Fae Champion (Royals of Embermere #2)

25. A Knight, Not a Pawn

25. A KNIGHT, NOT A PAWN

Rush gave up on trying to speak with me halfway to my chambers, which now felt as dangerous as the rest of the palace grounds. Wherever I was, so long as the queen knew my location, I’d never be safe.

I couldn’t decide if Rush finally quieted thanks to my persistent silence, or because he didn’t want the king’s five guards to witness me shunning him. Either way, it didn’t much matter.

I had to give Rush credit for one thing: he’d never once pretended to be anything other than what he was: the queen’s knight. Not a pawn like so many others, but a key piece she commanded across the chessboard that was her court.

And it wasn’t as if I’d been na?ve enough to believe Rush and I could survive the many perils that faced us, happily fall in love along the way, and disappear into the sunset together, putting the palace and all its awfulness far behind us .

But I hadn’t not believed something pleasant could come of all this for both of us either. I’d seen good in him, even when he continually insisted I shouldn’t trust him, when he proved the veracity of his warning time and again.

Whatever his secrets, whatever leverage the queen had on him to ensure his constant cooperation, he could have shared them with me. Knowing that I’d only want to help, he could have let me in—at least a little. By dragonfire, I’d let him inside my freaking body , and that was as trusting and inviting as a person could get. And though I wouldn’t admit it to him or anyone else, I suspected I’d let him into my heart too.

“You five,” Rush growled at the guards trailing us, not even turning to face them, “stay out here.”

I stalked through the door that opened into my chambers, and a few seconds later Rush slammed it shut, trying to exclude witnesses to this discussion when there was no such thing as true privacy at the palace—possibly in all of Embermere. None of the dismembered body parts had trailed us here, though it would only be a matter of time.

I shuddered at the memory of Sandor’s bloody, spying eyeball, which had been attached to his living, breathing, body less than twenty-four hours before. The queen’s cruelty apparently knew no end.

“El,” Rush called from behind me in a soothing, slightly pleading tone. “You know I didn’t mean to. That I’d never, ever, ever want to do anything to hurt you. ”

At the threshold from the antechamber into my sleeping chamber, I hesitated, denying the impulse to check the slashes that cut into my neck, shoulder, and arm.

But Rush’s attention seemed to settle on them anyway. Although I didn’t turn toward him, his regretful stare heated the gaping cuts, making them throb more than before.

“The queen…” Rush began then trailed off, probably wondering if he could speak his mind or if whatever he said would get back to the woman who held a chokehold on his lead.

He stepped closer, so that when he inhaled deeply and then out, his breath ruffled the few loose strands that had escaped my pinned-up hair. “I…” Another inhale, another exhale. “My will isn’t wholly my own,” he said finally, “you must know that by now.”

I expected to feel sad about it, but I hardly felt anything at all. “I do.”

He deliberated whether to touch me or not so intently that I sensed his wavering long before his broad hand slid across my waist, down around my hip, to settle there. Numb, I stared down at his hand.

His fingers were rough and callused from training. The back of his hand was flecked with blood, probably mine, next to where his tan skin contrasted sharply with the dark hue of his fighting leathers. The swirling vines of his light tattoo shone.

He dipped his head toward mine, his lips a rumble against the shell of my ear. “I’m so, so, so very sorry I hurt you. Sorrier than you’ll probably ever know. Will you please let me tend to your wounds?”

At the unwelcome reminder that he’d been the one to slice at my flesh—no matter who’d given the order—I tensed.

“No, El, please, no. It … it wasn’t me.”

My smile was sad, regretful, and only for me as I gazed into the bedroom that had been as close to a sanctuary as I’d get in this hellhole of a kingdom.

Softly, I whispered, “But it was.”

I stepped out of his hold, his hand dragging along my body to hang limply next to his own. “I need some time.”

He seemed ready to follow me.

“Alone,” I added.

“But, El … Elowyn…”

“I just need some time, Rush.” My voice was as weary as I was. “To heal, to recover, before I have to compete in the Nuptialis Probatio.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said right away.

“Yeah, no shit I shouldn’t have to. But that doesn’t change a thing, now does it?”

Wisely, he didn’t answer.

“I’ll see you later,” I said. “You should go celebrate your victory. Given the partying of last night, I’m sure the arena’ll still be hopping by the time you get back to it.”

“I don’t want to celebrate. I want to be with you.”

I leaned my forehead against the threshold between our sleeping areas, the slight movement pulling on the cut across my throat that had only just stopped weeping. Warmth slunk along my neck, slowly enough to tickle, suggesting a trickle of blood.

“You’re hurt. Please let me take care of you,” Rush insisted.

Yeah, and you’re the one who hurt me , I thought before I could stop myself.

I’d wrestled with the queen’s command over me as much as Rush must have. I fully understood how, until very recently, it had seemed impossible to resist her control.

And yet … I couldn’t seem to separate the man from his actions, not entirely, not in my heart where it mattered most.

“Just … time, Rush. Give me time. I’m sure Pru’ll show up soon and she can help me.” I suspected the slice across my arm, at least, would require suturing.

“Okay, yeah, all right,” he mumbled, sounding like it was anything but.

My hand on the doorknob, ready to close it behind me, he blurted, “I-I … fuck, I love you. And I really hope the queen isn’t listening to me right now, because if she is…”

Shock rolled through me, from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes. Warmth looped in my gut like an errant firework, zooming every which way in celebration, igniting the heat of the power that already simmered there and had only just begun to calm.

But when I spoke, my tone didn’t betray what I was feeling inside—the confused elation, the tentative hope, all intermingled with despair and devastation. He was right about one thing: if the queen’s ears had been present, she would have used Rush’s declaration to further torment us both.

“You can’t love me. You don’t. You maybe just think you do.”

Rush breathed heavily, as if a fire raged within him too. “Don’t tell me I don’t love you. I know what I feel.”

My shoulders fell, and this time I turned to offer him the regret laced with my small smile. “You barely know me. You can’t love me. It’s not how it works.”

“Oh? And you know exactly how love works?” he snapped. “How I work?”

“I know how you work enough to realize I’ll never be safe with you. So even if you really believe you love me … nothing else has changed. We still could never be together. The queen tried to kill me just, like, an hour ago. It’s like she tries every single damn day lately. How many more times do you think she’ll try? And how long before she succeeds?”

He closed the distance between us. “I won’t let that happen. I won’t .”

I sighed and took in the thrashing storm swirling in his eyes, the renewed blazing of the tattoos that wove across his neck. “I see you want that to be true, but, Rush, you know it isn’t. You’re literally the reason I’m bleeding right now.”

His breathing came so intensely that his nostrils flared. Finally, he pressed his chest to mine, his forehead to my own. Tenderly, his fingertips fluttered up and down the leathers that covered my arm, ever so careful not to aggravate my cuts.

“This can’t be like this. I have to be able to keep you safe. I have to . I fucking have to.”

The agony that twisted through his words had my hands lifting to his back before I’d decided I wanted to comfort him. I laughed bitterly. “Trust me, I wish you weren’t my number one enemy too.”

He tensed all over. “I’m not your enemy. I’m just…”

“Made to behave like one…?” I offered.

He growled as if trying to keep a beast inside him from emerging. “I’m gonna change this. I’m gonna fix it.”

“How?” Our lips were close enough that all we’d have to do to kiss was shift a couple of inches.

“I don’t know yet, but I will find a way.”

“Well, good luck with that.”

He yanked his forehead from mine. “You don’t believe me?”

“It’s not that. I want to believe you. Really, I do. I just…”

“Don’t believe I can do it.” It wasn’t a question.

I shrugged. “I mean…”

His hands dropped from where they’d trailed his tender touch. Stormy, moonlit eyes seared into mine. “So you don’t believe I can change things, find a way to make you safe with me? That it’s important enough for me to try, to fight for you … for us. And you don’t believe … I love you?”

I stared back at him.

When his chest only heaved, I added, “Seriously, Rush, how could you love me? We’ve only known each other for a few weeks. You don’t know what I’m like inside.”

I hadn’t meant to imply the sexual context that I suspected was the cause of his eyes flaring. I snorted because he didn’t know my fears, my desperation, how I wanted to run and not look back, how easy it would be to leave behind all the people and creatures the queen had threatened and just save myself. How tempted I was by that, and how very determined I was not to be.

“I know you more than you think I do,” Rush grunted.

I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

“No, no maybe s. I’m telling you.”

“Look, Rush, no offense, but?—”

“How can I not take offense when I tell you I love you and all you say back is that I must be mistaken? Like you know how I feel better than I do?”

Slowly, I blinked at him before blowing some of the wispy loose strands of hair from my face, where they tickled. “Even if you do … love me … it doesn’t change anything, not really.”

“Of course it does,” he snapped. “It changes everything. Especially since…”

When he didn’t finish, “Especially since what?”

“Since … you know.”

I almost growled at him, remembering at the last instant that he was here professing his love for me, and that it wasn’t really his fault that I’d nearly died more times than I cared to keep track of over the last several weeks, and that I was still the evil bitch’s prisoner, with no easy end in sight.

After a steadying inhale: “Rush, I clearly don’t know whatever it is you think I do. So spare me right now, please , because I’m majorly on edge here. Just speak plainly and be done with it.”

“Be done with it?” he echoed, disappointment riding every syllable. “I’ve waited eighty fucking years to tell a woman that I love her, and when I finally do, she won’t even believe me. She’s a second away from slamming the door in my face.”

“I was not,” I protested, even though I very much had been.

He snorted. “What there is between us doesn’t just come along every damned day. You know that, right?” His tattoos beneath his leathers must have brightened substantially; a faint glow seeped out from beneath his neckline, around the cuffs of his sleeves. “Our connection, our bond ?—”

“Will have to wait,” Pru said from the far end of my bedchamber.

I turned to face her as she padded from next to the armoire to stand behind me, peering up at us both.

“The queen has sent word. She’ll be leaving the festivities early to award you both your trophies.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, I’ll just bet that’s what she wants with us.”

In silent agreement, Rush moved closer, a hand possessively to my lower back.

Pru’s attention trailed over where he touched me but didn’t linger. “The queen’s none too happy that you two left before she gave her permission.”

“Well, she can suck it,” I snarled. “She can take her petty commands and shove them so far up her ass she’ll never find them again.”

Pru and Rush, neither of whom could detect the queen’s bloody little spies like I could, instantly scanned the room for signs we were being overheard.

“There’s nothing here now,” I said. “She’s not listening.”

Rush shifted on his feet. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

I shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

He frowned.

“You have to meet the queen in the throne room in an hour,” Pru continued.

“The throne room?” My brows rose. “I’ve never been to the throne room. Why there?”

“Whatever her reasons, I doubt they’re good,” Rush said, though that much was surely obvious.

“We have to hurry and get you cleaned up, Mistress,” Pru said, “and your wounds treated.”

“I’d like to do that,” Rush said, no longer insistent.

Pru looked to me and waited.

His smile was already full of lament when I said, “I’d rather Pru do it. I need to … process … for a bit.”

“But I’m your…” Rush said. “We’re… ”

I sighed again, sounding as exhausted as I felt, entirely worn down by the bitch with the crown who snapped her fingers and expected us all to do her bidding.

“We’re what?” I eventually asked.

Rush stared at me for so long that I understood he wanted to tell me so many things.

“It’s okay,” I offered before he could answer. “We’ll have time to talk later.”

The rugged, beautifully masculine planes of his face rose hopefully. “We will?”

“Sure, yeah, of course. I’ll get cleaned up and Pru’ll patch me up, we meet with the queen, and then you and I can talk. And by then, I’ll be in a space to be more … receptive.”

His smile was disarming and entirely unexpected. It lit up his face and his eyes until I couldn’t help but reflect back his inner joy.

How he could be so hopeful after all we’d been through, when the queen remained our tormentor, I had no idea, but he was. And I couldn’t help but be drawn to him—to want to touch him, to be as close as we could be—to feel him inside me again, even.

His stare heated in response to the thoughts probably broadcast in mine.

“I can wash you while we talk,” he said, a gritty purr that made my insides clench with sudden hunger. “My touch will be comforting, I promise.” His fingers caressed mine, a light, tantalizing invitation.

“The Lady Elowyn is hurt, Drake Rush Vega,” Pru interjected, when I was certain it wasn’t her place as my goblin attendant. “She needs time to recover before facing Her Majesty again.”

No, it wasn’t her place as a servant—but it was as a friend .

My body resisted my efforts to pull away from Rush as if he were a healing elixir I didn’t just want—I needed.

My heated gaze on him, his eyes promising every delight I’d ever fantasized about, I allowed Pru to lead me away toward the bathtub and its soothing hot water.

“Come, Mistress,” she said. “Take the time you need to think. You’ve earned it.”

Blankly, I nodded at her and at Rush’s silent promise. Whatever his whirling moonlight eyes were trying to communicate, it was so intense that it was a true effort to get my feet to move in the right direction.

Rush can’t truly love me … can he?