Chapter 38
“Are you going to introduce us?” Aren asked.
He was handsome, with hair the color of a wheat field, his bun at once messy and flawless. Like Kye, he sported a leather vest, old and worn and battered, a sheen of sweat over his brow like morning dew.
Jaw hard, Kye eyed me with his back to them, his lips barely moving. “Yes.” He plastered a faux smile on his mouth and faced them, never relinquishing my hand. “This is Lady Maren. We met in Leihani.”
There was something accusatory in his voice that I chose to ignore. Yes, he’d told me to stay away from his brother. But I hadn’t actively gone looking for Prince Hadrian. And what was I supposed to do when the heir to the throne tells me to walk with him? Refuse?
Lesson learned. I’d never roam this part of the palace again.
Besides, what did he think I’d do? Kill Hadrian now, before it was time? Openly stab him in front of dozens of witnesses? I’d only signed the Mihauna-damned contract for my own freedom; I wasn’t about to murder a man I didn’t even want to murder and be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of my life, which would likely only last a few days before they took my head.
Obviously, he didn’t trust me to not perform the action he’d forced me to agree to before it was time. So much so, he apparently believed I was going to just stab Hadrian and get it over with, the bug-brained imbecile.
I still hadn’t untangled whatever feelings I’d grown for him while in Leihani, but whatever they were, I didn’t feel them now. I couldn’t believe I’d ever let myself begin to feel anything at all for him.
Yanking away from Kye, I finally freed myself. He shot me a look of warning, and it took everything in me to not glare back. We’d eventually have to attend balls and festivities together for public interest, but I wasn’t sure that was possible if we couldn’t control ourselves in front of his brother and his friend.
“Didn’t think Kye would ever find someone to tame him,” Aren said, his voice full of mirth.
Surprised, my eyes darted to him. “Kye?”
“Nikolaos,” Hadrian amended. “Kye is what I called him when he was born. It stuck within the family.”
I’d thought he’d made it up as an alias while on the island. “That’s adorable,” I said, forcing the sarcasm out of my voice as I stole a glance at my fiancé. He wasn’t paying attention. His gaze was fixed on the trainees he and Aren had left behind, now entrenched in bows and arrows, aiming for wooden targets across the field.
“Although, he is always looking for ways to disappoint his father,” Aren grinned as he ribbed his friend with an elbow. “But marrying a Leihaniian girl might be his boldest move.”
He was clearly teasing, and though the thought was offensive, I didn’t really care. They could have at me all they liked. I just wanted to leave.
“She’s a lady,” Kye reminded him. I stole a glance at him, surprised he’d defend me.
“Not a princess, though,” Aren snickered.
Kye rolled his eyes at his friend, who grinned at me.
I had the feeling I was missing something.
“She doesn’t know,” Hadrian observed, his ash-brown eyes watching me with interest.
Kye sucked his teeth and sighed. Hadrian and Aren snickered.
Mihaunaalive, my patience was wearing thin. I wasn’t interested in this game, and apparently neither was Kye, but I cocked my head anyway, playing the serious role of a new fiancée. “Know what?”
“A war’s been started because of you,” Aren said, wiggling his brows.
Kye’s jaw tensed, his fist clenching near his thigh. “It has not. Nothing’s been started, certainly not because of her.”
Well, this was going nowhere. Standing next to Kye made me want to vomit, and these other two idiots seemed intent on baiting a curiosity that was nonexistent. I sidestepped around Kye towards the door as Aren opened his fat mouth again.
“He was supposed to marry the princess of Illuskia.”
Damn me for a fool, my feet skidded to a stop as my gaze snapped up to meet Kye. “What?”
He gave a small shake of his head, not meeting my eyes. Meanwhile the dolts were holding in laughter. My mouth parted as it suddenly clicked. They were teasing him, though about what exactly, I couldn’t understand.
Annoyance twinged in my chest, and not on my own behalf. “I don’t see what’s funny.”
Kye’s eyes flicked warily to me.
“The princess of Illuskia isn’t easy to get along with,” Hadrian explained, a much more diplomatic answer than what Aren supplied.
“She’s a spoiled bitch.”
Kye glared at them both.
I glanced between the three of them, arms crossed. “What does that have to do with me starting a war?”
“Do you have somewhere you’re needed?” Kye asked politely, though he angled his head toward me finally, burning malice in his gaze.
“It doesn’t. Not directly,” Aren answered. “The conflict between Calder and Rivea over the mountain territories has gained traction, and Illuskia bartered soldiers in exchange for Kye’s hand in marriage to their princess.” His grin widened. “Come on, Kye. You couldn’t keep her locked away in secret forever. You have to let us meet her.”
Hadrian crossed his arms, mirroring me, his eyes crinkling as he finally took a long, considering look at us. Kye’s rigid form, his jaw tight and muscles flexed. The way I leaned away from him, never letting him stray into my periphery. I suddenly saw us through his calculating gaze, and warning bells went off in my head.
How obvious was it that we hated each other? That he would never have chosen me for marriage—not when a princess had been offered to him.
I hadn’t had time to fully comprehend Aren’s words, not with the thin panic leaking into my blood at the way Hadrian was now staring at us. Kye caught the question in Hadrian’s expression as well. He swiveled into me, slowly pressing his warm body into mine.
The scent of hard leather, sweat, mint, and rain enveloped me as he wrapped a toned arm around my back and pulled me in. A purple bruise was already swelling in the hollow of his cheek where Aren’s sword pommel had hit him, but all I saw was his eyes as they dropped in front of my own, smokey and twinkling. His free hand enclosed around my chin, and he tilted my jaw up to his, brushing the softest stroke of his lips against mine.
My heart seized.
The arms and legs attached to my body weren’t mine. All feeling in them vanished. I wobbled without them, my balance sent somewhere across the churning sea. I forgot how to stand. I forgot how to speak.
I forgot how to breathe.
“You don’t have to stay and listen to these two,” he purred, though the real message lay bare in his raging eyes.
Leave. Now.
His breath was warm and sweet across my mouth, and my pulse suddenly returned, throbbing in my lips with madness and curiosity and a brilliant, wild boldness I was certain I’d never had before.
Behind him, Aren snickered.
I was still staring wide-eyed at Kye when he spun me slowly, pushing me to the door. “Dinner tonight?” he asked, his hand sliding to the small of my back.
“I—yes.” Was this part of our act? I wasn’t sure. My brain had abandoned me in the compact dirt of the training yard, staying behind to chortle with Hadrian and Aren at how utterly foolish I was as my traitorous heart clung to his words in hope.
Stop it, Maren, you blithering idiot.
Kye’s hand landed on the door latch. “See you at sunset.” His brows tightened, and disappointment struck me where I stood. There was no dinner. There was no sunset.
“See you then,” I conceded.
He began to open the door, and only then did I remember the royal family etiquette Selena had been drilling into me these past few weeks. I was not to excuse myself from any member of the crown’s presence without bowing first.
Slipping out of Kye’s grasp, grabbing my skirt somewhere over my thighs, I began to curtsy as shouts came from across the training yard.
Whatever it was, it caught our attention, and the four of us swung our eyes to the source of the noise. Across the grounds, two men fought over a crossbow. One shook the other off, and as he regained his footing, the bow aimed errantly in our direction.
A hard click. The snap of cord. A whistling twang ripped the air. All too fast for me to grasp as a hand fisted into the fabric at my back, yanking me down. A shadow engulfed me, covering me with itself, crushing me between leather and wood. The back of my skull raked down the door as I landed hard on my tailbone, the man above me ducking into all the alcoves of my body. A knee on either side of my hips, an forearm crunched against my ear, a square jaw in the hollow side of my neck, dark gold hair flying across my eyes.
By the time I realized I should be shocked, it was over.
A dull thud hit the door, it’s impact reverberating against my shoulder blades.
Kye’s breath hitched. “Fuck.”
More shouting, running feet, muttered curses.
“Can you move, Your Highness?” asked an unfamiliar voice.
Kye hissed through his teeth. “’Rather not.”
A warm drop of liquid slipped onto my cheek, and I swiveled my head enough to see Kye’s hand above me, stuck fast in the door by an arrow through his muscled arm.
Directly where my heart had been the moment before.