Chapter 7
For twenty-two years, sleep had been a boring part of my daily routine. A necessity. Sometimes, it was marked with the memory of the night my parents were killed, but even that dream had repeated itself enough times to be inconsequential.
Now, sleep was no longer forgettable. Some slumbers had been spent with Harthon wrapped around me. Some had ended with me in the clutches of a newfound threat. One even resulted in me almost launching myself out of a tower window.
And others, like this one, were a desperately welcome reprieve from the pain and stress and exhaustion that awaited me on the other side of consciousness.
So even when I became aware of the blankets draped across my body, the smell of slow-burning wood, and the masculine, earthy scent surrounding me, I wished sleep would pull me back under.
When I registered the throbbing pain in my forearm, side, and thigh, I only wished for more darkness.
And when I heard Felda’s voice say, “She’s coming to,” I yearned for someone to just whack me in the head and knock me out.
The last thing I wanted was to deal with the old chambermaid’s surly attitude.
She didn’t care what I wanted, because she clucked and said, “Don’t go falling back asleep. Took you long enough to wake up.” A cold hand slid beneath my neck and lifted. “Drink.”
A hard rim was pressed to my mouth, and I had no choice but to obey. Warm, salty broth slid down my throat. I opened my eyes to see Felda’s age-wrinkled face and perpetual scowl above me.
Great.
Her frown eased. “There she is.” I must have still been recovering from blood loss, because she almost sounded relieved.
She shoved the bowl at my lips again, and when I finished and was set back on the pillow, I took in my surroundings. This was not my room. The tan and gray walls were the same, as was the painted ceiling, but the drapes surrounding this bed were dark. Mine were gauzy and white.
“You’re in Harthon’s room,” Ana’s voice informed me.
I slowly rotated my head to see her perched on the edge of the bed.
Her pretty face was pinched in worry. “I know, it’s disorienting when you first wake up.
And before you ask, the boy is fine. Stefano is recovering from his injuries, but he’ll be okay in a week or two. All of your attackers are dead.”
As relief set in, I processed the first part of what she’d said.
Harthon had brought me to his room.
To his bed.
The last—and only—time I’d been in here was when I discovered the spiraled scar marking one cheek of his well-formed ass.
The same scar that marked the man who’d murdered my parents while I hid in a chest as a young girl.
The discovery had come just hours after he’d kissed and touched me in my own bed.
I didn’t want to be here.
But his scent was everywhere, and it…it felt like safety.
I shifted, needing to move. Pain burst.
“I wouldn’t advise moving,” Ana warned.
Ignoring her, I tried to sit before giving up and collapsing against the headboard. “How bad is it?” I asked, shocked at the hoarseness of my voice.
“You’re okay now, but those wounds were serious enough to kill you. You rested for well over a day. You should stay in bed for at least another.”
I glanced down. A heavy blanket had fallen to my waist, revealing an oversized tunic draped around me. Bulky bandages on my forearm and side formed uneven lumps beneath the loose fabric. With a subtle shift of my legs—one that sent searing heat through my thigh—I realized I wore nothing else.
“Whose tunic?”
The side of her lips hitched just so. “The same person who owns this room. Well, all the rooms, technically.”
I was in Harthon’s bed, in his clothes. Again.
Wait a second. “Did he dress me?”
“I wasn’t here, but my guess is no. The healer and chambermaid were responsible for your immediate care.
” The chambermaid being Felda, who’d apparently left the room in the last minute.
Ana cocked her head, a small smile playing on her lips.
“Harthon didn’t leave this room for a long time, but he isn’t the type to look or act without permission unless completely necessary. ”
“He made it clear that I’m a prisoner again. Prisoners don’t give permission.”
She gave me a droll look. “We both know that, regardless of what he said, you’re anything but a prisoner. Especially to him.”
I stared at her, silent. He’d called me carella again. And he’d lingered in this room. But why would she, of all people, imply something like this?
Confused, I said, “He thinks I betrayed him by going to Koerlyn. He doesn’t trust me. Hence, prisoner.”
“It broke some of his trust, yes,” she confirmed.
“But more than anything in this world, Harthon wants to protect those he cares about. You robbed him of that opportunity, and while the big, bad Princeps Harthon will never admit it, you scared him. It’s an emotion he’s not accustomed to.
And like any bullheaded man, he doesn’t cope with it well. ”
“He was scared because without me, he can’t enter the Domus.” The statement was habit at this point.
Emerald eyes scanned my face. “Tell yourself whatever you want.”
An unexpected snap of frustration surged, and I said something entirely stupid. “Koerlyn told me about you and him—how he refused you. A man like Harthon isn’t capable of feeling anything significant. You of all people should know that.”
Ana’s eyes widened, her lips forming an “o.” With my revelation hanging between us, regret swept in. She was here as a friend, to comfort me, and I’d dredged up a painful part of her past while lying here in his clothes in his bed.
She may not be outwardly jealous, but skies, she could still love him right now.
I was an idiot.
She quietly said, “I knew there was something else you’d learned in Koerlyn’s Territory.”
“It…it doesn’t—” matter. It was just a weapon Koerlyn used against me. It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything.
But the words never made it out because the door opened, and the man who owned this room—or, all the rooms—dominated the entrance, leathers and a black tunic wrapped around his solid body.
We both stared at him silently.
He locked onto me. “I was told you were awake.”
The resonant sound of his voice reminded me of the things he’d said before, his murmured reassurances as he’d ended my fight, his carella.
Incapable of words, I just nodded.
He stepped inside the room, eyes never leaving mine as he made his way to the bed.
“Well,” Ana patted her thighs, “I’ll leave you to it.” The bed shifted as she stood.
Finally, his attention moved to her. “Thank you for being here.”
With a soft smile, she touched his shoulder. Then she left, closing the door and leaving me wondering if she thought less of me for what I said. If she would stop coming by just to chat.
I didn’t realize I cared until that very moment.
Standing tall beside the bed, Harthon’s focus returned to me. I doubted he’d slept since yesterday, but only because he would be investigating the attackers. There was no droop to his shoulders, no signs of weakness on his hardened face. Per usual.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Alive.”
His brows furrowed. “I need more detail.”
How did I feel?
Exhausted. Confused. In pain. Frustrated by what I said to Ana.
Worried for Merelda, who I wished was here to comfort me.
Heartache for every life that’d been slayed before me, because of me.
Overwhelmed because I had no agency over myself—had been jerked around and forced to deal with the actions and whims of others ever since this all started—
Thoughts and emotions I’d been careful not to closely examine piled on one another, weeks of stress and anxiety suddenly compounding.
His demand for more detail had opened the lid to a deliberately sealed box that now wouldn’t close.
As I looked at Harthon, standing above the bed in all his confident power, I refused to let any of those thoughts and emotions escape.
“How did they get in?” I asked, needing to distract myself from the chaos mounting in my mind.
Well aware I hadn’t answered his question, his dark gaze roamed over my face. “Someone with authority—a lot of it—brought them into the Citadel. We’re still determining who.”
First Jac, and now another betrayer?
This wasn’t good. Harthon knew it. Each event was a slip of his tight control.
“They weren’t sent by Koerlyn. He would’ve wanted to capture me, not kill me,” I deduced. Harthon didn’t correct me. “How did they make it through the kitchen? And what about the guard who was supposed to be on the wall walk?”
He paused, considering something. “They eliminated anyone they needed to.”
Dead.
The kitchen staff were dead. The guard on the wall walk was dead.
That was what he meant.
I shouldn’t have asked, because now all those roiling emotions became a roar, an inescapable mountain of anxiety and distress, punchy and breath-stealing.
More lives lost because of me.
All at once, that mountain erupted. My throat spasmed, an unstoppable rush of tears flooding my eyes.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
But I couldn’t stop it. The dam had been breached. Every ugly emotion from the last few weeks was pushing against my eyes, my throat, not caring that Harthon stood before me, not caring that every muscle I tensed sent more physical pain through me.
“Don’t cry,” Harthon commanded, like he had the power to stop this.
A sob escaped. Then another.
And then I was lost.
I buried my face in my hands as weeks of unshed tears streamed from my eyes. I turned away from him, not wanting him to see. Humiliation added its name to the heap of volatile emotions, and then I was crying harder, my hiccups and sniffles and sobs resoundingly loud in the silence. Shit.
The bed dipped by my feet. Then by my knees and torso. Then Harthon was beside me on the bed.
The opposite of leaving.