Chapter 27 Astrid
A voice is calling her. Saying her name over and over. Gentle hands stroke her face, her hair. She’s lying on something warm. Someone warm.
“Astrid, can you hear me?” The fingers probe at her neck, checking her pulse. “Come on, Dimples. Open your eyes.”
She tries to remember where she is, but her head feels like it’s being pricked by dozens of tiny needles. It hurts to think.
“Astrid?” Zryan’s hand stills on her hair. She groans and slowly blinks open her eyes. She’s lying in the prince’s lap, her head in the crook of his arm as he cradles her. “Thank Arach. You scared the living shit out of me.”
“Astrid,” she mumbles.
“No, you are Astrid.” He sounds vaguely alarmed.
“You said my name.” Her voice is hoarse from screaming. “You’ve never called me by my name before.”
He adjusts slightly, keeping her tucked into him. “You almost died, but, sure, that’s what we should focus on.”
Almost died. Did she? She needs to sit up, but she can’t quite manage it. Plus, he smells so nice. Like a sea breeze and… maleness.
A deep laugh. “Maleness? That’s a first.”
Did she say that out loud?
“Yes, and you just said that out loud, too. If it’s any consolation, I think you smell nice as well. Like femaleness.” She hears the smile on his lips.
She punches his chest and lifts herself up.
“I swear to Sqa?i, Prince, I will—” But what she’ll do she never gets around to saying, because that’s when she sees him.
The unconscious man. Mikhael’s lying on the floor, his skin gray as grit.
It comes flooding back to her then—where she is, what she saw.
What Zryan did. He cut his damn fingers off!
She scuttles away, backing against the buttress.
“Did you have to hit him that hard?”
“I may have been overzealous, but I couldn’t let him see you.
” Zryan is on his knees, watching her intently.
“Take it easy—you hit your head on the wall before I caught you.” So that’s why it feels like bells are ringing inside her skull.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re skulking around our cells, Dimples? ”
Any trace of tenderness is now gone.
“What, you not going to torture it out of me?”
“Only if you ask me nicely. We’ll need a safe word, though.”
“This is not a time for jokes.”
“It’s not?” He slowly gets to his feet and straightens out his leather jacket. “I’ve just caught the Arturean princess spying on the king of Vatra while I torture a rebel for information. If we can’t joke at a time like this, then when can we?”
She wants to admonish him for his cruelty and irreverence, but then, she has been caught spying and she’s not sure what Zryan is going to do about that.
He walks over and offers his hand, but she waves him off.
“I’m just going to sit for a second.” Her head is swimming, the memory of pain still flowing through her.
What happened to Skylar? The last thing Astrid remembers is a searing ice-cold agony, as if every bone in her body was freezing, and then nothing. “How long was I out for?”
“A few minutes. I tried to Teleport with you….” He trails off, slipping a hand in his pocket.
“Felt like the longest fucking minutes of my life.” Of course it did.
He must have thought his sister was dying; and by the way he looks like someone exsanguinated him, he’s genuinely worried about Skylar.
Which feels at odds with what Astrid just witnessed.
Her attention is drawn back to the man in the cell. To the blood on Zryan’s clothes.
“He’s one of the rebels,” she says.
“Yes, he is.”
“He trusts you. After whatever Mjolnir showed him?” What did Mjolnir show him? That Zryan sympathizes with the rebel cause?
He nods slowly. “Yes.”
“He’s rescuing conscripts. And you, you’re…
” He’s what, exactly? He sliced off two of the guy’s fingers.
Threatened to cut off his hand. Sent his father away and played a different part altogether, the role of someone who might be on the rebels’ side.
Then punched him so hard he’s still unconscious.
She remembers the man in the square when they first arrived, how Zryan didn’t bat an eyelid when Bruma ate him.
She glances at Mikhael. “You tricked him into helping you. What you did with your father—is it some kind of interrogation double act?”
She doesn’t like the idea of that, not one bit.
What if he’s playing her? The whole cocky charm, the nickname, saving her…
What if it’s all a ploy, to earn her trust?
She desperately doesn’t want Zryan to be capable of that—she needs him to be different.
Why that is, she doesn’t want to examine too closely.
She reaches for her tincture but stops herself. Not in front of Zryan.
His jaw clenches. “Is that what you think of me?”
“I don’t know what to think of you. I don’t know you.”
His eyes are like blades, piercing her. “Do you want to know me?”
Does she? She’s resolved to stay away from him; promised herself she’ll concentrate on what matters, and what matters is whatever helps her to help her people.
What’s frustrating is, Zryan could probably be of some use.
All she has to do is talk to him, to ask him about the Heart.
But after what she just witnessed, she’s not sure if she can.
She pushes herself to her feet and wobbles slightly. He’s there in an instant, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“Let me help.”
“I don’t need help. It’s just my ego smarting again.”
He chuckles that sexy chuckle. “Don’t be stubborn, Dimples.”
He holds her tighter and she doesn’t pull away, telling herself she needs the support.
Really, she likes the feel of his hard body pressed against hers, and she finds it incredibly disturbing that she thinks this while a man is unconscious on the floor.
She can like the feel of him and not trust him, right?
That’s par for the course with men. “How did you even know I was here?”
“I heard something, when I threatened to cut his hand off.” He gives her a dark smile. “Then I saw you when I asked the Dreki to leave.”
The two severed fingers catch her eye, literally throwing her a “fuck you” and she pulls out of Zryan’s hold, a modicum of shame rearing its head. She leans against the wall, still dizzy. Focus. She needs to focus, and she can’t while she’s distracted by the prince.
“You saw me and you didn’t say anything?” He would have known at that point she’d been there the whole time, witnessed it all. Yet he sent his father away before he knew they had company, so that wasn’t for her benefit—but then why?
Zryan doesn’t answer, only angles his head and examines her with that predator’s gaze, face more serious now. Realization dawns on Astrid.
“You didn’t trick him. You’re trying to keep the information from your father. You want those conscripts to escape.”
“The conscripts have already escaped, and I don’t see the harm if we happen not to find them.
” He runs a hand through his hair, and for the first time, she thinks she sees a glimmer of the real Zryan.
He’s frustrated. Strangely vulnerable. “You shouldn’t know any of this.
” He lowers his head, sighs. “Yet I couldn’t let you leave here thinking the worst of me. ”
His words melt away the last of her doubt like sunlight on snow.
He cares what Astrid thinks of him. Cares enough to reveal that he’s trying to help the conscripts this rebel rescued, even if he can’t help the rebel himself.
The cruelty, it’s all a show. A deception, so his father won’t learn the truth: Zryan doesn’t agree with what the king is doing.
Still, there’s the question of who’s behind the assassination attempts—and she needs to know.
“You’re certain this guy isn’t the killing-princesses type of rebel, then?” Astrid asks.
Zryan’s shoulders tense, and his eyes lift to lock on hers. “If he was here to kill you, I would have taken great fucking pleasure in slowly cutting him into tiny pieces while you watched.”
The way he’s looking at Astrid stirs something primal inside of her. “Good,” she says, voice rougher than usual. “But I wouldn’t have just watched.”
His mouth curves wickedly. “I know.”
A beat passes. Another, while they stare at each other. “What are you going to do now?” Astrid finally says.
He moves, quick as a whip, eating up the space between them and bracing a hand above her head.
“Don’t,” he says hoarsely. “Don’t ask me that, not when you shouldn’t be here.
I don’t want to lie to you.” Astrid feels the caress of his palm along her ponytail.
“Do you know how bad it would’ve been if my father had caught you? ”
Oh Goddess. The king. How long did he give his son, ten minutes? She needs to get out of here. She tries to move, but he lifts his other arm up, trapping her against the wall.
“What are you doing here, Astrid?”
Hearing her name in that accent, that voice, makes her brain short-circuit.
All she’s aware of is the wisp of his breath on her face, the usual scent of ocean winds mingling with the sweet smell of pear.
She bites her bottom lip, and his gaze drops to her mouth and stays there.
Slowly he brings his eyes back up to meet hers. He leans in a little closer.
This is bad, very bad. She needs to go and needs to go now. She attempts to slide past him again, but he’s immovable.
“Get out of my way.”
“Not until you tell me why you’re down here.”
She clicks her tongue. “I thought it might have been another assassin. I wanted to see for myself, alright?”
“Why didn’t you just say that?” He pushes off the wall and crosses his arms. “You’d be well within your rights to know, if that was the case.”
“That’s very magnanimous of you.”
“I’m a magnanimous kind of guy.”
She points at the two fingers, still taunting her. “Clearly.”