Kai was dazed, caught off guard by the sudden, unyielding press of her tongue against his. There was an edge to the way her lips landed on his, almost a defiance.
Defiance against what?
Because Kai certainly wasn’t stopping her. There was only one other person who knew about whatever this was between them, only one person who had seemed eager to tear him to shreds after seeing them together.
The thought came to him half-formed, and evaporated again as Adeline’s teeth grazed his lower lip.
It was only when he found her skirts gathered in his fist at her hip that he caught himself, breaking their kiss with a sharp breath.
He couldn’t do this.
Not without understanding what it meant.
“Wait,” he managed to croak, and she froze against him. He opened his fist, dropping his hold on her skirt. “The Council meeting. I want – I want to understand what that was.”
Adeline seemed to deflate from the shoulders inward, but she nodded and leaned her forehead against his collarbone. For a moment, she was silent, though he could practically hear her mind ticking over the words. When she parted her lips, they spilled out in a slow, reluctant trickle.
“I’m sorry she ambushed you like that.”
Kai swallowed. “I’m… not unaccustomed to it.”
Adeline lifted her chin, and her usually warm brown eyes were dark and troubled.
“That’s the problem. You’re accustomed to it – I’m guessing that’s how our ancestors treated you. King Beira?”
Kai stiffened, but he couldn’t fight the harsh laughter that barked out of him. He didn’t acknowledge the truth of it, a truth beyond anything Adeline knew of her ancestors. She nodded to herself anyway.
“And that was hundreds of years ago. Shouldn’t we have grown in all that time? Shouldn’t we know better by now?”
Her eyes slid away from his, narrowed by the same pain that pinched each word from her hoarse throat. Kai’s chest contracted; he laid a gentle hand on her cheek and she covered it with her own, her eyes fluttering closed.
“I didn’t mean for you to end up comfortingme. I want to make things better foryou.”
“You already do.”
He said it without thinking, and when her eyes flew open, Kai’s stomach gave a quick, queasy lurch at his little revelation, at the low note of tenderness that had crept into his voice. Too much of himself, revealed too soon – but Adeline turned her face into his palm and kissed it, and he wondered if perhaps it had been the right thing to say, in that moment.
He cleared his throat quietly, grasping for something, anything to fill the gentle silence that echoed his too-soft words.
“WhydidMareda ambush me, as you put it? We’re hardly close acquaintances, but she’s been nothing but civil before this morning.”
Adeline had taken his hand from her face with both of hers, and now studied his scarred palm as though reading a map inked into his skin. She didn’t answer, and Kai’s stomach dropped in an entirely new way; several steps missed on a steep descent.
“It’s because she saw us together last night,” he said. The voice that came out of him was not his own; it was stoic, hard as steel. He could taste the bitter metal, and the words that followed were just as sharp edged.
“She disapproves. Of course she does –anotherPrincess of Eisalaan sullying herself with a creature of the lake.” He laughed, humourless and harsh enough to scratch his throat on the way out. What an utter fool he was. He’d feared history might repeat itself, and yet he’d gone ahead and carved its path. “Perhaps we’re lucky she didn’t go straight to the Queen. I knew – Iknew –I should never have put you in such a position and I did it anyway–”
“Kai!” Adeline’s eyes were round with shock. She gripped his collar, forcing his eyes to meet hers. “There is nothing we did last night orcould ever dothat would warrant Mareda’s behaviour this morning. You’re right that it’s because she saw us together, but –but,” she raised her voice desperately as he opened his mouth again. “It’s not what you think. She couldn’t care less where you came from orwhen, she’s just trying to discredit me.”
“Discredit you? Why?”
Adeline loosed a long, weary breath. Whatever it was, she plainly didn’t want to say the words aloud.
“She thinks I’ve been quietly campaigning for our mother’s crown.”
“But you haven’t,” he guessed. “Quietly or otherwise.”
“No, I haven’t. I much prefer a simple tiara myself.” She looked up at him beneath her brows, one of them cocked wryly. “Are you going to tell me Ishouldbe campaigning?”
