“Hey, I’m sorry.” A hand was on his cheek. Her hand. Warm and callused, smelling the slightest bit like jasmine. She turned his face to hers, putting her other hand on his other cheek. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It’s just, not always easy.”
“I never said it was,” he replied unable to keep the frustration out of his tone. But it was ebbing away fast, especially with those large, dark eyes imploring his.
“I’ve been alone for a long time and even before that, letting anyone in wasn’t an option. It hurts to let people in, Roland. It hurts me, because if I confide it in another person, if I say it out loud, I finally admit to myself.”
“You don’t have to be alone anymore,” he told her, catching her hand in his and pressing a kiss to the palm.
Her eyes crinkled and it was so familiar, so lovely, he couldn’t help but tug her that final distance to him.
Their bodies collided like lightning crashes and he was intoxicated by the scent of her. His hands went to the throng in her hair and tugged her curls loose. Her fingers curled into the back of his neck, her lips seeking him out like an endless question. She pushed herself as close as physically possible, sucking in a breath as he wrapped an arm around her back and crushed her flat against him, lifting her off the ground.
He carried her to his room and only broke the kiss to gently lay her down on the bed so he could shrug off his shirt. She sat up, greedily watching him, eyes roving over the hard planes of his chest. She licked her lips and met his eyes, and he was back on her.
She peeled a laugh as he rolled her over, deftly removing her apprentice robes and then discarding the top layer of her dress, revealing the shift beneath. It pressed against her body, nearly see-through as her nipples pebbled.
He groaned and she laughed again, pulling him up to her mouth and tangling fingers in his hair. With a free hand, a sneaky, free hand, she skirted a dizzying trail down his chest, wrapping fingers around him and softly and oh-so-tortuously, dragging down the length of him.
“You demon,” he said hoarsely.
She merely smiled devilishly, pulling his lips back to hers, her hands picking up speed, tightening everything in Roland’s body; building a fiery inferno in every part of his body.
But it wasn’t about him.
Gently, he snared her busy hand and caught it alongside the other above her head. She mewled in annoyance, hips swiveling, chest heaving.
He pecked her on the lips, barely getting away with his life as her teeth tried to keep him there.
But Roland was a determined man, and he wasn’t to be deterred.
Kissing a path down her neck, he released her hands, hissing as they went to his hair once more—the woman was obsessed. He dragged his own palms down her sides, delighting in the way she shivered as she bucked.
He pinned her hips, pushing up the bottom of the shift, and found curls damp and waiting for him. Grinning, Roland looked up and met eyes of purest black, slitted in pleasure and dark, dark promise.
“Don’t you dare,” she warned huskily, throat clenching, eyes melting.
He smiled and blew a short, warm breath on her most sensitive place and had the delight of watching the entire sensation wracked her body.
Then, he put his mouth on her, and listened to her scream.
Chapter 19
She woke languid, sore, and blissful, as if she’d slept for a thousand years. Yawning, she stretched, the arms around her shifting slightly to accommodate the movement.
“Mmm, your bed is so much cozier,” she said, snuggling closer, putting her nose in the curve of his neck and feeling him chuckle.
“It’s bigger too,” he murmured.
“One day you’ll have to show me how much bigger.”
“Not today?”
“No, I have to leave soon,” she mumbled already drifting back into the sweet promise of sleep. “But I’ll come back first thing in the morning and you can show me and more.”
“What does more entail? We’ve got some time now.” He slid down, readjusting so when she opened her eyes, her head was pillowed on his bicep and he was gazing at her, though eyes so bright and so beautiful, surrounded by pale, long lashes.
“Gods, you’re pretty,” she told him groggily. “Please, tell me your secrets.”
“It’s funny, I was going to ask you the same question.”
Tiana snorted. “Idiot.” “I’ve been told a time or two.” “Just trying to keep you humble,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his bicep.
“And I greatly appreciate it. Now, back to this more you were speaking of, since it’s morning now, are we interested in the possibility of pursuing this?”
Tiana sat straight up and stared at him. “What did you say?”
He gave her a lopsided smile, propped up on his elbow. “You slept for eighteen hours—you sorely needed it. Although, when the pie came in, I was a little upset we didn’t get the chance to eat it. I didn’t want to move and—Tiana?” Tiana had launched herself off the bed swearing, making quick work of the window, throwing the shutters open so roughly they smacked against the wall. She choked on a glob of panic as she took in the blue sky and the lazy sun, the sounds of birds chirping and the drips of dew sitting on the ivy curled around the window.
Her knees felt wobbly with panic.
Oh gods. Her father was going to kill her. Better yet, he was going to kill Killian. He was going to come looking for Killian.
The exhaustion from last night had vanished and tears were no longer on the horizon but wild, animalistic panic. She had to plan. She had to figure out what to tell him. What lies to spin to him about why Killian wasn’t enrolled, why he didn’t go to the university, what the fuck he did during the day.
And she had to do it all before this evening.
She swallowed the panic, her fingers painfully rigid against the shutters.
“Tiana?”
Tiana turned to the man in the bed, knowing she must’ve looked insane, but staring at him as if she didn’t know him. The poor man. Confusion was set across his brow, sitting on the edge of the bed, barely a sheet covering him.
This man had seen her cry. And she’d let him. She’d let him hold her. She’d given him her heart. She could feel it missing, could feel it ripped from her chest and throbbing all the way across the room, nestled in next to his.
And that part of her, that part of her she’d always lived with, craving power, her own and others, went wild at the idea of having aligned herself with a man this powerful. A witchress, a prince, Roland; a wild, crazy, wonderful man who was all good. And this was a different kind of power, because he had her. He absolutely had her. She’d given it all to him and finally, finally, something within her was settled, was purring, was pleased.
There must’ve been something desperate, something truly horrible on her face, because he was up, around her, holding her in his arms once more and she was wanting to sink into them, to give into them, to be melded with him forever.
And when he pressed her to his chest and stroked her hair, she could hear her heart beside his and it was the worst, most sickening sound she’d ever heard.
Because she would ruin him, and he could never feel as she felt. Not entirely. What she was pulled people to her. Pulled them up close, allured by her in all ways. Powerful beings in particular. It wasn’t a one-way attraction, she pulled like a magnet and their metal pieces. And to make it all worse, he could never know everything about her. No one could, but him most of all.
So, clawing through her burbling, desperate, begging feelings, she reached for the coldest, harshest part of her. The part she was born with to keep her safe; to keep Killian safe.
“Stop,” she said and he did.
She extracted herself from his arms and he let her because she’d asked, but he watched her, face so open, her face so caring, her face so—damn him.
Damn him!
She pulled the anger up, where from, she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t question it. Instead, she unlea
shed it.
“It’s gone too far,” she said slowly. “I can’t be what you want me to be, Roland. I can’t do this with you. Any of this.” She gestured at the room. “What do you think will happen between us? We’re just fucking yet you’re here spooning me, holding me, sitting there in bed while I sleep for hours on you. Who the hell does that?”
Something snapped in his eyes, iron folded over and the green went hard, though peaks of softness still begged, don’t do this.
But she had to.
“You’ve got to understand, I don’t come to you to be comforted or cared for; there is no sweetness here, no love.”
“Why are you doing this?” he asked quietly.
“Because!” she exploded. “You and I cannot be together. Not in the way you so clearly want! The sex was great, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sitting around waiting to be attached to a prince.”
“Then who are you waiting for?” he asked coldly.
She chuckled. “Not the complications that come with you.”
“Complications?”
“What, did you imagine us together? As if I want my children to be the spawn of some spare son—some witchress bastard. Everyone knows the rumors, Roland. It isn’t a secret to anyone. What kind of man, what kind of coward allows these rumors to fruition and hides whatever power he has? What you are is a weak, scared man, Roland.”
And it was out, and he was gone. He still stood before her, but his eyes were blank. Frosty.
“Get out,” he said.
“Gladly,” she hissed, ripping her robes from the floor, the spot where her heart should’ve been, bleeding in her chest. She slammed the door to his chambers behind him, forcing herself not to look at the picnic spread in the living room, the candles unlit, the pies covered with sweet checkered cloth.
She wanted to scream.
Tiana tugged her robe on, buttoned the clasps and ripped open the door to a very surprised looking Nik, who stared in bewilderment. Eyeing the tears on her cheeks. The ones she’d kept from Roland until his back was turned.
“Are you okay?” he asked, peeking over her shoulder as if the answers were there.
“It’s for the best,” she said hoarsely, dashing past him before he could open his mouth again and crumble her will. It had to be worth it.
She had to convince herself it was.
Chapter 20
Roland wanted to be blinding drunk, he wanted to get into numerous fights, but mostly, he wanted to rip his heart from his chest. He wanted to stomp it into the ground, watch as blood and love and anything else inside the mangled wreck, spewed out the sides.
Instead, all he could do was bury himself deep within his body. The only thing he could do was go about his day, sit at dinner with Marius and Alexys and shove soup and roast down his throat, subject to his niece’s ministrations, which usually made him feel better, but instead only reminded him of what Tiana had said.
As if I want my children to be the spawn of some spare son—some witchress bastard.
Indeed, who would? Who would want to be that wife, crushed beneath the rumors of the bastard son, installed in a castle like he meant half an inch? At this moment, Roland found he hated his brother, hated that he was the rightful king, the rightful heir, without an inch of southern magic stewing in his blood. Because that was the reality. Once upon a time Roland had stood across the field from men and women with hair as white as his, faces shaped like his own shaped; broad and stern in cheek. Yet there was a majesty to them, to their magic and the spelled casts at their fingers, at their mouths, ready to decimate the armies of those who mixed with mortals. Who mixed with man.
Roland some nights, tossing and turning in his camp tent with damp earth wheedling its way through his layers he had dreams. Dreams while Niki snored from his own huddle of blankets, murmuring and wincing on occasion from his wounds—the wounds still seeping, the fever still raging. And through Roland’s fear for his friend, he imagined himself standing in the middle of the battlefield, torn between two legacies, bodies with white hair and bodies of his comrades, his brother, Niki, and some of the worst nights, his baby niece, curled in the arms of a faceless woman, wailing for her dead parents; her dead empire.
He knew which side he’d choose, which side he’d always choose. The witchresses would’ve burned him at the stake should he try and seek their side, seek his mother’s kin. Yet, Marius would welcome him with open arms and his men accept him so long as Roland’s remained unconfirmed. But how long could that go on? How long would he crush the parts within his blood that sang?
Then what? Exile? No. Never. Marius would never allow it. But while the people in Adalin in truth cared little for blood and mixing, they might care if it were a witchress prince, born of those powerful enemies which leveled armies in cotillions of twenty.
They were loyal; he had to remind himself. He had made his name here, had set his place. It did not matter if Marius and he were born in the same year, mere months apart. What mattered was he would not sit on the throne, would never take it, would be content at his brother’s side, protecting him, dying for him. What woman would want that? The complications of a soldier who wanted for nothing, who was content with burying himself and what he was, sliding by with little knowledge of any of his true power.
And staring at Alexys, he’d let himself imagine her with a froth of his white hair and a pair of dark, slanted eyes. But, Alexys looked up and smiled at him, and his child disintegrated, impossible even to imagine.
Then, he’d left. Made his excuses, rubbed dirt into his hair and donned the clothes and extra padding of Luther Ciclo and set out for the Sludge. Because he wanted to be that man, wanted to escape from being Roland and join the simple uncomplicated, messy evening with Opie and Asha and de Rossi. Even if he knew it was wrong, even if he knew they were criminals.
It was...different. Nothing he’d expected in the slightest bit.
He discovered he liked being Luther.
It was stupid, unwise, and certainly irresponsible, but even when he was donning disguises and slipping into meetings, he’d been elated. He’d felt different. Unencumbered. It was why he had always insisted on going alone; he wanted to leave the reminder behind him.
The thought hit him; he hated being a prince.
He loved his family, he loved his job, but what a thing to hold him back princehood was. It limited everything he did, it hung at his back. No one would give a flying fuck to know he was a witchress if he were some common man doing his duty for the law. He would be a free man...and Tiana…
It would get him nowhere, thinking of her, but here he was. Roland leaned against the wall, trying to assemble his thoughts, tilting his head up to the sky and considering the stars.
Tiana with her mouth open, breathing like a kitten might, her wild tumble of hair strewn like flames across his arm, across his pillow. She slept with an abandon he found mystifying, and honestly, he hadn’t even noticed day turn to night and then back out to day, he’d only noticed her.
Rarely did the opportunity present itself to simply study her in silence. If he tried it while she was awake he could expect a snarky comment, an eye roll, or a smirk, which all he loved, but to be undisturbed while studying someone in such close proximity; to consider them without being considered at all back, was deeply enriching and intimate. It struck something far within Roland. In that moment he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life watching her sleep like this; even if she did drool a bit and most certainly did she snore.
He didn’t care, because he knew her. He knew her.
Yet, he apparently did not. Not really. there had been a wall he hadn’t detected, hidden behind drapings of flowers and the mist of Tiana so thick and intoxicating he might have wandered it forever.
But when she shoved him up against that wall and he’d been forced to face the anger it used as its foundation, he glimpsed the confusion. She’d tried to hide it, but he’d seen her face and the devastation was like a burning house collapsin
g into ash and cinder. He’d watched her bury herself and he didn’t know why.
Her words hurt, of course they had, but she’d known that. She’d been direct and purposeful; as she was in all she did, but there was a reluctance there, and it startled him and bothered him to know she was hiding something. And that something was big enough to tear a ravine between them so she could flee to the other side without looking back to see if he was still standing, despite the fact she’d cut him off at the knees.
“This is heartbreaking, this is. If I had a hanky, I’d give it to ya.”
Roland flicked his eyes down to the lanky man standing a breath away from his chest. Opie may’ve only come up to his chin, but the look in his eyes, the cunning amidst the madness, made him feel much larger than he was.
Killian pushed the man back, which sent him cackling.
“Don’t you have people to terrorize?” Roland asked, crossing his arms.
“Eh, everyone’s too cheerful tonight, I’m afraid. I think I know why—you stole all the gloom. What’s eatin’ ya, comrade?”
“I’m not gloomy.” “And I'm not smoking,” said Opie, pulling out a canister of smokes and lighting one. “Oops, guess we’re both liars.”
“I’m not in the moody, Opie.”
“What? To get shitfaced and hit on whatever walks by? You sir have lied to me twice this eve; do not make it thrice!” Roland scowled at him.
“Come along, Luth!” called Opie, strolling away. “Let’s go somewhere no initiate baby has ever been before. My treat.” “Oh yeah, where’s that?”
Opie’s pale eyes gleamed as he glanced over his shoulder. “Blood Alley.”
Roland wasn’t about to pass up on that opportunity.
Deception: Rogues of the Red League, Book 1 Page 14