Chapter Ten #2
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I might ask you the same thing.”
“I decided to have a look around.”
“Do you have information on the island that I don’t? Because you seem to have taken to the water easily enough. What if there are piranhas?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How do you know?”
“Here I am. Unconsumed. By aquatic predators, at least.”
She frowned. “What is this?”
“You are correct, I do have some information on the island. I looked it up. During one of the wars there was a military base here. This was a way to move easily between bunkers. There was one where the house stands now. And there were others on the other side of the island. I believe that some of them are still there.”
“Oh. I was hoping that it was a temple. Something holy. But it’s just something that men made to kill each other all the easier. Honestly, as metaphors go it’s a bit on the nose.”
“What do you mean by that?” he asked, his voice grave.
She stared at him meaningfully. “Oh, I don’t know. I imagine if we think deeply about it we might find that there is some link between wars in paradise and honeymoons as damage control.”
He stared at her, those cool, dark eyes boring into her soul.
She was unable to hold her thoughts inside now.
But now the stakes were so high. When it had only been her dealing with the unfairness of life that had been one thing.
But now she was pregnant, and she was determined to carve out better for her child.
Determined that she wouldn’t take the path of least resistance at their expense.
The trouble was, Onyx was beautiful. And no amount of him being awful to her changed that.
He was beautiful, even when he was cruel.
That seemed like a terrible trick. There were plenty of hideous-looking royals in the world, byproducts of centuries of inbreeding, that snobbery leading them down a path of distorted features and reduced intelligence.
Not so with Onyx. He was clever. Sharp. And physically perfect.
His chiseled jaw, golden skin and sculpted chest were straight out of a romance novel.
His body was physical perfection in every way, and it was difficult for Birdie to believe—still—even with the evidence of their passion growing inside of her, that she had ever touched him.
That she had ever been able to get close enough to him to be allowed to do so.
And by all rights, with his behavior, he should’ve transformed into something hideously ugly in her sight. And yet. And yet.
“There is no one here now,” he said. “As you pointed out, the trip itself is about optics. But there are no optics here.”
“That must be very interesting for you,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Really,” she said. And she had a full appreciation of the fact that this put the two of them on equal footing in a way that she hadn’t fully considered.
She was used to blending in. What she did was the opposite of performance. She never drew attention to herself. As a member of staff at the palace, it was part of her job. As a member of her household with a stepmother who hated her beyond the telling of it, it was a matter of survival.
The one time Birdie had ever drawn attention to herself had been in the study with Onyx. Had been when they’d made love, and look what a disaster that had turned into.
Onyx did everything for visibility. Except that moment in the study.
In those quiet moments, when there was no one else around, she supposed they were more alike than they were different.
Maybe.
“Whatever will you do if a lift of your quizzical brow doesn’t make headlines?”
“I have no desire to be a headline,” he said.
“Do you not? It seems as if you do everything out of deference for those headlines.”
“Deference and realism are two very different things than desire.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“And if you say so, then it is law. At least back in Basilia. But I suppose not here. Are you even a king here?”
“You are impertinent.”
“I’m your wife. You only seek to remind me of my impertinence, or my perceived getting above myself because I’m a servant to you. Yet again, another strike against your snobbery.”
“I’m growing weary of you.”
“That is too bad.”
She turned away from him, peering around the wall, where the stream was flowing. “And what’s over there, I wonder?”
“Snakes, most likely.”
“Are there snakes here?”
“Entirely possible.”
“Interesting.” She walked out ahead of him, following that stream.
There were no paved walkways out beyond the wall.
It was all rocks and snarls and hanging vines.
There were also trees with plump, ripe fruit hanging off of them.
She wasn’t going to climb a tree; she wouldn’t do anything half so foolish while she was pregnant.
Though, she was a very accomplished tree climber from her childhood.
But just reaching up to the next few branches didn’t seem like it would cause very much trouble.
She climbed up onto a branch, then to the next one like it was a rung on a ladder.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
“I’m picking fruit. Because it is one of life’s great joys. But then, I suppose you don’t know that.”
“Why would I know that?”
“Because you live in the world, Your Highness.”
“I have never had occasion to pick fruit.”
“Of course not. Someone does it for you. And they present it to your royal personage, and prepare a fine meal besides, and you never have to examine the how of any of it.”
“You speak to me as if you find me ignorant.”
“And arrogant,” she said.
“Get down from there.”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“You are absurd. And pregnant.”
“A pair, we make then. For you are ignorant and arrogant, and I am absurd and pregnant.” She reached out and plucked a fruit off the end of the branch. “And I am also in possession of a guava. You may envy me now. Something to add to your list of adjectives.”
“Get down.”
“If I died, you would find yourself short one problem.”
And that was when he crossed the empty space between them, and gripped hold of the branch she was standing on, hauling himself upward, wrapping his muscular arm around her waist and pulling her down.
His skin was bare, slick and wet from his time in the waterfall, and he was also hot.
The heat coming from inside of him, a raging inferno of intensity and hard muscle.
She did her best not to yelp as he nestled her against his broad chest and brought her back down to the ground.
“You are foolish,” he said, plucking the guava out of her hands. “That’s mine,” she said.
He looked down at her, those dark eyes fierce.
Her heart began to beat harder, faster. She became so acutely aware of where her breasts brushed against his hard wall of muscle, where his arm was wrapped around her like an uncompromising steel band.
And how much it reminded her of the last time he’d held her like this.
In the garden. Before he’d discovered the pregnancy.
Before he’d decided that she was his enemy.
“You are silly,” he said.
“I am not silly. I want a guava. I would beg that you haul your royal ass up the tree and fetch me another one, since you have stolen my bounty.”
He stared at her, his expression unreadable.
“Well?”
“It is not befitting for a king to climb a tree.”
“Remember, you are not a king here.”
“I fear that I am a king always.”
“No,” she said. “Only if you want it to be true. Have you ever just been a person? Even before you were king? Were you ever just… Onyx?”
“I was the heir,” he said. “There is a set of obligations that come with that from the moment you take your first breath.” He stepped away from her. “Our child will bear the same fate.”
She frowned, a heavy sensation settling in her chest. “Oh. I hadn’t really thought of that.”
“It’s the truth. Our child will meet the same fate once I die.”
“Don’t die anytime soon.”
He laughed. “Believe me, making it longer than my father is a goal of mine.”
“You became the heir when you were sixteen?”
“I did.”
“So before that did you ever…?”
“Climb trees? Pick fruit? Live even a moment when I wasn’t aware of the crushing weight of the responsibility of what lay before me? Not especially.”
“You’re not any more free than I am, are you?”
In fact, he was significantly less free. Yes, she could leave. And the consequences of that would’ve been a struggle. A life of poverty, most likely. But the entire weight of the nation didn’t rest on her head.
Though, she supposed it did now. At least to an extent.
He turned away from her, and began to climb the tree. “Well, don’t break your royal neck,” she said.
“I’m not the king here,” he said. “At least so I’ve been told. And my lady wife wants those.”
“Your lady wife has behaved appallingly, and is sorry.”
She didn’t think she had really behaved appallingly, but she did feel bad for not really considering the reality of his life.
The weight of what he carried. It didn’t excuse the way he treated her, but it did excuse certain things about him.
And even really acknowledging what it all meant for her child to be born into royalty was something.
No wonder he’d wanted a queen who understood.
Circe was likely ready to train a child in the ways of being royal. She was ready to submit a child to that. And Birdie didn’t even know where she fit into all of this.
Maybe his feelings about her were more than snobbery.
But her thoughts were cut off from that when he grabbed the first piece of fruit, and continued on up the tree.
He moved with lithe agility, his graceful athleticism a sight to behold.
At least that’s what she was telling herself.
And not that he was an actual snack, one that she wanted badly to take a bite of.
How could she still be aroused by him? It was one thing to respond to his touch.
After all, they’d been intimate, and even though she was angry at him it was difficult for her to forget the pleasure that they’d shared together.