Zander half turns, his gaze on my bare legs. “And what is it you want to do?”
My instinct is always to protect my underbelly, but I’ve been vulnerable with Zander since the beginning. “I need Gesine to teach me all she knows about affinities before she can’t. And I need Elisaf to be the loyal friend by my side he’s always been. I need Abarrane to show me how to save myself with a knife when it’s the only way. If she doesn’t kill me with it first.”
Zander snorts.
“I need people like Eden and Pan to remind me why I shouldn’t run. Why I should stay and help you.” What I would’ve faced had I been born in this world.
He swallows. “What do you need from me?”
Everything.“I need you to remember that I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t ask to be a puppet or to curse you. I don’t want you to feel trapped by your feelings for me. It’s the last thing I would ever want. And I didn’t ask for you to give up your throne.”
“You would be dead if I had not.”
“Then maybe I’m supposed to be dead, prophecy or not. Wouldn’t it have solved all your problems?”
He shakes his head. “You do not want that.”
“No, what I didn’t want is to have fallen in love with you.” It feels like I’m confessing, only instead of my sins, it’s my weaknesses. “You asked me if I regretted it—I don’t. But I also haven’t made a smart decision since.” And if I stay in this little stone hut, wrapped in a towel and professing my feelings to a man who has made it clear he doesn’t want them, I’m sure my streak will continue.
I rush to collect my clothes, hugging them to my chest. I’ll have to dress in my tent. “Enjoy the bath. The water will be cleaner than nothing.”
I’ve reached the door when Zander is suddenly there, his hand flat against its surface, barricading me in. “I can feel what you are feeling. You know this by now.” He moves in behind me, his looming body pressed against my back.
I inhale his scent—that intoxicating, sweet, woodsy fragrance. “Good. I hope it hurts.”
“Every day.” The rawness in his voice tugs at my heartstrings. He sighs, his breath skating across my bare shoulder. He’s leaning close. “You were testing me tonight. Is it to see if I still desire you, or to watch me break?”
“Both,” I admit, realizing the latter is true. I did want him to respond. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? What we had is over, just like you said.”
His deep, derisive chuckle fills the tiny room. “I promise you, those were just words, meant to convince myself as much as you.” With a hand on my shoulder, he gently guides me around to face him.
“Words can be more effective than any one of those.” I nod to the heap of weapons he left on the floor. “More harmful.”
“In this case, they were entirely useless. These are still damp.” He collects my bundle of clothes from my grasp and tosses them near the fire, leaving me huddled in my towel. He falters over his next words, shaking his head as if unsure how to say what he wants or unsure whether he should say anything. “Gesine says my feelings for you are now my own, the veil pulled back, Aoife’s influence ineffectual. But after today, after what happened tonight”—he slides his index finger over the faint scar along my collarbone, still visible but far less than a usual merth wound—“I do not see myself as having a choice.”
“Choice about what? What are you trying to tell me?”
That same finger slips beneath my chin, lifting it until I’ve met his eyes. They roam over my features as if drinking them in. “That I am still very much in love with you, despite my best efforts not to be, despite all I’ve said and done.”
My heart thrums in my chest. “You don’t act like it.”
He leans in, pressing his forehead to mine, his slender nose grazing my cheek. “Because I do not know how to love you and be a good king to my people, and that is a relentless war I have been fighting daily, without ever touching a sword.” His voice bleeds with the turmoil of his words. “But I realize now that I will never be him if it means losing you.”
His blunt admission stalls my tongue. I’m a nuclear bomb, primed to wreak havoc in the wrong hands. Maybe Atticus is making the right decision for Islor. Maybe my death would solve all their problems.
And then what? Would they squash this threat of poison and go back to the way things were, enslaving the mortals and living in wealth? No, that doesn’t seem to be the solution either. I don’t know what is, but that’s a problem for another day.
“Then love me tonight and be the king you need to be tomorrow.”
He leans in to brush his tongue against the seam of my lips, drawing my deep moan. Suddenly, my towel is gone, tugged off and cast aside by his eager hands. With firm fingers gripping my hips, he steers me into the middle of the room and down to the pile of animal skins.
The flames in the hearth blaze by his silent command, warming my body as I lie on my back and watch him undress. He tosses his shirt dangerously close to a burning candle before kicking off his boots and unfastening his pants.
It feels like an eternity since I’ve been able to admire his naked form. Now I take all of him in as he drops to his knees in front of me, parting my legs to fit his muscular body between them.
“Which shoulder is sore? Is it this one?” He leans in to trace my skin with his mouth, his tongue, while his hand busies itself in one fell swoop, memorizing the shape of my breasts, smoothing over the tautness of my belly, testing my readiness at the apex of my thighs.
“Neither.” Because right now, I don’t feel anything except this overwhelming need for Zander to fill me again. On other nights, I’ve happily laid back and allowed him his exploration, but tonight, I grip the back of his golden-brown hair with my fist, dragging his face to mine so I can feel the intimacy of his lips. With my other hand, I reach down between us, wrapping my hand around his hard length, directing it.