Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Emmeline
The words broke over the room like shattered glass, shifting Roremar’s countenance. His jaw tensed, hands fisting. “What?”
“Whoever wins gets me,” Emmeline repeated, voice shaking. He was going to find out soon anyway. Better he react here than in the barracks where he’d make himself a larger target. “They’re going to bond me to him. I am the prize, Roremar.”
And if we’re found here together, you’ll be dead sooner.
“No.” Roremar’s eyes blazed silver, as hot as the heart of the stars, a feral fury igniting as her words landed. It burned right through his despondence and into her. “No, Emmeline, they can’t do that. You’re not theirs to give away. You’re—”
He bit down on that thought, a muscle in his jaw ticking.
She wanted to dare him to say to whom she truly belonged, because her heart had known it since the seeing chamber, and truthfully long before that.
Since he offered her a safe place for the first time in years. Since he’d defended her to the Snake Charmer. Since he’d listened to every one of her horrid truths and didn’t turn away but saw her through them.
But she couldn’t ask him for that word when she couldn’t give it back.
Stay in line, Emmeline.
“We should go,” she whispered, reluctance splintering her chest as she backed away from him. Every inch hurt. “We can’t be here.”
“What?”
“You and I.” The words broke her, each one a root she had to pry from the depths of herself, ripping up soil in between each breath.
Turning her heart—her world—inside out because somewhere between a case assignment and a seeing chamber, Roremar had planted himself so deeply within her, he was a part of her soul.
“You and I can’t be together. Not anymore. ”
“I know we can’t,” he said plainly. “I’m not safe for you.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She should have let him think that was the reason. It would’ve been easier to convince him. But even though she needed to hurt him right now to force him to stay away, she refused to wield his guilt against him.
This was probably the most alone they’d ever be. Maybe she could tell him about Rocarri—
Remember, this is my city you’re in.
Unseen eyes burrowed into her, sealing her throat tight. He’d know. Somehow, the Chancellor would know. She was never invisible anymore. She belonged to the capital’s games, and that thought coated her skin in oil.
She couldn’t add more hardships to Roremar’s plate by telling him exactly how she was being used. He’d want to fix it, and he had too much to handle already.
They had to stay away from one another.
If she was going to convince the Chancellor she was truly accepting her role, it had to be believable. She had to break both of their hearts.
Stealing herself, Emmeline said, “We aren’t good together. We only ruin each other.”
The scorned silence burned as hot as Arenothos’s forge. Emmeline’s skin prickled with it, and her eyes stung as desperation clawed at her, begging to take back those words.
“We aren’t good?” Roremar echoed.
“We aren’t,” Emmeline breathed.
There was a moment, a breath, before she recognized her mistake. Before a flicker of unhinged amusement flashed in Roremar’s eyes, and Emmeline remembered how damn stubborn this man could be.
Roremar stalked forward, backing her into the wall. His body pressed against hers, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip to bite down on the gasp the contact elicited.
Fates, every part of her lit up where they connected, her body needy for his. Like it was something both deserved and demanded.
Roremar’s fingers tangled in her hair, thumb pulling her lip from between her teeth.
He studied that spot like it held his dying breath.
“You’re mistaken, Emmeline. I’ve known for a while I would be your ruin, but you are the brightest star in the sky.
You could never ruin me except in the most delicious, sinful ways.
And those?” He pressed down on the swell of her lip, and she inhaled sharply.
“Those are all way better than I deserve. So why are you saying you’re not good for me? ”
“Because I’m not,” she panted.
“You’re a Fatesdamned liar, Huntress,” Roremar whispered, gravelly voice waking every spot on her body that she wanted to feel that rough tone. Her breasts, between her thighs.
His other hand slipped around her waist, and it was clear from the hardness pressing against her stomach that he wanted her, too. She wished he could take her here, fuck her against this wall and show her how good they could be for one another, but it wasn’t an option.
“I’m not lying,” she gasped. “You and I can never be together.”
Everyone close to her wound up dead. Her magic was a curse that slayed every caring heart. The best place for her to belong was alone, and from that isolation, she’d save him.
“Tell me it’s because of what I did,” Roremar begged.
“Tell me I’m not good enough for you, and I’ll believe it.
” His lips ghosted over her jaw, and her head tipped back, her body arching into him, silently begging for more.
“But don’t say you’ll ruin me. You are the only good thing to happen to me in a long time. ”
“I’m not—” Her words cut off in a gasp as Roremar nipped at the spot beneath her ear, tongue smoothing over the sting.
His forehead dropped against hers, his breathing as wild as her own. Her body ached with the grief of letting him go, the longing to hold on tighter.
“What do you want, Emmeline? Do you want me on my knees? Because I’ll happily spend eternity there to get an answer from your lips.”
It ripped her in two to be unable to give him that. Roremar clearly read her silence as reluctance. The desperation rolling off him made her limbs weak.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You’ll ruin me, too.” In so many more ways than she could name, in so many she wanted him to.
“You’re right.” Roremar nodded, squeezing her waist. His acceptance sank through Emmeline like a sour tonic. Voice ragged, he added, “I don’t deserve you, Emmeline, but if I’m to die, please let me taste you before I go.”
“What?” she asked.
Roremar’s lips were already back on her neck. He traced down her chest, kissing the swell of her breasts pressed against her leathers.
Reckless energy rolled off him, and she understood then. This. This was what he needed, where he was channeling all his inescapable emotions, because she was the one good thing he could still see, and he’d do anything to hold on to her for a little while longer, ruin be damned.
Emmeline tangled her fingers in his hair, a possessive grasp that had him smirking against her flesh, surely had him doubting her words.
We aren’t good for one another.
Roremar worked his way back up her neck, kiss by heart-wrenching kiss. The buckles on her leathers loosened under his steady fingers.
“Is this okay?” he whispered as his warm hand slipped beneath the fabric, fingers brushing over the bare skin of her stomach.
We only ruin each other.
They shouldn’t get closer, but she needed him, and those two impossible facts warred through her.
“Yes,” Emmeline breathed, nearly sobbing at the relief.
Roremar slipped her leathers off her shoulders, and the fabric thudded to the floor behind her. She stood only covered by her black lace chemise, nipples pebbled against the tight fabric.
Roremar looked her over as if this was the last chance he’d get and he had to memorize every inch.
His fingers skated down her side, making her shiver, and Emmeline was taken back to the apartment above Fated Ink, where he’d watched as she’d driven her own pleasure—where she’d watched him.
Heat flooded between her thighs at the memory.
She wanted that again—wanted his desirous stare drinking her in and to feel him in return. Everything outside of this room paled in comparison to them.
“Is no kissing still the rule?” Roremar muttered, his eyes molten as his thumb skated over her nipple.
Emmeline swallowed, no on the tip of her tongue.
But while his chains were removed tonight, the locks may as well have been placed around her own throat.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Still the rule.”
Roremar pursed his lips. “Okay, then.”
He pushed back from her, and Emmeline nearly whined at the chill snaking over her skin with his absence.
Taking slow steps across the room, he opened the decanter and poured a measure of whiskey.
Tongue flicking across her lips, Emmeline’s heartbeat accelerated as she studied Roremar’s every move.
The part of her that always wanted to get lost and willing with him yearned for his hands back on her body.
Roremar took a sip, then crossed back to Emmeline. When they were toe to toe, her chest heaving and breaths shaky, he tipped the cool edge of the whiskey glass against her mouth, but right as the liquor was about to slip over the edge, he pulled it back.
A drop spilled over her bottom lip, rolling down her chin and the column of her throat instead.
“Oops.” Roremar’s eyes traced its path, desire flaring to pure silver. The candles lining the room caught starfire in his irises as his lids hooded.
“No kissing,” he whispered, and he dropped his lips to her neck.
His tongue greedily licked up the bead of liquor rolling across her flesh. Emmeline shivered at the hot drag, back arching and hands gripping his shoulders.
“What’s wrong, Em?” Roremar teased, and he sounded so much lighter than earlier, even with the sinful note to his voice. His tongue dragged up her throat, mouth stopping below her ear. “I didn’t kiss your lips. Did you mean I shouldn’t kiss you anywhere?”
Emmeline could barely keep her words straight as his whispers slithered over her skin. “What happened to no touching either?”
“I’ve given up on my rules, Emmeline. I can never have you—not for real—but Fates, I’m taking what I can get.”
He dripped another splash of liquor in the hollow of her collarbone, his tongue following in its wake. The contrast of the chilled drink and his warm touch drove her wild.