“There’s been no signs of life. They’re probably all dead. And if they aren’t, they soon will be. If you don’t find the papers soon, we’ll begin blasting. I can’t wait much longer. I’ll have to take my chances that the papers won’t be destroyed in the process.”
“Blast through a mountain of solid granite? Do you know how long that will take?”
“Or the blasting might drive them out.”
Of course. He didn’t really believe they were dead.
“Paxton drew us maps,” he said. “He used to be a Ballenger, before his line of the family was thrown out on their ear. His great-grandfather told him about the layout of the vault. We’ve estimated that the shortest route to the grand hall should only take three or four days of blasting.”
Grand hall? There was no grand hall. The vault was not an underground palace! The rooms were roughly all the same size, one room connected to another, connected to another, plain and functional. Paxton was lying to them, and he had even drawn maps! Maybe that was the bug he planted in Banques’s ear—maps that would take them in all the wrong directions. I was beginning to love that man and every devious bone in his body.
I rolled up my trousers and went to join Montegue, but before I could step into the pink waters, he reached out, lightly brushing t
he bruise on my ankle with his thumb. “Tender?” he asked softly. Proving, courting, pretending he cared. I am not a monster. No doubt preparing to show me in greater depth just how kind he could be.
I winced. “A little.” The stain produced by an overnight poultice of fruit skins and flower petals made for a colorful and very painful-looking bruise. “But the soak should help. Thank you for being so thoughtful.”
“I want you healed and strong,” he said, his hand lingering on my ankle then sliding up my calf. “That’s what’s important. I noticed your limp was worse this morning.”
“It’s only stiff after a night of rest. I need to work it out. This will help.” The hot water might also make the stain disappear. A miraculous healing. I was sure even Montegue wouldn’t buy that. But he wasn’t likely to ever look at my ankle again after this moment. Soon, he wouldn’t care about my ankle at all.
I sat on the top step beside him, and he closed his eyes and breathed in the steam surrounding us—the strength of the gods. The veins in his neck were raised, and I wasn’t sure if it was from exhilaration or strain. I let out a pleased moan as if I was already feeling the curative action of the water. Twenty more minutes. And somewhere in that twenty, I had to kiss him one more time. Hold him.
“Did he make you promises?” he suddenly asked.
Promises? Surprise thumped in my chest. I couldn’t stay ahead of his thoughts. I didn’t have to ask who he was.
I shrugged, molding indifference across my lips. “If he did, I can’t remember.”
Montegue grabbed my upper arm, making me look at him. “Remember.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Truth. Jase promised me a lifetime with him. He promised a mountain full of trees and a family that would grow to love me again. He promised we would write our own story.
And I made promises too.
I stared at Montegue, letting his eyes look into my soul, command it, own it, get lost in it. Drown in the fantasy.
“On our return trip, he promised that I would grow to love him one day,” I said.
“And?” His eyes sank deeper into mine.
“He seemed so sure about everything. It made me wonder. Could I possibly grow to love a man I hated? I had been wrong about so many things. I had made so many mistakes.”
“But?”
An orange in the air.
“But some things are true. You feel them in your gut and can’t force them. You can’t—”
Another orange.
I reached out, my hands holding either side of his face. “Some things—”
He leaned forward and his mouth met mine, then he pushed me back so we lay on the floor of the pavilion. His kisses were heated, hungry. True. His fingers just as zealous, fumbling with my shirt.
My hands slid beneath his vest, across his chest, searching, hungry too. His weight pressed down on me, pinning me beneath him.