Chapter Twelve #3
Addax and Essien rushed in as Claudius, pulling Gavinton and his colleagues with him, rushed out. The blow had stunned Maximilian, and Emmeline managed to strike him again before Addax pulled the shovel out of her hand.
“Tend to him,” he barked at Essien. “I will tend to the lady.”
With that, he pulled Emmeline out of the solar and rushed her to the steep mural stairs that led to the upper floors of the keep.
He wanted to get her away from Maximilian, who would have every right to beat her for doing what she did, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing Addax could do to stop him.
He’d already interfered in their marriage far too much, and he didn’t want to have to show his true loyalty if Maximilian pushed him into it, so the best thing to do was remove Emmeline.
He didn’t take her back to her bedchamber, however.
He knew Maximilian would go looking for her, and he didn’t want the man to find her, so he pulled her into the section of the keep that he’d been sleeping in.
His chamber was on the top floor, up two more flights of angled stone stairs.
When they reached it, he shoved her inside, pulling the door shut behind them and bolting it. Only then did he let her go.
Addax was more rattled than he’d realized.
He was standing about five feet away from Emmeline, looking her in the face and realizing Maximilian’s slap had cut her lip.
He could see blood on the corner of her mouth.
With a heavy sigh, he went to her and lifted a hand to her mouth to see how bad the wound was.
But Emmeline batted him away.
“Leave me alone,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth. “I’m well enough. He didn’t hurt me.”
Addax watched her back away from him. “You are bleeding,” he said.
She wiped the hand over her lips, looking at the faint smudges of blood on her skin.
“It does not matter,” she said. Then she lifted her eyes to him.
“I will not let him humiliate me and strike me, Addax. He has been doing it since the beginning of our marriage, and I made the decision a long time ago to treat him as he treats me.”
Addax knew that. He sighed heavily. “I do not like it any better than you do,” he said.
“But there will come a day when I am not around to protect you, Emmy. You know this. I cannot remain at Alston for the rest of my life. I was due back on the tournament circuit three months ago, but still, here I am.”
She lowered her bloodied fingers from her mouth. “I did not ask you to remain here,” she said. “Nothing is forcing you to remain. You can leave any time you wish.”
He snorted, without humor. “And wonder when Max will finally kill you?” he said, shaking his head. “Nay. I could not live with that on my conscience.”
Emmeline didn’t know what to say to that.
He’d hinted before at hidden feelings, but only once.
He had too much honor to do anything else.
But now, it seemed that he was hinting at it again.
As if he cared for her, personally. Why else would she weigh on his conscience?
Since nearly the day she’d met him, Addax had been on her side in anything to do with Maximilian. A man who was his friend.
Yet… Addax always sided with his friend’s wife.
But it was more than that. It was their conversations, the games they played, the way he behaved toward her.
Never anything inappropriate, but he was always friendly and kind and gentle.
There was warmth in his eyes when he looked at her.
How could a man show a woman such attention and not feel something for her?
Aye… she had indeed suspected all along that there was more to it.
Emmeline moved over toward the bed, sitting heavily, facing the lancet window as a cool breeze blew in.
It lifted her hair as she thought on Addax and the fact that he was due back on the tournament circuit.
But the Black Dragon had remained at an unimportant castle mediating the marriage of unimportant people. Perhaps it was fear, as he’d said.
Or perhaps it was something more he wasn’t willing to admit.
God knew, she longed to hear those words.
“So you remain because of me,” she said after a moment. “You remain because you are afraid that Maximilian will kill me.”
“Aye.”
“Is that all?”
“Is what all?”
“That you only remain because you fear for my safety?”
“What else could there be?”
“Because you love me?”
Even as it came out of her mouth, Emmeline regretted it. She had no idea why she said that, only that it came out before she could stop it. She longed to hear the words, but she didn’t want to force them out of him. Immediately remorseful, she bolted off the bed and looked at him, wide-eyed.
“Forgive me,” she whispered quickly. “I did not mean it. I should not have said that. I do not know why I did.”
He just looked at her. She could see his jaw working, those dark eyes glittering with unspoken words, unspoken thoughts. A thousand different emotions rippled across his face, but still, he didn’t say a word. He just looked at her. After a moment, he simply shook his head.
“I do not love you.”
Those five words made Emmeline suck in her breath as if he’d just done something horribly painful to her.
As if he’d shoved a dagger between her ribs, straight into her heart, because even now, that heart was broken into a thousand pieces of pain.
She was having trouble catching her breath, trying not to seem as if those five words had shattered every hope, every bit of light, she’d ever had.
I do not love you.
“Of course you do not,” she said, her voice trembling. “I do not know why I said it. We are friends, and your actions toward me have only, and always, been chivalrous. It was arrogant of me to even think it was anything else.”
Quickly, she moved toward the door. He was standing next to it, but she wouldn’t look at him. The moment she put her hand on the latch, he put his big hand on the door, preventing her from opening it. He was looking at the side of her head as she looked down at her hand on the latch.
But he wouldn’t let her open it.
“I do not love you,” he repeated in a husky whisper.
“A word has not yet been created in your language for what I feel for you. It is more than love. It is as ageless as the stars, as powerful as the heavens. In the language of my land, it is called zahid. It means worship, devotion, adoration, fondness, passion, and reverence. Love is a limited word, Emmy. What I feel for you is more than love.”
There. He’d said it. Addax couldn’t believe that he’d said it, but it had all come out so easily. Terrifyingly easy. He could see that she had begun to tremble, and as he watched, she closed her eyes and tears streamed down her cheeks.
A river of tears for a river of longing.
“That is everything I feel for you and more, also,” she murmured. “But I told you when I married Maximilian that I would not take a lover even if he did. He may be unfaithful to his vows, bodily, but I will not. I cannot.”
“Nor can I,” he muttered. “I will not cross that boundary. But I cannot help what I feel.”
“I cannot help what I feel either,” she said. “Surely… surely you have known this.”
“I have suspected.”
Emmeline took a step back, away from him, before turning her tear-stained face to his.
“I would give everything I owned if this child I bear was yours,” she whispered.
“I hate that it is not. I hate that I shall bear the child of a man I hate with all my soul. A man who has only shown me loathing and fear.”
“I know.”
“It is not fair.”
“Nay, it is not.”
She broke down into soft sobs, hanging her head, but Addax would not comfort her.
At least, not physically. He was afraid of what would happen if he put his arms around her, and terrified he wouldn’t be strong enough to let her go.
Her soft body against his was all he dreamed of these days.
Strange how a confession of love didn’t devastate him like he’d thought it would.
The fact that she felt the same way wasn’t a surprise, either. Somehow, he’d known.
“Will you do something for me?” he asked softly.
She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. “Anything.”
He pointed at the bed. “I want you to lie down and rest,” he said gently. “I will go and see how Max is faring and try to talk him out of any reprisals. You must know that it is becoming increasingly difficult for me not to punish him when he attacks you.”
She stopped weeping, her eyes widening. “You must not do anything,” she said.
“Addax, he would turn against you. He would turn your friends against you. He is a petty, devious man, and although I do not think you see those qualities in him, I do. You have achieved too much to let him ruin things for you. Please… you must never act against him, no matter what he does.”
Addax sighed heavily and averted his gaze. “I know.”
“Promise me.”
He tipped his head up, eyeing her. “I will,” he said. “But the longer I remain here, the more it is likely to happen.”
“Will you leave me, then?”
“I do not know,” he said honestly. “I could not leave, knowing how he is with you… and I could not leave you alone with him. I could not leave you in any case because of what I feel. I am in a difficult position.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
He shook his head. “I suppose there is nothing to be done, not now,” he said. “I must think on it, but until I can come up with a solution, I’m not going anywhere. Until then, just remember what I said… zahid.”
She wiped at her eyes. “Zahid,” she whispered in return.
He simply nodded, keeping his gaze averted, and Emmeline took a few steps toward him.
She was standing close to him, but he still wouldn’t look at her.
He was looking at the floor, the bed, the door—anything so he didn’t have to look her in the face.
As gentle as butterfly wings, she touched his face and kissed him on the right cheek.
“I am so very sorry,” she whispered. “But thank you.”
His hand, once on the door panel, drifted down until it came into contact with her arm.
Emmeline could feel it moving down her forearm, to her wrist, until he came to her hand.
Their flesh touching sent bolts of excitement through her, lightning strikes of pain that made her gasp and turn her head away from him.
But she didn’t pull away.
She stood there and took it, feeling the pain shoot up her arm, feeling her heart race and her stomach tremble.
He gripped her fingers tenderly, and she latched on to him, holding his hand tightly enough to break his bones.
Gently, ever so gently, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers.
She could feel the scratch of his beard and his hot breath against her flesh.
She gasped again, only louder.
It was a moan.
Emmeline turned in his direction as he still held her hand, putting her free hand on the back of his head, the tears rolling down her cheeks as she touched his beautiful black hair.
She ran her fingers through it, oh so softly, feeling the texture as his lips remained on her hand.
He just held it against his mouth, breathing on her, as she stroked his hair, and when she finally looked at his face, she could see that his eyes were tightly closed.
He had a look of such agony in his expression.
He was a man in torment.
Emmeline could see it. She hated that he was in such pain.
Gently, she tried to remove her hand from his, but he wouldn’t let go.
She finally had to yank it free and then put her hands on his broad shoulders to turn him for the door, because he seemed incapable of breaking out of whatever trance held him.
“Go,” she whispered, unbolting the door and pulling it open even as she tried to push him through. “I will stay here and rest. You must tend to Maximilian.”
Like a man waking from a deep and turbulent sleep, Addax drew in a long and unsteady breath before opening his eyes.
He was staring out into the corridor, feeling Emmeline’s hands on his shoulders as she tried to guide him out of the chamber.
He blinked, trying to orient himself, realizing that holding Emmeline’s hand had very nearly thrown him over the edge.
He had her hand and he wouldn’t let it go.
He didn’t know how he was supposed to function now, but he was going to have to try.
Try to act as if the woman he loved wasn’t married to another.
“Go,” Emmeline said again, giving him a little shove. “I will see you later.”
He nodded as he stepped, stiffly, out into the corridor. “I will return once I’ve seen Max.”
“Addax?”
“Aye?”
“Zahid, my darling.”
He couldn’t look at her. All he could feel was glory in his heart and a lump in his throat. Taking another deep breath, he turned his head, seeing her in his periphery over his right shoulder.
“Zahid,” he whispered.
And then he was gone.