42. Play for Me #2
Mother frowned. “Lord Breckon and Lady—”
“We are stopping that wedding,” I spat, struggling not to spring across the room and close my hands on her throat.
“We will stop that wedding,” she corrected, smiling.
Frantic, desperate, maniacal fear coursed through me. I folded my arms to hug myself and leaned against the doorframe as if I was merely irritated. But my bones hummed. And my guts twisted tight.
“Tell me,” I muttered.
Mother smiled and lifted her skirts as she stepped past the piano bench, eyeing it like it was a sleeping creature that might wake and snap teeth at her.
“We need to catch Breckon unawares,” she said as she glided closer. “And the best way to do that is for him to believe I’m merely attending as I usually would. So his guard isn’t up.”
“What the fuck does it matter if his guard is up? He reports to you! You tell him—”
“He’s Fyrehold. Not one of mine. But involved with mine,” she said flatly.
“What difference does it make?”
She tsked and rolled her eyes, but when I glared a warning, she stopped walking, just out of reach.
“That was always the problem with you and your father,” she sighed. “So insistent that the world must bend to your will, rather than sitting patiently, influencing until it bends willingly. Though, I suppose you men do learn early that the world most often gives in.”
I was furious, and still trembling. “The closer we get to a wedding, the more likely she will be discovered, and harmed—and the baby lost!”
“Don’t worry. He hasn’t touched her.”
“How would you know?”
One brow arched. “You have to ask?”
I didn’t break eye contact, and didn’t move. Just stared at her, simmering. Finally, I unfolded my arms and stood over her—even from this distance, she looked up—and I let my lip pull back from my teeth in the true disgust I held for her.
“I told you, if that baby is lost, it is your responsibility. I told you I refuse to take another man’s seconds.”
“And I told you, patience, son,” she murmured, her lips curling up on one side, because she finally had proof she’d gotten under my skin.
I was so angry about what she said, I couldn’t even care.
“You,” I hissed. “If this goes wrong, it’s on you.”
“Certainly,” she sighed. “But—”
“I’m going to bed.” I turned on my heel and stormed down the hallway, praying she wouldn’t chase me. Because my skin quivered, and my hands twitched to close on something. Anything. If she touched me again, I might actually throttle her.
But, one thing she’d always been good at was reading a person’s limit, knowing precisely when to stop pushing.
And so, she did. There were no hurried footsteps behind me. No swish of skirts, or high voice taunting.
She let me go, and saved her own life.
‘Voski…’ Kham rumbled.
‘I’m walking away.’
‘Good. Lock your door.’
‘I always do.’
He stayed in my mind, advising, reassuring, soothing, while I marched through the house, then locked myself into my rooms, then undressed in a rush because my skin felt hot.
But, as always, when I sat in the bed, elbows on my knees, staring into the fire in the next room, I couldn’t lie down. I was tormented by memories of Grace, of my mother, by thoughts of what could be happening to Grace… of what would happen if my mother had her way…
My breath rushed out of me and I dropped my forehead to my forearms, trying to swallow back nausea.
Grace. I yearned for her in a way I’d never experienced. That hole in my chest that was shaped like her required her presence to fill it. And it ached. It whistled like a cold cave on a mountainside. Heavy, chilled, and hollow.
A shudder rocked through my body and a strange noise broke in my throat.
‘Come to me,’ Kham sent.
‘I can’t leave now, not when there’s—’
‘Not to leave. Just come to me. Come rest with me. I’ll watch over you while you sleep. You can return in the morning. No one will be the wiser. Just as we used to.’
I blew out a breath, blinking hard. When Kham had first chosen me, when my skin still stung with the evidence of my attempts to end my own life, he’d always welcomed me close.
I’d left the barracks every night at first, to sleep curled in the crook of his foreleg.
I still did it when we traveled. And occasionally, when the world felt too heavy.
He was right. I didn’t question, didn’t even care if someone saw me. I dressed quickly in the darkest trousers and shirt to obscure me in the shadows. Then took the back stairs and was out in the night in moments, without any eyes on me that I’d sensed.
And when I found Kham, he stood alongside the tree where I’d stashed my leathers, and his harness.
‘Let’s fly.’
I still didn’t question.
I changed, and we spent an hour in the night, alone, breathing, reaching for our mates, and holding each other’s hearts.
And when he landed, I was so exhausted, I almost tumbled out of my seat. But instead, once I’d pulled the harness free, he rumbled again, then curled himself up under the branches of a huge cedar.
I didn’t even pretend to protest. The moment he found his comfortable spot, I crawled over his leg and let my body slip into the hollow between his belly, and his foreleg, where I was held, half-reclined, and warmed by the wing he extended over me.
And I finally, blessedly, slept.