Chapter 50 #2
“Didn’t have much of a choice,” he mumbled.
He reminded her fiercely of an avoidant student, so Emmeline remained quiet and attentive as they walked.
Finally, he elaborated, “I have four older brothers and three sisters, and all have made something of themselves. My parents have never been very impressed with me.”
“And that bothers you?”
“Should it not?”
Emmeline’s heart ached at how defeated he sounded. “Only if they’ve earned that respect.”
His brows drew together, making him appear so young. Longing for her students speared through Emmeline.
“For what it’s worth, I’m very impressed with you already.” She placed a friendly kiss to his lightly freckled cheek, and Devinli’s ears turned deeper scarlet.
He cleared his throat, gesturing with his wine glass down the row of grapes. “It’s up ahead.”
Emmeline craned her neck, the aged stone well peeking around the corner at the end of the path. A riot of flowers bloomed around the space. It was entirely isolated, and much more peaceful than the competitors’ tent.
Before they reached it, a voice smooth as silk called from behind them. “Devinli.” He and Emmeline spun as another contestant strode toward them, his hands tucked into his pockets, black hair swaying on a breeze. “I see you’ve found our darling.”
Emmeline bit her tongue at the reference, but Devinli’s cheeks turned red. “We were only walking. Is that against the rules of the tournament, Khasson?”
Khasson. Emmeline mentally placed him in the rankings. He was in the middle, she believed. Kept to himself, but performed admirably in each task, friends with Perry.
With only thirteen of them left after the disastrous poison trial, she was familiar with all the men, but she hadn’t had much more than passing conversations with Khasson. He was one of the few competitors who wasn’t breathing down her neck, and that made her respect him more.
“I don’t believe there are many rules in this game,” Khasson responded in that same silky tone. “That’s what makes it so fun.”
His smoky eyes dripped over Emmeline. She could feel him on every inch of her skin. Awareness prickled her scalp, familiarity drawing her in.
As if he felt that instinct, Khasson smirked and prowled forward, a deep cherry scent wafting on the breeze. But instead of holding out a hand for Emmeline as she expected, he drooped an arm around Devinli’s shoulder. Cleverly, he lifted Emmeline’s wine glass from her hand and took a long sip.
“Miss DeLeoste,” he said with a dip of his chin, and without another word, he turned a befuddled Devinli around and escorted him down the row.
Emmeline only had a beat to wonder what that was about before—
“Huntress.”
No.
He couldn’t be here, but his voice curled on the air like it was made to call to her.
Her body turned of its own volition, took a step toward him even as horror sank icy claws into her chest.
“Reckless,” she nearly whimpered.
He was there, standing at the end of the row, the well at his back and wrists unchained. Fates, how was he here? Why?
She hadn’t seen him this close since before the second trial, when he’d been healing in her bed.
When she’d sworn to the stars she’d give him up if they saved him.
“You’re okay?” Emmeline asked, voice breathy.
“I haven’t been okay for a while.” He said it casually, but her heart wrenched with the emotions stifled beneath it. With the guilt and agony that turned him more haunted and duller by the day, that heightened the reckless glint in his eye. “But I’m unharmed.”
Relief tangled with everything else she was feeling, but she didn’t let it show. Didn’t let herself fall into him as her body screamed to.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Roremar’s stare picked her apart. “You ask that as if you don’t know I’m here for you, Emmeline.”
Fine, he was going to be blunt. She would, too.
“Leave. You need to go back to…” She didn’t even know where he’d been imprisoned. She’d kept herself busy so she wouldn’t follow the urge to visit him. “They’re going to be looking for you.”
“They aren’t,” Roremar said, confident. His eyes begged her to come closer. “Not yet, at least.”
“How are you so sure?”
“I’ve made a few allies since this tournament began. They ensured my guards won’t wake for quite some time.”
“That is so Fatesdamned reckless,” she groaned.
“What else do you expect me to do?” Roremar challenged.
Cheers and laughter echoed over the grapevines, moving toward them, and Emmeline jolted at the reminder of how close others were.
I can’t keep him.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said primly. “I’m happy you’re okay. I have to go.”
She turned on her heel, and something in the sudden severance of their sightline must have shattered Roremar’s restraint. His voice pitched in desperation, pulling her to a stop. “Emmeline, wait!”
She didn’t turn. Magic pounded at her mind, crackled through her veins. She didn’t dare look too closely at what the Fates were pushing her toward.
She knew what they wanted, and she could never give it to them. Never let them nudge her toward him only to harm him.
“I can’t,” she whispered. I miss you, she didn’t let herself add aloud. “I’m sorry.”
“Please,” he begged. “Just look at me.”
The hollowness of his voice—the ragged, broken sound he’d rarely shown the past few weeks—was enough to crumble her resolve.
Wiping her expression as blank as she could, Emmeline turned.
When her gaze collided with Roremar’s, the Fates within her screamed louder. His hands on her body, his breath on her neck—every memory was sharp and piercing, slicing at the ropes she’d tied around her desires. Yearning pulled every nerve tight, heat gathering low within her.
It was the kind of look only he could give her, a thousand unsaid words in his grey eyes.
“Yes?” she asked on a breath.
A breath that said more than she meant it to. Silver flashed in Roremar’s stare as if ignited by the very heat threatening to burn her alive, the very want that built her entire being around this reckless warrior.
Roremar stepped closer.
Emmeline stepped back.
They were always dancing around each other in some way. First with snarling jibes, then with fiery need.
And now, reluctant, heart-shattering restraint.
Before she could blink, he was in front of her, and she was swiveling, desperate to breathe air free of his addictive sandalwood-and-sea scent. Her back to the well, she continued her regretful steps away.
But Roremar always saw too much. No matter how hard she tried.
He followed, closing in on her until she bumped into the cool wood of the well’s hutch. Her spine stiffened, but she couldn’t go anywhere. Roremar’s knees were on either side of hers, the thump of his heartbeat drowning her.
Come closer, a part of her longed to beg. Ruin me as you promised you would.
She dropped her gaze, trying to collect herself, but all she saw were their legs tangled together. How right they fit and how much closer she wanted him.
“Please, Emmeline,” he said again, his words whisper soft.
She lifted her gaze, prepared to find his burning into her, but—
Her eyes stung.
She hadn’t been prepared for torment. For his utter transparency to reveal someone so wrecked. It was every part he’d been hiding, the most complete image of this side of him she’d seen since…Nico.
And it was that acknowledgment of how completely he was letting her in, pouring his heart out without even a word, that had her mask slipping.
“Reckless,” she whimpered.
At the broken sound, Roremar pressed his forehead to hers. “Huntress.”
Emmeline wove her fingers through the waves at the nape of his neck. “What do you need?”
“You,” Roremar admitted, barely breathing the word, his restraint shattering in tune with the glass cage she’d kept around herself.
His lips pressed to her temple once, seeking so delicately she shivered. Her body was on fire, every inch of her begging for all of him. A whimpered moan slipped up her throat, skin prickling with need.
As if he heard that wish, Roremar gripped beneath her thighs and propped her on the edge of the well. Emmeline rocked backward, but his arm was steady around her waist, never letting her go.
She couldn’t stop her nails from dragging gently through his hair, down his neck, each touch soothing and claiming and saying everything she couldn’t.
Roremar’s head fell against her shoulder, and he pressed his next words into her skin. “Fates, Emmeline, I hate this.”
He’s reaching a breaking point, Lola had said. And Emmeline felt it from him in her arms now.
Her eyes squeezed tight, lips between her teeth to hold in all those words.
I hate it, too, she didn’t admit aloud, but she gripped him tighter. Pretended they were anyone else, in any other realm, and not who they really were.
Pretended she couldn’t get him killed by telling him the truth.
“Are you okay?” Roremar asked after a minute. He pulled back, and it almost looked painful to break that connection. Like the ache of longing in her chest had its claws deep in him, too.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “I told Rocarri and his council you’re innocent, but he insists otherwise. They won’t listen to me.”
Aggravation burned her throat, the words ash on her tongue.
“Stop trying to convince him,” Roremar begged. “Please, Emmeline. We have bigger issues with Dryvius and them forcing you to bond to someone.”
“That’s what you’re worried about? My bonding?” He was slated to die, and still, he prioritized her.