Chapter 4 #2
His brows furrow as he asks, “Why wouldn’t you have had Ulric, Terro, and Greer teach you? You were doing well under their instruction.”
“I had other things I needed to look into.”
“What was more important than—”
“This is going to sting again,” I say, pouring more alcohol onto his injury.
“Shit, I feel like you’re enjoying this too much. I suppose this is payback.”
I grit my teeth and place a clean gauze into the wound.
It irks me that he thinks this pain could ever be retribution for what he did.
It’s miniscule compared to what I’ve endured, and I’d gladly trade it for what he is going through now.
I force my rage down and concentrate on wrapping his shoulder.
“This isn’t payback,” I say, securing the loose end of the bandage. “Only plunging a knife in your heart and twisting the blade could put us on even ground, Your Grace.”
“Raelle, I—”
“I spent the last seven months at the temple, researching the Sibyls’ tomes for a way to break the parah bond. That’s how badly I don’t want to be connected to you anymore, how much I don’t want to be here.”
He winces and reaches out for me, but I spring up from the mattress before he can touch me.
I gather the bloody tools and dump them into the basin along the wall.
The need to ignore him is so strong that I busy myself with scrubbing the tweezers clean until my fingers are raw.
A whole slew of painful tasks would be better than turning around and facing him again.
“The parah bond can’t be broken,” he gently says.
“No shit, Kyron,” I snap.
The room goes deathly silent, and I finish cleaning and putting everything back the way I found it. With no other choice, I turn around and lean against the counter. My ruined statement dress suddenly feels too revealing with its sheer panels. I cross my arms over my chest and avoid looking at him.
“Everything I did, I did it for you, Raelle.”
With a calm I don’t feel, I force my voice to remain monotone, and say, “Oh yeah, I can see where you thought gaining a crown and being anointed the ruler of the kingdom I stand against was for my benefit.” I glare at him, wishing I could plunge daggers in him with my stare.
“Thanks for that. It was super helpful.”
He moves to sit on the edge of the bed, placing his feet to the ground and running his palms over his face.
Seconds tick by in uncomfortable silence before he drops his hands between his knees and releases a long breath.
“No, all of that was the price I paid to ensure that you would walk away with the thing you wanted most.”
My cheeks burn and my legs shake as I push away from the counter and stalk toward him. I stop short of the bed and glare down at him. Through my gritted teeth I say, “Don’t you dare tell me that you did it for my father.”
“I did it for you, so you could take him home.”
“Fuck you, Kyron! We could have found another way, but you left me in the dark. In fact, you conveniently left me in the dark about a lot of things.”
He stands and towers over me. His jaw ticks as he runs his tongue over his teeth and his eyes blaze with fury. “If I thought for a second that we could walk in here and rescue him, we would have done it.”
I pull my shoulders back and lift my chin. “We knew it was going to be hard. I wasn’t delusional about that, but you started plotting with your mother a month before we attacked. You let her know my soldiers were coming.”
“Your soldiers? I believe I was their general.”
I scoff and shake my head. “You stopped being their general the minute you purposefully put their lives at risk.”
“I took the necessary steps to protect them. I put a clear contingency plan into play to minimize the loss.”
“And that was the only thing that went to plan that day! We were lucky that the casualties weren’t greater.”
“Because I outfitted them with armor to protect them,” he yells.
My body trembles and I clench my fists at my side. The anger brewing in me heats my face and I scream, “And what about me! How the fuck were you going to protect me? You left me to go down into the cells by myself.”
“My warriors were on orders not to hurt you, Raelle.”
“Your warriors? Your fucking warriors! You were either Lucent’s general or Stigian’s prince.
You can’t be both.” I turn around and move to grip my hair, only to find my crown in the way.
I rip it off and toss it onto the tabletop.
It slides across the surface and stops before it can tip to the ground.
I swallow down the lump in my throat and say, “They were told not to harm me because I’m your parah.
You knew what we were, and you said nothing to me.
Instead, you told your mother. The woman you claimed to despise. She knew before me.”
Kyron shoves one hand in his pocket and cradles the injured one to his chest. With an unnerving calm, he says, “It’s in her best interest to keep my parah safe. I used that to your advantage.”
“No, you used me to your advantage.”
“Stop being so damn stubborn, Raelle. Your father was shackled to my mother’s throne! What other choice did we have?”
“Did you discover that before or after she had a Cognus unbind your memories? I bet it felt good to get back at the men who stole years of your life, made sure you wouldn’t return to your mother, and hindered you from taking the crown you were born to wear.
And why not fuck over the person who would be their next queen and your new rival? What a golden bonus I must have been.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he says, throwing his good arm in the air. “Tell me how you were going to get past the warriors here! You couldn’t just walk in, unchain him, and walk out.”
“Obviously there are some holes in the security, or you wouldn’t be bleeding right now, and we wouldn’t be locked in here together!
So don’t tell me there was no other choice, Kyron!
Don’t justify what you did with a bond that meant nothing to you and would have meant everything to me if I knew about it. ”
“And don’t you tell me how I feel about our bond, or how I feel about you!
” He runs his hand over his face and clenches his eyes closed.
The seconds slowly tick by and when he looks at me again, calm has washed over him.
“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, including shackling myself to Stigian.
Believe me or not. I did it all for you. ”
“No,” I say, stumbling back until my ass hits the edge of the table. I won’t let this be his excuse. He can’t claim to have done this for me while, hurting me at the same time. The two can’t coexist. They can’t.
My voice is hoarse as I say, “Including hurting me, because you should know that you broke my heart and left me in shreds.”
“I’m sorry, Raelle. I’m so fucking sorry.
” He steps forward, closing the distance between us, and I grip the edge of the table, clawing for any spare inch I can to keep him away.
Despite the pain it must cause his injury, he takes my cheeks into his hands and brushes his thumbs along the trail of tears running down my face.
“Every day without you has been an infinite void, and the only thing that keeps me going is the unbearable pain that never eases. It’s all I have to remind me that you and I were real. ”
“We didn’t have to end up this way,” I whisper.
“But we did, and I wish I could spare you the hurt I’ve caused.”
It’s more than just pain. For months, I’ve felt the kind of emptiness that is impossible to fill.
But now with him so close and his power flowing between us, pulling us together, the hurt is soothed, and his presence fills the chasm his absence left in my heart.
I close my eyes and revel in the sensation.
My hands move of their own accord, and I brush my knuckles against his abdomen.
When my palms ache to touch him, I turn them and rest them to his chest, feeling the warmth he emanates.
With my eyes closed, I can push reality away and live in a realm where it’s only Kyron and me.
He isn’t the blood heir to both our kingdoms. My trust in him isn’t broken, and my heart is whole.
We’re not bound to duty and the lives of so many don’t rest in our hands.
Everything would be so much easier if I could exist in this fantasy.
I push up on my toes and stretch my neck to brush my lips to his.
They’re so soft and giving. He parts them, and I capture his bottom lip between mine and taste him with a stroke of my tongue.
Tilting my head back further, he pulls me closer.
I open to him and sink against his body, lost in the taste of cinnamon and the scent of pine.
Kyron lifts me to the tabletop, and my crown clanks to the floor.
Unable to stop myself, my fingers grip the silky black hair at the back of his neck.
His hand finds the slit at my thigh and slides up, bringing my leg around his waist and leaning me back on the table.
He leaves my lips and kisses my neck, peppering it with laps of his tongue and the scraping of his teeth.
I arch into him, feeling his hard cock pressed to the center of me.
“Oh, Statera help me,” I breathe as he rocks against me, sending jolts of desire humming through my entire body.
The way he makes me feel with the touch of his lips and the stroke of his hands is intoxicating.
I want him to subside the ache between my legs, to remind me how spectacular it felt to press my naked body to his.
I want to hear him moan my name and bury himself deep inside of me. I want to be one with my parah.
He lifts his mouth from my skin, and a rush of cool air washes over me. I open my eyes, searching for the reason he pulled away and meet his dark, passion-filled gaze.
His irises. Those black eyes with a touch of warm honey circling his pupil. I wish I could have seen what they looked like when they were all light brown, before he siphoned the gift of others… before he took my gift.
I fight past the emotion building inside me and run my fingers over his swollen lips.
“I missed you so much. It should have gotten easier the longer we were apart, but the anguish only grew stronger. But I’m learning to live with the hurt”—I push against his chest, forcing him to stand—“because in the world you built for us, we can’t be anything more than enemies.
” I sit up and brush my hands over my dirty gown.
“That’s bullshit and you know it, Raelle. We aren’t limited by the sins of two kingdoms.”
I once believed that. I thought I could have him and serve my people. It was as simple as choosing to make it work, but the treaties, oaths, and bonds prove otherwise.
“That would be true if your kingdom didn’t believe in holding Cyffreds against their will, mine wasn’t fighting to free them, and we weren’t chosen to be their next rulers.”
“I will not—”
The door across the room clicks. We whip around as it opens and reveals Micah, Esmeray, and my father.
I jump down from the table, snatch up my crown, and rush towards the exit, needing distance to get my head on straight.
Before I leave, I look at the iron and rubies in my hand and a thought occurs to me.
It’s something that Kyron should know now that he’ll be the next king of Stigian.
I turn, look him in the eyes, and say, “I wish you luck as you learn just how crushing, suffocating, and heavy a crown is, Your Grace.”
I rest my crown on my head and saunter out of the room, past those who started this war and therefore deemed me and Kyron enemies.