Page 132 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

My gaze drifted deliberately across the riot of color crowding her chamber. I walked with my neck warmer to the breakfasting table. “Who sent the flowers?” I asked again.

Her mouth flattened into a stubborn line. She didn’t step back an inch when I moved closer, holding her ground like a soldier braced behind a shield.

“You can huff and puff all you want,” she said. “I’m not telling you.”

“Fine.” I folded my arms as Muffin jumped down to sniff the table where her food had been. “I’ll have the servants questioned.”

“That sounds like a wonderful use of their time.” Her eyes flashed. “Stop being so domineering. Can’t you see that that’s exactly why I’ve been upset with you?”

“It is my job to be domineering.”

Fuck. Why was I arguing? Why was I standing in a room full of another man’s flowers, making everything worse? “I’m just…curious.”

She stared at me, wholly unimpressed with my efforts to cover the dangerous edge of homicidal intent leaking into my eyes. I closed them immediately and turned my head away. Gods. I’d never felt jealousy like this before. My control had improved since Lunette arrived, but my magic still reacted like a restless beast whenever she was near.

“Your job, and your birthright,” she corrected. I caught her rolling her eyes just as I turned back around. “You weren’t like this before. I miss Rowan.”

The words went in like a blade between the ribs. Not because they were cruel, but because she was right. Rowan had been a lie in name only; in every other way, he might’ve been the truest version of me. That man had been lighter. Had an easier life. He hadn’t known what she was to him yet, so fear hadn’t made him stupid and possessive and here, filling her room with his obnoxious jealousy.

I drew a slow breath and forced it down into the quiet place where discipline lived. “I know,” I said. And meant it in ways I didn’t say aloud.

When my eyes found hers, the polished apology drilled into me since childhood rose automatically to my tongue. My deepest apologies, Lady Lunette. My temper was unseemly.

But that lacked what I wanted between us: sincerity.

“I’m sorry,” I said instead, and let it sound as ruined as it felt. “For coming into your room and getting angry about flowers I had no right to question. For behaving as though your attention was my territory alone and any man near it was a threat to my claim.”

Her eyes widened.

“I don't have a claim,” I gritted out. My hands curled at my sides, but I wrenched them open again.

She blinked. Then forced a shrug. “I already turned him down anyway,” she said with feigned casualness.

Hoping to save face, I cleared my throat. “I was here to tell you about Selmont and the mage hunter on the way.”

Her brow arched. “So you’re my courier now?” she asked. “Why the change after you’ve been ignoring me since I got here?”

“I haven’t been ignoring you, Luna.”

She tilted her head skeptically, whether at my use of her private name or my assertion, I wasn’t certain.

“I was told to give you space so you wouldn’t feel caged after I had you brought to the Tir,” I explained.

“Reina trying to help?” she asked.

I nodded.

Lunette pressed her lips together. I noticed, with no small amount of satisfaction, that she was trying very hard not to grin.

“So,” she said slowly, “is this your aunt deciding you’ve been a good enough boy to be let off your leash?”

I should’ve laughed or deflected. Instead, something in me—some exhausted, honest place I’d stopped guarding—answered her plainly. “I was falling apart without you.” I was tired of carefully managing every syllable. She deserved my truth.

The silence that followed was the loudest thing I’d heard in weeks.

Something vulnerable flickered in her eyes. Yet I couldn’t quite make out her expression, which seemed caught between a longing to believe me and an overwhelming terror that she already did. I recognized it because I wore it every time I thought about what she was to me and what I stood to lose.

Locking eyes with her, I refused to yield an inch. I’d chosen my final battleline. Honesty would be the hill I died on.