Chapter 39
Gwen
I lowered the bow as I inspected the target in the distance.
Considering how long it had been since I’d had proper practice, I expected my aim to be worse. The arrow impaled the target on the edge of the centre dot. I contemplated pulling every arrow out and starting again but my arms ached.
Based on the way the light had changed, I had to have been out there for hours already. My face felt numb, and I could hardly feel my fingers anymore.
I begrudgingly stalked over to the target and started removing the arrows, one by one, before placing them in my quiver.
My footsteps echoed over the quiet gardens when I walked up the stone steps. I entered the palace with the sole intent of going to my rooms and taking a long, hot bath. I requested dinner in my room as well, like I’d been having every evening for the past few days.
I wasn’t sure if anyone took their dinners together in the dining hall. I suspected, at the very least, some of the soldiers might, now that the palace was being turned into a fortress. But I didn’t quite feel like facing everyone just yet.
There were soldiers everywhere on the lower floors.
It was strange to see the palace in such a state.
Everyone felt on edge. I was grateful for the more silent hallways as I reached the upper floors, where the royal family’s rooms and guest chambers were.
Thankfully, I got to keep my old room with all my things.
It was as if my bedroom was the only thing that hadn’t changed in all the time that had passed.
A bedroom door opened to my right, and I nearly jumped at the sudden sound.
Lance looked a little surprised to see me. We hadn’t spoken much since arriving at the palace, mostly because I’d been trying my best to avoid people altogether. And because I wasn’t entirely sure where I stood with Lance yet — nor did I have the mental capacity for such a conversation.
“Gwen.” His eyes travelled to the bow and quiver in my hands. “I see you’ve been out?”
“I just needed to get my mind off . . . everything, I guess.”
He leaned against his doorframe, wearing a black shirt and matching black trousers, his hair neatly combed.
“Have you talked to Cai again recently?”
I nodded silently.
“Are you still angry with him?” Lance asked carefully. I could tell by his expression that he wasn’t trying to stir anything up but that he was honestly wondering.
“No,” I said at first, and then, “I mean, I don’t think so. What Thatcher did was unforgiveable.” Still, he was my brother.
“I still think you’re allowed to be sad about it.”
“Am I?” I clenched my teeth, not particularly wanting to feel vulnerable in front of him right now. Not him. Not anyone. I didn’t like people seeing me cry.
“You watched me sob my eyes out when Eloisa passed away,” Lance reminded me.
“But that was different. She didn’t stab your whole family in the back.” Mourning him made me feel like I was a traitor myself. And yet . . . there was so much pain inside my chest that sometimes it was hard to breathe.
“He was still your brother, Gwen. And you loved him.” Lance stepped away from the threshold, approaching me. “And despite what he did, you’re allowed to grieve for him.”
“Maybe.” I didn’t have the energy to try to disagree.
“Is that why you’ve been hiding out in your rooms these last few days?”
I nodded slowly. “Why, did you think I was avoiding you again?”
The corner of Lance’s mouth turned up slightly. “Maybe a little.”
“Don’t worry. You haven’t done anything to anger me. At least not that I know of.”
Lance’s expression was playful, but concern lingered behind it.
“I’m not sure I know how to grieve for him,” I admitted.
“I would suggest you do it my way, but I don’t think you’ll like it.” It didn’t take much to understand his meaning.
“I don’t think getting drunk is going to make me feel better.”
“That just means you haven’t had enough,” Lance replied, somewhat convincingly.
It made me laugh despite the fact that I wanted to break down.
He took another step towards me and placed his hands on my upper arms. “I think you need to allow yourself to be sad and to be angry. At him and at everyone. You need to allow yourself to sit in that pain so that it doesn’t consume you.”
I didn’t know if Lance was talking from experience. He’d suffered more loss than most people I knew.
Tears began to fill my eyes and, without meaning to, I started to spill all the thoughts that had been running through my mind the past couple of days.
“My brother is dead. I don’t know if I’ll ever see my family again. My kingdom is in turmoil and I just . . .” I sucked in a breath. “I feel so alone.”
Lance’s icy-blue eyes gazed into mine. “You’re right,” he breathed out, like he was trying to get a grip on himself. “Things are less than ideal for you right now and it feels like the whole world is going to hell. But you’re wrong about one thing.”
He leaned down a little. I’d never seen Lance look so serious before.
“You are not alone.”
Without thinking, I closed the distance between us. I had no idea why I did it. Maybe I wanted to distract myself. Maybe I wanted some form of comfort. Maybe I just needed him in ways I wasn’t ready to admit.
Lance didn’t hesitate. He grabbed my waist, and I immediately dropped the bow and arrows onto the ground with a thump.
His lips moved reverently against mine but there was a hunger behind his kisses, as if he’d been holding himself back.
I held on to him, my fingers digging into his shirt.
I ached for some form of touch or comfort.
I ached to be closer. To have more of him.
Lance started walking us backwards until my back pressed against the wall. My face had been red from the cold, but it now felt flushed for a completely different reason.
He raked his hand through my hair, tilting my head up to gain better access to my mouth.
I leaned into him. Part of my mind screamed at what the hell I was doing while the other loved the taste of him.
Lance smiled against my mouth. “I’d forgotten how much I liked doing that.” He took my lip between his teeth and shivers ran up and down every inch of my body. I wrapped my leg around him and Lance took hold of my thigh, pressing himself up against me.
His lips brushed over mine and I could almost have deluded myself into thinking that a sense of longing lingered there. Lance kissed me as if he could devour me right there and then in the hallway.
With my eyes closed, I could melt into him and forget about everything that was wrong and unfair in the world. I knew I shouldn’t be doing this. But I knew I wasn’t strong enough to stop myself either.
I didn’t need to, because in the midst of our heated kiss, Lance was suddenly ripped away from me.
“You bastard!” Cai’s voice boomed through the hallway. Lance barely had time to register what was going on before Cai punched him square on his jaw. “She’s as good as my sister. You have no right to lay your hands on her!”
Lance’s head whipped back as Cai made a hit to his nose and then another to his stomach. The impact was enough to make him fall backwards onto the floor.
“Cai!” I cried out, afraid to jump between the two of them. I’d never seen Cai filled with so much rage.
He was on top of Lance in an instant, landing one blow after the other. Lance used his hands to try to defend himself a little, but he was making no attempt to fight Cai, and I doubted it was because he didn’t know how.
“You come into my house, uninvited, after everything you’ve done, and this is how you treat her?”
“It’s not him, Cai. It was my doing.” But he wouldn’t listen. He continued to punch Lance, who had blood dripping from his nose.
I couldn’t bear to watch it any longer and I tried to pry Cai away from Lance, but he was too strong and too determined.
“Cai, that’s enough!”
I was afraid that if he didn’t stop soon, he might kill him.
It was Elara’s sudden scream at the end of the hall that made Cai freeze.
“Cai.” Her voice was shaky, almost desperate. “Please.”
I realised then that she’d seen him do it. She’d seen him kill my brother, and based on the look in her eyes, it haunted her.
Cai sat back, both him and Lance breathing heavily. He took hold of Lance’s collar, pulling his head up from the floor before leaning down to whisper into his face. “If you ever so much as hurt a hair on her head, I will end you.”
“I have no such intentions,” Lance huffed out before Cai let him go, his eyes quickly shooting to Elara as she stormed away. He was up in a moment, chasing after her and leaving me and Lance alone in the hallway.
I kneeled by his side and helped him sit up slowly.
“We need to get you cleaned up.” His lip was split and his nose was bleeding. “I’ve never seen Cai like that.”
Lance pressed his fingers to his nose and flinched. “Can’t say I didn’t deserve it a little.”
“Still, he shouldn’t have done that to you for kissing me.”
Lance gave me a wide smirk before saying, “It was entirely worth it.”
* * *
We sat on Lance’s bed while I helped nurse the wounds Cai had inflicted.
I knew the two of them had a bit of history and Cai had never exactly taken a liking to Lance, but his outburst had been rather intense. Though I suspected that it only partly had to do with Lance kissing me, and it was more because of everything that had happened since his return to Mistwood.
While I was saddened by my brother’s death, I knew how close he and Cai had been. It must have shattered something in Cai that was now beyond repair.
I’d asked a servant to bring a bowl of water and some cloth and ointments. Lance lay back on a few stacked pillows, holding a piece of the cloth to his nose.
“I’m sorry for what happened,” I said. “I think Cai’s overwhelmed with everything that’s happening and seeing us made him snap.”
I took another piece of cloth and sank it into the bowl of lukewarm water before wringing it out.
“He shouldn’t have taken it out on you, though.”
Lance wiped the last of the blood away from his nose. “I probably would have done the same if I had been in his position.”
“You mean you’ve never caught Cai and Lara kissing?”
“That’s not what I meant.” He sat up with a frown. “And I’d rather not think about that, to be honest.”
“You know, they’ve probably done a lot more than kissing—”
“Okay,” he said. “You can stop talking, please.”
I gently pressed the damp cloth to his lip, and he flinched. “I have to say, he got you pretty good.”
“That’s only because I wasn’t hitting back.”
True. Lance had let Cai hit him without defending himself.
“Right, because he wouldn’t have stood a chance, I’m sure,” I teased. While Lance might have been strong, Cai was a trained soldier.
“Hey, I would at least have given him a black eye or something.”
“Sure. Sure.”
He reached towards me and playfully pinched my leg. “Thanks for taking care of me, though.”
“Well, I did get you into trouble with the King of Norrandale after all.”
“Who knew you could be a bad influence?”
I used my finger to scrape some ointment out of the little pot before taking hold of Lance’s chin. “Hold still now.”
I dabbed a bit of the ointment on his lips and placed the pot on the table next to his bed. “You can put this on every day. It should feel better within a couple of days.”
I handed him a small bottle of tonic. “And sip this slowly. It will help with the pain.”
Lance pulled out the little cork and downed the entire bottle of pain medicine.
“I said sip. That stuff will make you sleepy.”
He cringed at the bitter taste.
“You’re pretty good at this, you know?”
“What, nursing?” Lance gave a nod.
“Thatcher would get himself into trouble sometimes and it was usually me and Cai who looked after him.”
“Well, if I should be getting into any more fights, you’ll be the first person I call on.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t get in any fights at all.” I started gathering the bloody cloths and bowl.
“That’s true. I can’t risk my looks. It’s the only thing I’ve got going for me.”
This made me look up at him. “That’s not true.”
“No?” He lay back on the bed with a groan. “You think I’m more than just a pretty face?”
“Yes,” I said, after a breath.
“Right, of course, I’m a selfish and conceited prince with bad habits and low morals.”
“Sometimes,” I replied with honesty, because I hated lying. “But you also care a lot for your family and your kingdom. You’re very smart, maybe even too clever for your own good. You’re good with animals and you’ve been a good friend to me.”
“I hadn’t realised you’ve been paying so much attention to me.” He was trying to be witty, but I saw in his eyes that I’d struck something.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I patted his leg. “We can’t have your ego getting any bigger than it already is.”
His eyes were slowly starting to close, the tonic taking its effect. It would probably knock him out for a couple of hours but at least he would feel better when he woke up.
“You should get some rest.” He turned to his side, and I took a nearby blanket and draped it over him.
Lance gave a low hum in reply, nestling into his pillows.
I stood up from the bed, making sure that nothing was lying around.
When I turned to leave, Lance’s hand shot out and took hold of my wrist. His eyes were still closed.
“Gwen, there’s something I need to tell you,” he said in a sleepy tone.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to just be your friend.”
I wanted to believe he meant it, but I wasn’t sure if it was just the pain medicine talking. So, I bent down and brushed a few locks of hair away from his face before pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“Feel better, okay? I’ll see you later.” Lance was fast asleep when I left the room.