by Angel Payne
Ugh. The sling was going to be a necessity. Gee, the wedding photos were going to be lovely…not.
Cam stepped over, pouring the water then pressing it into my right hand. “There’s a bright side here, you know. You’re going to be the darling of the kingdom, then the world, with that cut little hole in your arm.”
“Be careful what you’re labeling ‘cute’ and ‘little’.”
“I can see the blog headlines already,” she went right on. “‘The queen who saved a queen’.”
I rolled my eyes while swallowing the water. “You mean the girl so scared, she shook like a Chihuahua?”
She indulged me with another laugh. “Don’t forget the best part. This will be one hell of a way to tell the world your family’s still alive. Oh come on, Brooke.” She responded to my shiver, grabbing my good hand and squeezing. “Kavill and his smarm boys won’t dare take you out now. It’ll defeat their purpose of being adored. In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve had PR and recruitment problems lately.”
I nodded, as much for me as her. “I’ve heard. Something about a bombing attempt on the World Cup games?”
“Doesn’t matter now. They’re fleas, and they’re about to get the blood crushed out of them.” An eager grin flowed from her. “And as soon as we straighten out this bullshit with the Pura, then Ev and I return from the dead, you and Syn can get a nice, quiet annulment. Then you’ll finally get to go home. In just a few months, you’ll be watching the fall colors in Vermont and—Brooke? Brooke?”
I didn’t blame her for turning the infomercial excitement into a cry of alarm. I would’ve done the same, had she done what I did. But I could no more stop the tears than understand them—
Until words tumbled, just as uncontrollable, off my lips.
“But I am home.”
The dam in my composure, cracked before, burst open. Emotions poured out like jetsam in a flood, twisted and bizarre, defying recognition. They burst up, hot and cold at once, making even my body feel like a foreign object.
No. This wasn’t a flood. It was a hurricane, picking up chunks of me and moving them into separate places…
Becoming a physical force.
I surged off the bed. Twisted free from Camellia. For a moment, dashed a gaze out to the balcony. We were on the second floor. Could I jump and survive? Did it matter if I did?
“Fuck,” I rasped. Of course it mattered. I mattered. I didn’t want to die. I really wanted to live. I just wanted to do it here, in Arcadia. Preferably in one emotional piece.
And wasn’t that fate’s lovely little ambush?
I’d found the land of my heart…but would never live in it with the man of my heart.
Which meant my week of suckage had just turned into months of suckage.
No.
I hadn’t agreed to this stunt for my heart. I’d agreed to it for Arcadia.
And for Arcadia, I’d carry it through.
There’d just have to be some ground rules.
Syn and I were strong people. We’d honed our bodies for fighting and our spirits for battle. Surely we could handle a few guidelines for a sham marriage.
Or so I tried to tell myself, when the door opened again—and the air was sucked from the room courtesy of the man filling the portal.
My husband-to-be.
Chapter Twenty
‡
“I THINK…JAGGER needs me downstairs.”
Camellia’s claim was as sound as her hurried breath, and we all knew it—until Jag really did shout for her. That fucking man and his timing.
As Cam departed, Syn stepped further in. By equal steps, I scooted back. “Sorry,” I blurted. “Guess I’m just…”
Nervous?
It sounded just as stupid on the inside. I’d never been nervous in front of Samsyn since the night we’d met. Correction. Never about him. He was shelter. Haven. Home.
Not anymore.
Not if I wanted to leave this marriage with my sanity.
His jaw clenched. I could see every formidable inch now, since he’d recently shaved. A hint of his aftershave, spicy and woodsy, tickled my nose. His hair was clean and glossy, meticulously combed and clubbed at his nape with a white satin ribbon. He already looked like the world’s most perfect groom, though he still wore just a tight white T-shirt and nicely fitted blue jeans. I fingered my wet hair, still not even combed, and tucked my injured arm closer to my body.
“I…brought your medication.” He lifted both hands, drawing my attention to the glass of water in one and the pair of pills in another.
“Thanks.”
I downed the medicine in lieu of laughing again. We were like a pair of kids who’d never kissed, let alone—well, every illicit thing we’d already done.
“Well.” He jabbed his hands into his front pockets. “At least one of us can get through this numbed up.”
That took care of the laughing thing. Now I just had to resist throwing the water in his face. “You want to be on pain killers, too? I’d be extremely happy to break something for you.”
His head snapped up. His eyes blazed blue lightning. “Creator’s balls, Brooke. I was only—”
“Trying to be charming about stating just how shit-tastic this all is for you. I get it, Syn. I get it, okay? You’d rather be getting your appendix yanked, without anesthesia, than preparing for your fucking wedding. Wasn’t the way I planned on the day going, either.”
“Brooke—”
“But this is for the country. Our country. And it’s not forever. Get that into your thick skull, okay? Just show up and mumble the words. You don’t have to mean them. Close your eyes, if that’ll be easier. I won’t mind.”
“Brooke—”
“And when we get to Sancti,”—I didn’t dare stop until I was absolutely done, too damn scared of what he’d snarl in return—“we can make logistical arrangements for separate housing. It’s a big palais. I can find someplace decent to crash. Jayd’s level probably has a spare room. She and I can make it a sleepover every night. Fiddle Doodles, sugared soda, makeovers—”
I was on such a roll, there was zilch prep time for his ninja sweep, grabbing me by the waist. Or the possession of his hand at the back of my head. Or the hot sweep of his mouth, consuming as a burst of summer sun, melting me just as fast. My body was a puddle—including my good hand, wrapped around the water glass. It tipped, soaking both our stomachs, before falling to the carpet with a hard pong. Like I noticed. With my tongue twirled with his and my body wrapped in his arms, a tsunami could’ve crashed in and I wouldn’t have cared.
But I needed to care.
Needed to be pushing him away, drawing an invisible don’t cross line between us, and get down to ticking off the guidelines…
The guidelines…
Right. Those.
What were they again?
I’d remember in a second. It wouldn’t hurt to wait that long. It couldn’t. How could it, when it felt so…damn…good? His mouth, so purposeful and passionate. His body, so hard and huge. His groan, so guttural only I could hear it…
and feel it…
and know, all over again, that this man completed me as nobody else did…or ever would.
And that part, I refused to feel stupid for.
Back in the states, would’ve likely been torn apart for.
They’d tell me I had no idea what I was doing. That dedicating my heart to the man who’d also—gasp—taken my virginity was Chick Mistake Numero Uno. That I’d barely “discovered the world” yet. That I hadn’t “shopped around” or even experienced a decent social life.
I didn’t want a damn social life.
Arcadia had already given me a life. A purpose. An identity. A place where I belonged.
And the man I’d always be in love with.
Just one more moment.
I pleaded it to fate, and rejoiced as the bitch listened for once. With his deepest dragon’s growl, Syn pushed his tongue in deeper…molded our mouths yet tighter…and fi
tted the hardest part of his body to the moist cleft of mine. I held onto him with all my strength, every cell of my body opening to the hot fusion that was completely ours…the magic that was completely him.
Now just one moment more. Please…please…
With a jagged huff, he finally tore away. To my ecstasy, he didn’t go far. But to my fear, still stared as if I were his most dreaded poison…and then its antidote.
What the hell?
And would there ever be a time when he didn’t have me in this whiplash?
And would I ever want there to be?
“Astremé?”
His breath was a rickety tangle with mine. I greedily inhaled, accepting every molecule of life, heat, and desperation I could get. “Yeah?”
He dropped his forehead to mine. Kept me locked there, spreading his fingers against my scalp. “Are you…really sure about this?”
“Are you?”
He drew in a long breath. “You know I am. But you also know…my parameters.”
The corners of his eyes tightened. The heat inside them again battled the frost. The captain of the ship was now helpless in the storm, and had no idea what to do. I held on tight as he struggled to grab the wheel, in any way he possibly could.
“I shall stand with you today. And I will give you a ring. And I will give you my home. And I sure as hell want to give you my body. But…I cannot give you my heart.”
I squeezed my fingertips into his nape. “I know, Syn. And it’s okay.”
His tension didn’t change. “You need to mean that. After what you said this morning—”
“Right after you fried every circuit on my motherboard with that orgasm?” I pushed back by a resolute step. “Like I said this morning, that’s water under the bridge, big guy.” I cocked my head, animated by the fresh rush of pain killers. “I can keep the shit in check if you can.”
To my slight surprise and huge relief, a laugh tumbled off his sexy lips. Dysfunctional? Probably. But laughter made it easier to hide my feelings in plain sight: the ordeal I was about to sign up for, for months on end.
But after we’d dealt with the radicals and all was well in Arcadia once more, I’d be done with the crucible of Samsyn Cimarron at last. I’d say goodbye to Mom, Dad, and Dil, promising to visit them in the states from time to time, and settle in for a long, peaceful life in the Tahreuse Mountains. Maybe I’d help Jagger run the Center, or open up a wing just for training young girls. Hell, maybe I’d run for Mayor of Tahreuse—but only if I could remodel the Residence Rigale. And swear never to look at the rotunda on the ninth level again.
No. I’d have to deal. Be bigger than that. Stronger. Better. Staying in Arcadia meant I’d face reminders of Samsyn every single day. Maybe that was even why I wanted to remain.
Therapy topic for a much different day.
Especially when the man of my dreams still grinned at me like a giant version of Dopey the Dwarf. Then tugged at my good hand, pulling me close to him once again, and dropped an affectionate kiss to the top of my head.
“The shit…is in check.”
His formality atop my slang had never sounded more adorable. I rewarded him with a giggle, tucking my head against his chest. Syn expelled a long breath into my hair, letting it fade into a shared moment of silence. A peace not likely to be ours again for a while.
“Astremé?”
“Hmmm?”
“I am glad Evrest suggested you.”
My heart rushed my ribs. My stomach rocket-jumped, joining the mess. I shooed them all away to embrace the most important thing: the glow of gratitude for this man, about to take one of the scariest jumps of his life—and trusting me to tumble along with him.
As I tightened my body to his, a set of words echoed in my head. Camellia’s, from two nights ago at the Tower party.
Sometimes, you’re already sharing the drop—and you just have to reach out to know it.
Was that the key to all this? Was I too worried about the blood and guts at the end of this plummet, to even see the beauty of the view, feel the thrill of the drop? Maybe I had to accept that the roller coaster was going to derail, and just embrace ride before then.
As the sanity platoon fumed in the back of my brain, I mentally ripped up the guidelines—and let them fly away. If Samsyn could laugh in the face of his terror, so could I.
I thought.
I hoped.
“I’m…glad he did too.” There. Not so hard. He’d reached out. I’d grabbed on. It felt kind of…cool. Mature. Grown-up.
Right up to the moment he dipped his head over, tilted my chin up—then kissed me so gently, he was seriously earning the noble prince chops. He took his time, practically fondling my lips with his, dipping their soft, sweet touch over every contour of mine…until I could bear the teasing no more. With a high-pitched sigh, I opened for him. With a greedy mewl, I reached my tongue out for his. With a slow snarl, he answered.
Time stopped. If any force on Earth could really make it so, I was certain we’d just found it. The air seemed to hold its breath around us. The universe halted, awed by the passion it beheld…by a connection that could only be called magic.
Long after our tongues dragged apart, Syn caressed his cheek against mine. I smiled, letting him infuse me with his scent, his touch, his heat. Our silence wasn’t so complete anymore, though. In the farthest reaches of my logic, there was a tumult. The sanity platoon returned, even more pissed. Are you fucking crazy? You ripped up the guidelines, and now this? Fine. Don’t come crying to have your heart glued back together in six months. We’ll still be chugging the we-told-you-so beers.
As Syn nipped his lips around the bottom of my ear, sending tingling rain through my whole body, I skywrote a message for the whole platoon across the horizon of my mind. F-U-C-K-O-F-F.
Aloud, I whispered, “Holy…shit…Syn…”
Samsyn chuckled, though quickly dipped it to a lusty growl. “I need to go, astremé. We both must get ready. But before I do…”
I wrapped my good arm to his neck, wrapped one leg around his waist, and rasped, “Yes?”
“There is something you need to know.”
“Yes?” I gave it a sleek and seductive hiss this time.
“I believe Jayd is already booked solid for sleep-overs.”
Mock gasp. “For months?”
“Well.” He bit harder into my ear. Soothed the pain with languorous licks. “She is confined to the Palais for the next decade.”
“Damn.” I longed to fist his hair so badly. The heat he’d incited in me, simply with his tongue and teeth…holy, ever-loving fuck… “Whatever shall I do now?”
He settled his mouth against my neck. “I think we can work something out…as long as you still bring the Fiddle Doodles.”
I snickered. “Do you even know what Fiddle Doodles are?”
“Does it involve you dressed in this shirt and nothing else?”
“Not…exactly.”
“Well then…fuck the Fiddle Doodles.”
*
I WAS DAMN glad he liked the shirt so much. The village’s general store was fully stockedwith fishing equipment and spring birdwatching books, but only restocked clothing items for, as they’d informed Jagger, “the major seasons”: winter and summer. He’d gotten lucky, they’d also said, finding what he did on the winter clearance shelf. As a result, I showed up to my wedding in a pair of long underwear decorated with pink flowers, some new socks, a pair of white ankle boots trimmed in silver fur, and a new sports bra underneath my groom’s long blue shirt.
Thanks to Camellia, it wasn’t a complete wash of an outfit. The little bouquet of wildflowers in my shaking grip was copied in a wreath atop my head, braided into little pieces of my hair, to which she’d attached a “veil” made out of a cut-up fruit net from the kitchen. Her ingenuity didn’t stop there. By pinning back the shirt, she created a bustle, accented with another flower arrangement at the small of my back. With the outfit itself halfway bridal, she then attacked my a
symmetrical hair and sun-starved skin. A can of hairspray from her purse helped with a few cute pin curls. The same magic bag gave up some mascara, blush, and a swipe of lip gloss.
When she was done, she took me in with teary eyes. They persisted even as she walked me to the castle’s back entrance, joining Evrest in hugging me. They couldn’t follow me any further, since they were publically dead as of an hour ago, but they could watch from the castle’s covered turret, four floors up, as I descended a flower-carpeted hill toward a dark wood gazebo beneath the trees. Inside the structure was the village’s spindly vicar, also retrieved during Jag’s shopping spree, waiting with Jagger and Grahm—
Next to the man too damn gorgeous for his own good.
Or mine.
“Shit.” It spilled out as soon as I saw him. For a second, I simply wondered if I was dreaming. Granted, none of my dreams had ever plunked him in a gazebo in the forest, but there had to be a few I didn’t remember. Fantasies too damn good for the light of consciousness—and too damn hot for my upright body to handle.
Unfair, was what it all was.
Unfair that even in ordinary gear of a white button-front shirt and black suit pants, the latter donned out of “mourning” for his brother, he looked everything but ordinary—especially when the wind plastered his shirt against that massive chest.
Unfair that I harbored such wicked thoughts about that chest, only to be thwarted by his dark angel’s face, set in somber lines.
Unfair that he could deepen my confusion by just standing there, so solid and magnificent and demigod-beautiful, making me forget which way was up—let alone something as silly as how to walk.
Somehow, I got it right.
Stepped closer to him.
Closer.
And soon, stood before him. Then let Grahm take my flowers so Syn could tuck his right hand beneath mine. Awkwardly—the sling made nothing easy, but at least the pain was bearable—I shifted my left hand into place, palm up against my right. Syn slid his right hand atop that.
Because of the sling, we stood close. Really close. I squirmed, unnerved. Fought to figure out why. Sheez, the man and I had been much “closer” than this—but suddenly, I felt thirteen again, forced to waltz with tall and perfect Paul Lincoln at the Premiere League cotillion. Only now, there was a hell of a lot more at risk than a punch-stained dress and the possibility of locking orthodontics with Paul later on.