“We didn’t almost have sex.”
I snorted. “You certainly weren’t stopping me.” Even though he’d been immune to my advances—a fact I shouldn’t have taken such offense to. Pride was no stranger to women.
“No one could ever make me break my oath of celibacy,” he said with finality. “Chosens are bound to that.”
Cobalt’s pace picked up as the quiet street we trotted down widened enough to fit the span of her wings. “Oh, really? Tonight, the king of Gemini planned to—” I cut myself off. The less I gave him to use against me, the better. “Do any of you face repercussions for your actions?”
“Obviously. Of all the twelve decrees of the Treaty, the oath of celibacy is the easiest to adhere to. The punishment is always death.”
“Easiest?” I scrunched my nose, unable to fathom a life without such intimacy. This man could undoubtedly lure many women—and men—into his bed if he wanted. Yet as he spoke, it became startlingly obvious that he had no appetite for such pleasures. It was both startling and intriguing. “Giving up sex is a horrible way to live. That’s an awful rule.”
“Spoken like a true apostate.”
“I’mnotan apostate,” I insisted. “I’ll explain it to your seer.”
“His Blood Sight won’t work on you if you are of Geminian descent.”
“I am. I was born on the first of June.”
What did he want me for?It could only be related to what I attempted earlier tonight. Anxiety rose within me at the thought of being charged with treason, tortured, and then executed.
I steered my mind away from spiraling. Without Basil, I couldn’t quell my panic. “What exactly defines your oath of celibacy?” I blurted. “Is it any unchaste touch?”
Cobalt’s hooves clacked steadily as he answered, “It means to renounce all others, in body and mind, for my Astral and queendom. Doing so is an honor.”
“You seem rather defensive about it.”
His body tensed. “What is with you and sex?”
“Isn’t what I did to you on that bed considered unchaste?” I wiggled in the saddle. “Isn’t the position we are in now considered unchaste?”
“You didn’tdoanything to me,” he snapped. “That was part of a mission the seer sanctioned me for. And so is this. Now be quiet.”
“Then what’s the difference?—”
“The difference,” he said, his thighs flexing in frustration, “is that there was no intent on my part behind it. There must be want and intention in the action.”
“It goes against our nature,” I continued. “Connection is innate to our existence. To deny such intimacy, physical or emotional, is cruel and isolating. It’s inhuman.”
“You don’t understand because you’re not a Chosen. And because you seem to know nothing about serving a higher purpose than oneself.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Oh, I think I know enough.”
Red clouded my vision. “Listen,whatever your name is. Just because you’re a Chosen doesn’t mean I am any lesser of a person than you. You may be taking me against my will, but you can gowalkyourself off a skyland for all I care. Try sleeping at night knowing I’ve never said that to anyone but you.”
“Lucky me, then.”
I had never hurled such cruel words before. Not when Mel and Kole’s mother had taken her own life that way. My blood boiled so hot, my entire being threatened to combust if I didn’t letsomethingout. Despite the guardian sounding unphased, regret lingered in my stomach.
He quietly maneuvered us down an obviously predetermined path, avoiding populated roads. We neared an abandoned shipping port no longer in use on the far edge of the skyland. Cobalt slowed to align herself with a clear expanse of land, nothing but the midnight sky beyond. She stomped her hooves, waiting for the guardian’s signal. He nudged her sides with his boots, sliding a hand around my waist. I didn’t have time to prepare for what came next.
“Stars above!” I exclaimed as Cobalt charged onward. Gravity pulled me into the guardian as the Pegasus leapt into the air—into nothing.
“Hang on,” the guardian commanded.
“I am!” I sucked in a breath as we became weightless. Flutters bloomed in my belly. I held on to the guardian’s thighs in spite of my contempt for him.
