Chapter 50
Breathe. Focus.
Don’t fall asleep.
The door behind us snicked shut, and I stood alone with Kye in his rooms. I’d caught glimpses, but I’d never been inside before. Though twice the size, it was styled much like mine.
The fireplace comfortably crackled away, its thick mahogany mantle lined with books and mounted weapons. Lit candles lined both sides of the room, the servants had obviously readied the space for us.
Across the floor, loose rose petals were scattered weightlessly, their corners lifting in the warm draft from the fire. They curved in a clear-set path to the bedroom.
Kye scowled at them.
Through my dress, I casually grazed the knife anchored to my left thigh by a lace garter, reminding myself it was there as I walked the perimeter of Kye’s sitting room, gazing at its contents. I felt his eyes on me as I wandered, though I ignored him. We’d barely spoken since our vows—if you consider that speaking to each other. A circular target hung from the wall that faced my rooms, four arrows stuck fast in its wooden rings, six more in the wall itself.
At least he wasn’t a perfect shot.
Crossing my arms, I ignored the unfamiliar scrape of my new ring against my own skin. An odd little thing, I hadn’t yet had the proper chance to inspect it, and likely wouldn’t until tonight, if I even cared to.
I raised my brows at a pair of knitting needles impaled through a ball of yarn, a blanket half-finished on his couch.
Following my eyes, he grabbed the entire thing—needles, yarn, and blanket—shoving it in a drawer. “Helps me when I need to think,” he said.
A soldier’s uniform, pants folded over a hanger and completed with a jacket, sat on a hook in the wall, its breast covered with ribbons and sewn-in metal badges. Antlers over the open hallway, a map of Calder painted over a tapestry, a desk piled haphazardly with books on warfare and military strategy. I leaned over the open text with curiosity and paused as my eyes drifted half-way down the page.
A register of Leihani, dating back twenty-three years.
Maren, female. Born to Ano, father, and Alana, mother. The third day of Gemnaa.
The book snapped shut.
“Let’s get this over with.” Kye’s eyes burned.
I squared my shoulders, refusing to ask what exactly he considered this to mean. “Fine.”
Neither of us moved.
The air hummed between us, rich and alive and torrential. My mouth tasted dry, my legs unsteady. My breath came and went in short bursts, untamed even by the tight cage of my whalebone corset. His gaze dropped to my chest, bursting from its organza-lined prison with every gulp of air, and then darted back to me.
“Nervous?”
“No.”
Kye straightened, a smile curling the side of his mouth, raising the crescent shaped scar he’d acquired under the sun of the Juile Sea, his eyes leaching into mine with cold apathy. “Come on.” He turned, following the trail of petals.
Mihaunaabove, I needed to get it together before I lost it completely.
Hate, I reminded myself. Poisonous, soothing hate. I wasn’t here to play his games. I wouldn’t be fooled by him again. By his sparkling eyes or his garden-mint smell. I’d be damned before I let myself fall into his trap a second time.
Squeezing the knife through my dress, I followed.
More petals on the mattress, and my stomach performed an intricate flip. Kye shrugged off his jacket, laying it over a chest at the foot of his bed, and nodded to a chair set in the corner. “Sit.”
I stiffened.
Rope sat in front of the chair, innocently coiled and ready.
My gaze shot to meet his. “You must think I’m incredibly stupid.”
He smiled back. “Sit or I’ll make you sit.”
Sing. Sing to him now, and tell him to walk back to the reception and slice into his own throat.
The party was still rife and strong downstairs. Music floated in from the windows, the lilt of a thousand voices chatting and laughing seeping in through the glass pane. I don’t even think anyone would question seeing him do it. He was so grim and broody, and he seemed to strive for whatever task might undo his father’s carefully orchestrated plans.
A movement caught my attention—a shadow passing over a narrow hole in the stone wall. My breath hitched as I realized someone was watching us from the other side.
Kye grabbed a bow from his open chest, nocking an arrow in the same movement, the stretch and release of the bowstring zinging in my ears as a breath of wind tugged at my hair.
His arrow disappeared through the hole, and I listened to the heartbeat on the other side flee down the stairs.
“Who was it?” I asked, appalled by the existence of a hole built into his wall. “Was it Thaan?”
The Naiad had cornered me after the wedding. Lips a thin line, he’d cast his gaze pointedly to Kye, who stood behind me speaking to another guest, and said, “I hope you’ll act according to your promises tonight and do what is expected of you. I know it doesn’t come natural to those born feral on the islands, but try to behave more appropriately than something I would find in the kennels outside.”
I”d forced a smile. “I’ll do my best, but there”s only so much you can expect from an untrained dog,” I’d purred, as Kye turned to find us speaking to each other.
“Prince Nikolaos—” Thaan had started, but Kye snatched my hand with a growl, leading me away as Thaan struck out a hand, catching Kye on the arm. “I’ll find you in the morning, then, for our ride together to Winterlight.”
Kye swerved away, fingers digging into my palm. “Don’t talk to him,” Kye had ordered, ignoring the Naiad’s words and weaving me through a maze of party guests.
I waited until he’d successfully placed a healthy amount of distance between us and Thaan—Kye could part a crowd of people more skillfully than I could a bowl of water—and then wrenched myself from his grasp.
“Talk to whoever you want tonight,” he’d said in a harsh whisper, rounding on me. “But not him, and not my brother.” Then he’d disappeared for two hours, until someone banged their empty glass with a spoon, calling bedtime for the married couple, and a chorus of voices joined them.
The two of us alone in his room, Kye’s eyes flickered warily at me as he lifted a framed painting of a hunt, mounted men and their hounds chasing a wild boar into the underbrush of a thick forest, and thrust it down over the stone arch of the hole, covering it completely. “No, not Thaan. Just court perverts looking for a show. But we’re not obligated to give them anything. That necessity was abolished decades ago, thankfully. Besides, I’m not the heir. They don”t need proof that anything’s been…executed.”
He all but spat the last few words, and I lifted my chin, angling my ire for the twinge in his tone. “So, they’ll watch Hadrian’s wedding bed?”
Kye’s gaze darkened. He stalked toward me, his movements precise and menacingly slow. “Sit, Leihani.”
“No.”
He stepped in, his chest grazing mine. He towered over me, dark and powerful, his muscles verging on the promise of violence, and leaned in to whisper in my ear.
“Sit. Down.”
Warmth trickled down my spine. Goosebumps raised my flesh.
Sing. Sing sing sing—
I’m not sure why I didn’t.
Maybe it felt too easy, taking hold of his mind and snapping it like a twig between my fingers. Maybe I chased the challenge. I wanted to see how far this went on its own, without the impediment of my mental control over him.
And maybe, a tiny, tiny shred of me liked the electricity popping in the air around us, fizzling like static shock, crawling under my skin and setting my body ablaze.
His scent filled the room. Not only the familiar rain and mint, but the metallic, hot blur of an iron forge. Anger. And under it, a current soft and heady.
Arousal.
He stared into my eyes, jaw tight.
I stared back into his, fists clenched.
My heart hammered in my chest. My blood heated at the caustic energy emanating from his body. Something primal drew me close, and I pressed in, filling whatever space remained between us. The air around us burst—husky, tight, and eroded with the warmth of our combined breath, which staggered over our faces, hitting the walls and bouncing back like dark, humid clouds.
I suddenly craved the rest of him. His arms, hard and thick under the sleeves of his black shirt. His neck, warm and rough, inches from my nose. His hips thrust wildly against my own.
Mihaunaalive, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to want him. But I did, and he wanted me too. I was certain of it. His eyes gazed at me with unhinged disdain, but his body answered mine with another feeling altogether.
One of his hands grasped my shoulders, fingers curling into my skin, and I waited for him to force me into the chair and bind my limbs.