Chapter Two #3
The nausea hadn’t returned, and as long as she could keep ignoring the gentle sway of the room around them, she thought it might even have cleared entirely. But she was tired, so tired, like no length of sleep could ever clear the fog hanging over her senses. It wouldn’t, she knew.
Because it wasn’t just her body.
She wanted to tuck her battered heart in cotton wool. Wanted to lay her shattered soul down to rest. Wanted to dim the lights in her brain, and live in the dark and dim until the world made sense again.
Even if a part of her was sure it never would.
“I mean,” she hedged, watching his reflection. “I wish you hadn’t seen me in such a compromising position, but other than that …”
She grinned weakly into the mirror, and Kai laughed a little—just a short, surprised burst of breath, but the sound still broke some of the tension tightening not only her own chest, but the thick, salty air between them.
Adeline’s own smile grew. She felt it carve into her cheeks, warm and wide as she turned, and his hazel eyes finally caught on hers, bright with a familiar, playful light.
“Adeline, I’m the last person—”
But Kai’s eyes widened mid-sentence. He cut himself off, lips wrapping tight around whatever words he’d been about to say, eyes screwing up as he turned his face away to hide his very obvious wince.
Adeline took a step toward him, without meaning to.
“The last person to what?” she prompted, but a rap on the door cut over her words, both of them flinching at the sound.
“The baggage, Your Majesty,” came Simon’s voice from the corridor.
Adeline was the first to move, stepping out of sight so Kai could open the door to the footman.
With his back turned, she pressed her hands to her too-hot cheeks and counted her breaths; two long, reviving breaths in, two long, steadying breaths out.
Kai dragged her trunk inside, tucking it into a shadowed corner behind the door.
This time, when he turned to face her, his eyes did meet hers, despite her half-dressed state and the climbing tension in the space between them.
He was unreadable until he folded his arms behind him; that gesture she knew well enough.
This was the stoic face of the Merrow King, the man he’d been to the Council and Court—but never to her. Not even when he’d wanted to be.
The last person to what?
The last person I should feel embarrassed with?
The last person to see me in a truly compromising position?
Kai never finished the thought, and so the silence stretched until finally Adeline cleared her tight throat.
“I might sleep.”
Kai gave a vague, affirming hum, yet still stood in the small space between the bed and the door.
He was too big for this dim, damp little cabin.
His hair had grown out a little, messy and long enough that one sleep-mussed tuft of it almost grazed the ceiling.
When he came in, he’d had to turn sideways to get his shoulders through the door.
But more than all that, his overwhelming presence pressed itself into every crevice, solid and warm and calm.
Adeline ached. Everything ached, physical and not. She wanted nothing more than to drift off, surrounded by all of that comfort, Kai at her back or even just in her presence.
But she had no right to ask that of him.
“Kai,” she said gently.
His attention jerked to her once more, as though he, too, had been lost in thought.
“You should go and get some sleep, too.”
He frowned a little, and it occurred to her that he had been asleep just moments ago, until she’d yanked him from oblivion with her panicked retching. He was probably just as tired as she was, just as groggy. So she told him again, a little slower, “You don’t have to stay with me, I’ll be fine.”
She gestured to the rumpled bed.
“I’m going to go back to sleep.”
Understanding smoothed his dark brow, but Kai’s lips parted as though he might protest—and Adeline hated that she wanted to hear it.
He shut his mouth, and she told herself it was for the best.
“Of course,” he said, with a swift nod. A little half-bow of his head and shoulders. He stepped away with a backward stride, opened the door, but paused hesitantly. And without looking at her, he reached into the shadows behind her luggage, hefting something around it and through the open doorway.
Was that …?
“Goodnight, Adeline.”
Without another glance in her direction, he was gone. Adeline stared numbly at the shut door, candlelight and shadows playing over the planes and creases of the wood.
A trunk. He’d brought his trunk in here. Had he meant to stay with her?
Adeline crossed to the bed and sank down on trembling knees.
A mess, all of it. A mess she’d made.
He’d come to her with an offering of trust and truth, and she’d let her fear get the better of her.
She’d raged at him. Avoided him. Let him profess his love to her in a way that had been so earnest, so heartbreakingly Kai that she could barely stand to think of it.
She’d slept with him in the midst of all that bittersweet uncertainty, leaned on him through the loss of her mother, then refused him when he begged her to leave with him. No wonder he was confused.
No wonder he could barely look at her.