Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
T hings were slightly less tense the rest of the evening, but that didn’t mean it was strictly comfortable. I didn’t imagine I was the only one relieved to be dismissed when the queen was called away to look in on baby Ellie.
Unfortunately, that relief was interrupted by a sulking Korhonan following closely on my heels all the way up to our rooms.
By the third time he sighed, his giant shadow hovering too closely to mine as I reached for my doorknob, I finally addressed him.
“Surely this hall is large enough for both of us,” I said flatly. “Or do you find yourself in need of a protector this evening? I am sure my men would agree to escort you wheresoever you wish.”
I gestured toward my guard tonight. “Isn’t that right, Pavel?”
“Of course, My Lord,” he said, dipping his chin once, his stoic expression belying none of the amusement that sparked in his dark eyes.
Korhonan merely shook his head, unamused, pushing past us to head to his own room. Just before I turned the handle to my door, his voice stopped me in my tracks.
“I should have known,” he said, and when I looked up, he was staring at me, blond brows knitted together.
I quirked an eyebrow in question, but I didn’t have to wait long for his response.
“This is why you did not accept,” he said flatly. “So you could claim her for yourself.”
Whatever he imagined he read in my expression had him nodding his head.
“No need to claim what you already own,” I replied smoothly, before turning the handle to my door and entering the silence of my room at long last.
Before getting comfortable, I made the usual inspection of my room, pausing at the panel where Rowan had emerged the night before.
I opened it, taking a look down a narrow, dusty hallway that looked as though it hadn’t been used in years, save for the lone set of small footsteps creating a not-remotely-straight path. Still, it would be safer if I barricaded it from the inside.
Which is what I should have done, surrounded by enemies. But I suspected only one person was using this passage right now, especially if the small, inebriated footsteps were anything to go by.
I closed the panel and sat at my desk, ignoring the itch between my shoulder blades as I prepared myself for another unannounced entry. There was no way she was going to let today stand as it was, not when she had the impulse control of a rabid mongoose and a temper to match.
Though the reasonable part of me wanted to bar the door, another part was unwilling to refuse her access to my room. These late-night visits were the only time she let her guard down these days. The only time she offered me even the barest fraction of honesty about what was going on in her head.
I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head that claimed that wasn’t the only reason.
Tried. And failed.
There was no denying the pull between us. The way I craved her presence like a lush craved one more drink. Craved her like she was the very air I needed to breathe.
She wasn’t just chaos. Or a complication. She was an addiction .
And just like an addict, my single-minded fixation on her had me doing things I wouldn’t usually do.
I ran a hand over my face as I considered the truth of that thought.
Hadn’t that been the reason why I blurted out a proposal when marriage should have been out of the question? Because she made me act nearly as unreasonable as she was?
Shaking my head, I pushed her and her mass of riotous hair as far from my mind as possible, then focused instead on the silver tray in front of me.
A small roll of parchment rested atop it with my name written in small, precise ink. Even without the Bear seal, I would have recognized my cousin’s handwriting. One of the servants must have delivered it while I was away. I cracked the black wax seal, suppressing a suspicion that it had been gently lifted and reapplied before it made its way to me.
Dear Lord Evander,
Things are well here. My wife is acquainting herself with the ladies at court, though there have been notable absences at tea.
So Ava was still making herself scarce, it would seem.
I’ve attached the figures you requested.
I glanced at the second page, which was indeed a list of food stores by village, in a tidy script with enough shorthand that I doubted anyone else would be able to decipher. The information would be helpful for knowing exactly what I needed to negotiate this week.
Of course, that had been when I thought trade was the primary thing on the table, but I didn’t plan on explaining otherwise to my cousin just yet.
The Duke sends his regards. He knows how important this visit is for Bear and wants to reassure you that he has things in hand until you return.
That was Taras covering in the event that the letter was read, but also letting me know my absence was not yet a problem.
I let out a slow breath, taking a few minutes to commit the report to memory before I drafted a response for Taras. I let him know I had arrived safely, and that negotiations were already underway.
I just declined to say what those negotiations were regarding.
Already I could see his response, the way his lips would purse and his posture would be more uptight than usual while he muttered something about chaos. He wasn’t wrong, of course. Just as he hadn’t been the first time around.
Everything about this place was chaos.
The clock chimed midnight while I was undressing for bed. The panel in the wall remained resolutely closed, but no part of me was convinced it would stay that way. I poured a generous glass of whiskey and climbed into bed, leaning back against the headboard and mentally replaying the events of the day while I waited for her inevitable arrival.
I refused to think about what might be keeping her in the meantime. Or who.
Or the amount of violence I felt when I considered Korhonan taking my words in the hall as a challenge instead of accepting them as fact.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to sit with my murderous thoughts for long, as it was only another few minutes before a scraping sound heralded her arrival. The passageway door eased open with slightly less force than the day before, but I still prepared myself for the weight of her ire. She walked in on steady footsteps this time, her navy dressing gown tied neatly.
Not as much to drink tonight, then, and she didn’t look as disheveled as she might have if she were coming from his bed. I forced the thought from my head before it festered.
Rowan closed the panel behind her with all the gentleness of a grizzly bear, her lips twisting in annoyance when she took in my general lack of surprise at her arrival.
So I added a smirk. “You’re late, Lemmikki. I was expecting you hours ago.”
“Funny, I was expecting you weeks ago,” she shot back.
I considered her words, trying to read the emotions she was trying to keep at bay.
Weeks ago, when the pass had opened. Had she thought I would come to claim her then? To drag her back to Socair?
To offer the…alliance I was offering now, despite the many risks therein?
“Tell me something,” she said in a steadier tone. “If this alliance was an option to benefit your people, why take the chance of waiting until I was...allied with someone else?”
There were a thousand answers to that question. That I hadn’t expected her to rush into marriage with anyone under the circumstances, hadn’t considered that she would be entering into a political alliance when she didn’t have to.
I settled on the easiest one. “Believe it or not, Princess, there was fallout to deal with after you absconded into the night.”
The blood drained from her face, her lips parting like she hadn’t once considered that there might be consequences to her departure. Of course she hadn’t.
Her wide eyes traveled to my chest, and I belatedly realized what it was that had her so horrified.
“Did she—” she started.
“No,” I cut her off, not wanting her to finish that sentence. I didn’t want to think about Ava right now, let alone talk about her. “I told you, she can’t touch me now.”
Rowan stared at me for a long moment, like she couldn’t decide how honest I was being. I wasn’t sure what to make of her blatant concern, the way it was so at odds with our every interaction since I had been here.
The way it brought back memories that I needed to keep at bay, her hand on my arm in an undertaker’s foyer, gentle fingers spreading ointment over a fresh battle wound.
And fury, as cold and unrelenting as I had ever witnessed, when she realized what Ava had done.
She crossed the floor to me, twirling her finger in a clear demand for me to show her my back. I wanted to protest, but there was something frantic in her movements, like she couldn’t rest until she saw the evidence for herself.
So I leaned to the side, allowing her a clear view of the old scars that crisscrossed my flesh. My heart beat faster in spite of myself.
I had prepared for her anger, her righteous indignation, even her questions, hurled thoughtlessly like daggers thrown in the dark without regard for where they would land.
But I hadn’t prepared for this, her hands on my skin, tracing the ropey pattern under her fingertips.
A surprised breath escaped me, and the warmth of her fingers abruptly disappeared.
I settled back to examine her tumultuous features, trying to make sense of the incongruity of the woman clinging to Korhonan in the Council Room and the one standing in my room right now.
“When have I ever lied to you, Lemmikki?” My voice was quiet, but it shattered the silence between us all the same.
Not the tension, though. That flooded the room, invading the space like poison slowly seeping into our souls.
She shook her head, exhaling. “When have you ever really told me the truth?”
Her jade gaze latched onto mine, something between a demand and a plea in them. For honesty? A confession? I wasn’t sure.
“What is it you want to know?” I asked her outright.
She took several shallow breaths, eyes more tumultuous than the storms she always seemed to feel coming.
Her lips parted, and my heartbeat stilled to a slow, interminable thump, anticipating the honesty she might demand from me with a foreign combination of curiosity and dread.
Then she swallowed, and I watched the moment she decided to retreat, her gestures closing off once more.
“I want to know, if this isn’t just about getting back at Iiro, how is it that you didn’t find the time to mention that you were interested in a marriage alliance in the months I was in – Bear.” She lifted her chin in challenge, as though daring me to acknowledge that she was about to end that sentence on a different note.
While you were where, lemmikki?
I raised an eyebrow, regaining my own footing. This, at least, was an easier question to answer, though I didn’t feel the relief I should have about that.
Instead, a surge of annoyance washed over me.
“While you were betrothed to Korhonan, you mean?” I didn’t bother hiding the sarcasm in my voice. “Or after that, when you were recovering from a flogging that nearly killed you?”
She clenched her jaw. “Let’s go with after that.”
“I’m not actually in the habit of proposing to my prisoners.” I pointed out what should have been obvious.
“No,” she fired back. “Just kissing them.”
I blinked, trying to process the reddening of her cheeks, trying not to let it take me back to the way she had looked in that room at the cabin.
And now she wanted to be angry with me for something she had started? No, I shouldn’t have kissed her while she was my captive. I shouldn’t have kissed her at all.
But I sure as hell hadn’t been in that alone.
“A mistake I have already acknowledged,” I growled.
If anything, that only seemed to ignite her anger.
“Well, I suppose your people can be grateful that’s a horror you’re willing to revisit, if only for a night,” she spat.
A smirk came to my lips before I could stop myself, not that I would have tried especially hard. If she had any concept of how often my mind had betrayed me by playing out that particular…horror.
The sounds she would make and the way that flush would travel all the way down her skin…
“Two nights, actually,” I corrected her. “I’m assuming you would want a wedding in Lochlann, and we would need another one in Socair.”
“Then it’s fortunate you’ll be spared both of them,” she said with a huff, turning to leave with all the warning she had given before she came.
I might have believed her, that there was no chance at all, but the way her eyes had raked over every inch of my exposed torso when she came in told a different story. I might not have thought our wedding night would be a horror show, but I was fairly confident she didn’t think so either.
And she was here, for the second night in a row.
“The week’s not over yet, Lemmikki,” I called after her.
She shut the passageway door just a little harder than she had when she came in.