Instead, as friends. As partners.
He wished us to love our family and support each other through whatever befell us.
Through this, however, I would never belong to him. With my mother gone, I would never belong to anyone.
But in thinking on it, I decided this wouldn’t be so bad.
It could be worse.
And I knew one thing, if True could, he’d always try to make it better.
It just would never be…everything.
“Farah?” True called as if he knew the turn of my thoughts.
“I’ll wake you if I can’t sleep, True.”
“All right, love,” he murmured, rounding me with both arms and holding me to his body.
True did not fall asleep quickly.
I did not either.
But he fell asleep.
And when he did, his presence, his warmth, the steadiness of his breath…
Meant I did too.
King Aramus
Guest Suite, Second Floor, East Corridor, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
Aramus approached the bed his wife lay in, her back to his side of the mattress, the lamp at her nightstand blown out.
He did not sigh with discouragement.
He also did not hesitate.
He blew out his lamp and slid in beside his wife.
He then turned to his side and slid toward his wife, for the first time touching her in their bed by taking her in his arms. He then forced her rigid body into the curve of his.
“I was upset earlier,” he said into her curls when he settled with his arm holding her close.
She made no reply.
“I spoke in hurt and anger,” he admitted.
Ha-Lah said nothing.
“I said things, many of them I regret,” he told her.
His queen remained silent.
“Deeply,” he stressed.
She still had nothing to say.
“And the things I regret, deeply, are the things I said that hurt you.”
She still had no reply.
He pressed closer to her. “Wife, speak to me. Shout at me. Curse at me. Scratch at my eyes. Something.”
There was nothing but a stiff form in his arm, and in his nose, the scent of the oil in her hair.
“We began to bridge the chasm separating us,” he murmured. “Do not let pride force it to spread between us again.”
“I was taken from my home,” she said softly.
Thank Medusa.
She was speaking.
She’d said not a word to him since that morning.
Aramus pushed ever closer to her, at the same time pulling her closer to him.
“I was taken from my family, my friends, my village, all that I knew,” she continued.
And now, if her tone was aught to go by, he was learning how she felt about that.
Not the optimal time, considering. Especially with the words she was saying and how she was saying them.
But he would be glad to know it.
“My wife,” he whispered.
“I was not asked if this was something I wished. I was given no choice. I was then wed to a man. A king. The ultimate power in our realm. I was made queen. But I held no power. I had no voice.”
It was Aramus who was quiet then.
“But even without it, I used it,” she carried on. “I used my voice. I told you my thoughts. I told you what was important to me. You did not listen.”
“Ha-Lah—”
“You railed at me and left me to sleep alone on my wedding night. I should not have minded. It was not my choice to be in that marital chamber. But it was the only wedding night I would have. And I slept alone.”
“My wife—”
“Though, once you’re rid of me, if you allow me to take another husband, I suppose I’ll have another wedding night.”
“Do not speak thus,” he growled.
She fell silent.
“I lashed out. I regret it. I admitted that. And now you do have a choice,” he informed her. “It is your choice if we again grow apart or if we move on together. But I warn you, don’t allow your pride to make that decision.”
“But don’t you see?” she asked. “I have nothing. Pride, as empty as it is, is the only thing I possess.”
Aramus growled again, this time with no words, as he stared through the dark at her curls on the pillow.
“I would thank you not to touch me,” she declared.
“I would get used to me touching you, wife,” he ground out. “For I will use touch, and any other manner at my disposal to win you again.”
“Against my will?”
“It will not be against your will. You cannot be falling in love with a man of a morning and in that same morning stop doing this very thing.”
“Yes, Aramus,” she said quietly. “Yes, you can.”
By Triton, she was right.
He’d made that so.
He could not go back there, to that morn, remember the words that came out of his mouth, the words that came from hers telling him he’d been earning her love, but he had put an end to that.
And he could not bear to remember the look on her face.
Instead, he did what he’d desired to do time and again since the first time he laid eyes on her.
He buried his face in her abundance of soft curls.
“I will miss my man,” he told her.
“And I feel badly for you.”
“Do not make me lose a man and my wife on the same day.”
“It was not your doing, the loss of Catedrais. The other…”
She did not finish her statement.
It was still clear.
“I can only share my regret, what else would you have of me?” he asked.
“This is our problem.”
He slid his head back to listen, closely, but she did not go on.
“What is our problem?” he prompted.
“Words, they have awesome power. Awesome power to wound. However, sadly, once that is done, they lose their power if you attempt to use them to heal.”
Aramus wished this wasn’t true, but he feared it was.
His wife was not finished speaking.
“It is worse. Worse for us. For you don’t understand. It’s impossible for you to understand. To understand who I am and how I am and what means something to me and why. To understand what has made me and how. To understand how your words would so thoroughly kill what was budding between us.”
“Make me understand.”
“It’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible, Ha-Lah.”
Suddenly, she whispered, “I need the sea.”
“We will leave tomorrow. We will take the fastest route. We will wade in the shores. You will swim with the dolphins. We will meet the others later or not at all. They can battle this Beast. We will return to Mar-el and reign side by side.”
She shook her head on her pillow.
“Please, talk to me, my Ha-Lah,” he pleaded.
“My father grieves my mother still,” she said.
“You’ve shared this with me,” Aramus replied.
“Every man in the village wanted her as his wife. Wanted to put babies in her belly. Wanted to live his life at her side.”
Aramus remained quiet and listened.
“My auntie, she said all the women thought it was because she was so beautiful. ‘But really,’ she told me, ‘she was. Though it was a beauty you could not see.’”
“So she was kind,” Aramus guessed.
“And lively. And amusing,” Ha-Lah added.
“She has given you this.”
Her head moved on the pillow again, negatively. “No. My father says I’m too serious. He says if I were a man, I’d take up a sword and be a crusader. It wouldn’t matter what cause. I just need a crusade.”
From what Aramus knew of his wife, he could not dispute this.
“He won her,” she said so low, Aramus barely heard
her.
“He won her?” he asked to make certain that was what she said.
“Auntie Ha-Zahlah told me that if Momma told my father, to win her heart, he had to travel into the night sky and bring back a star, he would have found a way. And somehow, he found his way to prove this to her.”
It was at that, Aramus’s body went solid.
“He grieves her still,” she whispered.
“I will bring you a star,” he whispered back.
“You do not wish to win me, Aramus. You want a queen. A wife to give you sons. And the partner who will help all defeat the Beast. You regret your words because it takes you further from these goals. You do not regret your words because they harmed me.”
“You are very wrong,” he stated firmly.
She sighed. “You will never understand.”
“You’re correct,” he agreed, and finished, “if you don’t explain it to me.”
“There will never be a time when you don’t have power. I was not free to leave my rooms today, because you bid it.”
“For your safety.”
“I was not free to see to my husband because you did not wish it.”
“And I regret that.”
“I am not free.”
Aramus’s entire frame jerked.
“No. You will never understand,” she declared.
“And do you wish for me to set you free, wife?” he asked cautiously, disturbingly, for if she wished that, and to win her, he’d need to give her that, how would he keep her safe as she made her way back to him?
For he couldn’t think of an option that did not include him again going about earning her love.
She had to come back to him, for she was earning his.
“I would wish that would be the last thing on your mind, especially if you’re hurting.”
She’d wanted to comfort him.
She had been comforting him.
Since the attack was over, she had not left his side.
He was such a bloody fool.
“Ha-Lah,” he murmured, again burying his face into her hair.
“I was torn from my home to be your queen. I did not make you earn anything from me. I wanted nothing but your respect. And then you disrespected me. And I cannot say, in your anger, no matter the regret you feel now, that the words you spoke, you did not speak true, from the heart, what you are feeling. Now, here we are. And here I’m afraid is where we will stay.”
“Because you cannot forgive me.”
“Because I have no worth to you.”
“You cannot possibly think that’s true.”
“He will not be burdened with a queen the likes of you,” she quoted, and he ground his teeth at hearing the words that had come out of his own mouth. “I cannot possibly think it is not.”
They were getting nowhere.
“Perhaps we should talk about this in the morning,” he suggested.
“As you wish,” she replied.
He didn’t like the way she said that, but he’d learned, not easily, to keep his mouth shut in matters such as that. At least until he’d found the right words to say.
She lay in the curve of his arm, no less tense, but he did not leave her be.
She was his wife.
He was her husband.
They would disagree. They would fight. They might even wound each other (again).
But from then on, at the end of the night, they would fall asleep in each other’s arms.
Or, in this case, she would fall asleep in his.
“It is odd, do you not think, that this destiny before us would bring me a crusader?” he asked.
“I do not wish to prolong our discussion, but I feel I must warn you that flattery isn’t effective with me.”
“I am not flattering you, my queen. I’m pondering. I’m sure another man would very much wish to have a beautiful, kind, lively, amusing wife. But I need a warrior. I need a wife who would stand strong and refuse to admit defeat. Even if she’s defending herself.”
That made her entire frame jerk.
Finally, he was getting somewhere.
“I regret what I said,” he carried on. “I am not a man of words. I am a man of deeds. So I do not have the skill to express how deeply I regret wounding you. But I did not speak true, Ha-Lah. Mar-el got the queen it needed. Triton did. This planet did. And I did. And if you do not believe that to be in my heart, I will simply have to prove it to you.”
“May I sleep, my king?” she asked.
“As you wish,” he answered.
At that, he felt her body twitch.
Then she sighed.
He did not smile even if he felt his point had been made and he had eventually found a way to heal some of the damage he’d inflicted on his wife.
Or at least give her something to think about.
But Catedrais was dead.
The palace had been besieged last night.
A plot to assassinate Farah, and thus foil the prophecy, killed Sofia. And this came from magic.
Not to mention, the quake they’d experienced was by far the worst and he did not like to think not only what that meant, but what kind of tidal that forced on his realm.
And his wife was more distant to him than she’d ever been.
Therefore, there was naught to smile about.
But they would leave tomorrow.
They would ride like there was a siren on their heels.
And he would take his wife to the sea.
They would meet the others in Wodell.
Now, he had to see to his queen.
Princess Elena
Guest Suite, Second Floor, East Corridor, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
I blew out the lamps in my dressing room after I’d changed into my nightgown.
As I wandered into the bathing area on my way to bed, I wished Dora was with me.
Or I was with Dora.
It wasn’t safe in the palace, so she was with my sisters at the camp.
But Mother had decreed I stay close, stating this was due to needing as many warriors in the palace as possible to keep all safe.
But I knew it was more.
She wanted her daughters close.
As I wanted Dora close, I understood this.
And as I saw that day that the events of last night, and the busyness of the day, had had a significant effect on my queen, making her look more drawn, lines beginning to form around her mouth due to the constant tightness that I imagined was her fighting pain, I wanted to be close to my mother.
These thoughts heavy on my mind, as well as what had happened with Cassius that morning, and how, even if I was very right, I had gone about communicating that very wrongly, I entered my bedchamber.
And stopped short.
Cassius was standing by a divan in the corner, shedding his leather shirt.
“What—?” I began.
His head turned to me. “Which side of the bed do you sleep on?”
My mind as frozen as my body at his presence in my chamber, automatically, I replied, “The middle.”
“Bloody perfect,” he muttered, turning and sitting, shirtless, on the divan in order to take off his boots.
His tattoos spanned his side, shoulder and most of his arm.
They were, as ever, fascinating.
I shook myself free of my fascination and took two steps deeper into the room.
“Cassius, what are doing here?” I demanded to know.
“We sleep together,” he declared, having taken off one boot, he was pulling off the other.
But again, I was frozen.
“We do?” I asked through stiff lips.
“Villains attacked the palace last night, Elena.”
“I do remember this.”
“Farah was targeted, Sofia lost.”
“I haven’t forgotten this either.”
His boots and socks gone, he stood and put his hands to the buttons of his trousers, his eyes on me.
“I
’m not taking any chances.”
“So you intend to…to…sleep with me?” I asked, the end of that statement going up in pitch drattedly high.
“In terms of sleeping, as in actual slumber, yes. I’m fatigued, and as things have been going, tomorrow will likely not be less beset than today.” His gaze grew intense on me. “However, if you have something else in mind, I have no doubt I’ll be able to rally.”
I could not even begin to think of that something else that might be on my mind (and was, altogether too often).
“I don’t wish you to sleep with me, Cassius.”
“I don’t very much care, Elena,” he muttered, unbuttoning his leather pants.
“I don’t need you to sleep with me, Cassius,” I carried on, beginning to feel not a small amount of desperation, not to mention something else.
What did he have under those trousers?
I wished to see.
Anxiously.
And I very much did not.
Determinedly.
“I can take care of myself,” I finished.
“Well, you won’t need to, as I’ll be here to help you with that,” he retorted.
“Cassius!” I snapped.
He started to pull down his trousers.
I averted my gaze so strongly, my entire torso jerked to the side in the effort to do it.
“I sleep in the nude,” he announced.
Oh, by the mercy of the goddess.
“Cassius, you need to leave,” I told the wall.
I watched the lamplight dim as he blew one out somewhere in the room.
He was walking naked around my bedchamber!
“Cassius—”
“Elena, you can stand there all night for all I care. But I’m going to bed.”
He spoke truth for I heard bedclothes rustle.
Damn the man.
I could not bodily remove him.
Well, maybe I could.
I’d attacked in anger that morning (Melisse would be very cross with me if she knew), and thus had been bested humiliatingly quickly. If I gave it a moment’s thought, considered my strategy, I might prevail.
However, I was not keen to physically struggle with a naked man.
A large naked man.
A large naked man with fascinating tattoos.
A large naked man with fascinating tattoos who was Prince Regent of Airen, my betrothed.
Bloody hell.
I stomped to two lit lamps and blew them out before, not looking at the man in my bed, I tramped there.
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