what it is—is resolute, and I’m too unsettled to argue.
“Kairos leaves for the capital soon, and he’s specifically requested your company at the airfield. In the seventeen days he’s known you, you’ve managed to capture his heart in those muck-caked hands of yours.”
His words earn him the first genuine smile I’ve felt in hours. “Kairos is easy to like.”
“Unlike some people,” he murmurs, closing the distance between us in three strides. His attention narrows to the spot on my leg where Edmund’s hand once rested, and I adjust my robe self-consciously. “Are you alright?”
Defence of my cousin pauses on the tip of my tongue, but relief leaks from me in ways I can’t hide. And Eric notices every drip. His hand settles on the counter next to me, and air fills my greedy lungs.
“Fine,” I manage. “Edmund’s storms are just weather. He means no harm.”
“Weather,” he echoes, tasting the word as he studies my face, cataloguing every tremor. “The dossier calls it hypomanic surges. Restless, prone to intense moods. I researched your family before daring the maws of this castle. None of what I’ve read explains why he had ahandon yourthighand looked seconds away from testing the opening of your robe with his fucking mouth.”
The bluntness steals all breath from me, and I let out a horrified wheeze. “Eric—he’s mycousin.”
“Precisely my point,” he argues, hand slipping closer but never daring to cross that invisible boundary. “Which is why his proximity troubles me more than any stranger’s would.”
No, no.No, hehasto be wrong. Heiswrong. The insinuation aches, and I’m shaking my head, breath coming in too fast for my lungs to accommodate. They’re too big for my ribcage, pushing against the bones.
He’s my cousin.
Sound fades from the suddenly cavernous kitchen; everything is out of reach, and my ears are ringing. I grip the counter edge so tight that my knuckles burn.
Two fingers slip beneath my chin, and I’m met with a remorseful gaze. “Francesca,” he says, hand slipping to my nape. The skin there is hot,too hot; I can tell by the way his brows furrow. “Eyes on me. It’s just us here. Breathe with me, yeah?”
