But not tonight.
Exhaling, he rested a hand against the post of his bed, searching for some sense of equilibrium, but it was a lost cause. Like so many other things.
Lara hadn’t said a word since they’d been pulled from the sea. He couldn’t blame her. She’d been nearly drowned. Nearly eaten. Nearly pummeled against rock. She hadn’t broken down entirely, which should’ve felt like a small miracle except that he would’ve preferred that to the emotionless silence.
Face blanched so white her lips were gray, Lara had followed numbly where she’d been led, her arms limp in his grasp as she’d been examined for injuries. No sign of her dry humor or the venomous tongue that he simultaneously loved and loathed. Just . . . nothing.
Closing his eyes, Aren rested his forehead against the bedpost because the other option was to rip it free and smash it against the wall. Fury, unbridled and burning, rushed through his veins. At Ahnna. At the bridge. At himself.
A sound more animal than human rose in his throat, and in a flurry of motion, he twisted and slammed his fist against the wall. Pain blossomed in his knuckles, and he dropped into a crouch, wanting to explode, wanting to run. Knowing none of it would do any good.
Boom. The house shuddered, and his thoughts went to the Rat King’s letter, shoved into his bag, wherever that was. The ultimatum was clear: ally with Maridrina against Valcotta or face war and blockades like those Maridrina had imposed fifteen years prior, lifted only with the signing of the treaty.
They had been the darkest of times. Maridrina had kept anyone from landing at Southwatch for two years, completely shutting down trade. Nothing was shipped through the bridge, and Ithicana’s revenues dried up entirely. Without them, there had been no way to feed his people. To keep them provisioned. To keep them alive. Not with violent storms driving fishermen from the seas more days than not. Famine had swept Ithicana. Plague, too. And the idea of going back to that . . .
The alternative was to join with a man who’d been plotting against him in the worst sort of ways. To join a war he wanted no part of. It was profoundly tempting to formally ally with Valcotta for spite. Ithicana’s coffers were strong enough to buy what the kingdom needed for a year or more with no additional revenue from the bridge. Between Southwatch’s shipbreakers and the strength of Valcotta’s fleets, Silas’s armies wouldn’t have a chance.
Yet such an action would place all the suffering on Maridrina’s people. Lara’s people.
Condemning them to starvation would make him the villain the Magpie had painted. Aren would become the man Lara had been raised to hate. But to cede to her father’s request would mean jeopardizing Ithicana when Valcotta came for retribution. There was no solution.
His father’s voice danced through Aren’s head, words shouted at his mother. Ithicana makes no alliances. We are neutral—we have to be, or war will come for us. But like his mother before him, Aren now believed the time for neutrality had come to an end. Except there was a difference between desiring an alliance and allowing its terms to be dictated by another man.
Aren wavered, then in two strides, he was at his desk. Flipping open the hidden compartment, Aren extracted the letter he’d started to Silas those months ago. Staring at the polite greeting and appropriate honorifics, he shoved the page aside, reaching for a clean sheet.
Silas,
Ithicana will not cease trade with Valcotta. Should you wish to see an end to their naval aggression, I suggest you desist in your attacks on Valcotta’s northern border. Only with peace between your two nations does Maridrina have the chance to return to health and prosperity. As to your insinuation that Ithicana has not held to the spirit of the agreement between our nations, we feel it necessary to point out your hypocrisy in making such a claim. In the best interests of both our peoples, we will forgive your schemes and allow Maridrina to continue to trade at Southwatch market under the terms agreed upon. Let it be said, however, that should you seek to retaliate against your spy, Ithicana will take it as an act of aggression against its queen, and the alliance between our kingdoms will be irrevocably severed.
Choose wisely.
Aren
He stared at the letter, knowing he could never tell Lara what he had written. Her life had been dedicated to easing the plight of her people, and she wouldn’t forgive him threatening those very same people for the sake of protecting her. Yet there could be no other way to ensure Silas wouldn’t harm her. God help him if he was forced to follow through.
Rising, Aren stepped out into the hallway, walking until he found Eli.
“Bring this to the barracks when the storm eases. Tell Jor it’s to be sent immediately to the King of Maridrina.”
Retreating to his rooms, Aren opened the door to the courtyard. And stepped out into the storm.
33
Lara
Lara landed with a thump on her knees, knife gripped in one hand. Darkness surrounded her. Thunder rumbled through the room, followed by two flashes of lightning that faintly illuminated the outline of a window. The wood floor beneath her was polished smooth, and the air was thick with moisture and the earthy scent of jungle.
Hot tears ran down her face, and she scrubbed them off her cheeks. The moment she’d returned to Midwatch, she intended to find her way into Aren’s room to destroy the damnable proof of her betrayal before it could go any further. To do it without him knowing because she could never let him read those words.
It was one thing for him to know that she’d lied to him. Manipulated him. Deceived him. Quite another to read the proof of it. For him to see every moment that he’d believed a connection was growing between the two of them had been a strategy to gain the information she needed. That, after all they’d been through, she had still made the choice to destroy him that fateful night he’d kissed her in the mud.
Not only was it unforgivable, the amount of hurt it would cause him to read it . . . She couldn’t let that happen. Not when simply destroying the pages would eliminate all the evidence. Her plan had been to lightly drug Aren at dinner, then to sneak into his room and start a small fire on his desk that could easily be blamed on a candle left too close to a piece of paper. She could then claim to have smelled the smoke, her screams and pounding on the door enough to wake him and alert the staff. Between the flames and the water it would take to douse them, all the stationery bearing her invisible message would be ruined beyond use. It was a dangerous, damaging plan, but she’d rather chance burning the Midwatch house to the ground than risk Aren questioning why all of his stationery had mysteriously gone missing.
But while Lara had waited for the dinner hour, exhaustion had taken over, and she’d fallen asleep on the clean soft sheets of her bed. Now the scents of dinner were wafting under the door, and she wasn’t the least bit prepared.
“You can fix this,” she muttered, climbing to her feet. Pulling on one of her silken Maridrinian dresses and running a brush through her hair, Lara’s mind raced as she shoved a vial of narcotic into her bracelet. Out in the hallway, she hurried toward the shuttered dining room, certain she’d find Aren there. He was not one to neglect his stomach.
But there was only Eli, who started at the sight of her. “We thought you’d want dinner in your room, my lady,” he said. “Do you wish to eat in here instead?”
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry. Do you know where he is?” There was only one he in this house.
“His rooms, my lady. He didn’t want dinner.”
Logic and her training whispered that she should wait for another night. Another opportunity. Better to do that than risk being caught. Yet Lara found herself instead hurrying down the opposite hall to Aren’s room, her bare feet silent on the cool floor.
She knocked, then waited. No answer.
She tried the handle and, for once, found it unlocked. “Aren?”
Aren was nowhere in sight. This was her chance. She could pretend she found the fire burning.
Securing the door, Lara bolted to the heavy desk, im
mediately spying the open stationery box. And the beginnings of a letter composed to her father.
Her heart in her throat, Lara stared at the few lines of dried ink addressed to her father. How Aren could stomach being so polite to his enemy was beyond her. Though perhaps that he couldn’t stomach it was the reason the letter wasn’t finished.
A purr caught her attention, and she looked down as Aren’s cat began to wind his huge body between her legs, nearly knocking her over. An idea, one better and far less damaging than a fire, jumped into her head. “Sorry for this Vitex. But I need your help.”
She staged the scene, placing the box on its side on the floor, then splattering the letter with ink, leaving the well overturned on the rest of the pages so they were soaked through and unusable. But not before counting the stack. Twenty-five blank pages plus the unfinished letter made for twenty-six.
Luring Vitex over, she scratched his ears, gently taking hold of one of his paws and using it to make distinctive prints through the ink. Realizing what she was doing, the cat hissed at her and pulled away, leaving a trail across the room as he went.
Every muscle in her body twitched, and with a ragged gasp, Lara sank to her knees, staring at what had been the culmination of all her efforts. Of all her training. Of her life. Remembering the way she’d felt the last time she held those pages, knowing that the damning words she’d written would save her people. How wrong she’d been.
Yet with them gone so went the weight she’d been carrying since she’d learned the truth of her father’s deception. What she’d done before . . . It had been awful. The worst sort of betrayal. But it had been motivated by lies that had filled her ears almost her entire life. Whereas turning on her father now was an act driven by the truth. What she was doing now was her own choice.
And though Lara knew that she’d painted a target on her back, that her father’s assassins would never stop hunting her, for the first time in her life, she felt free.
Driven by some strange sixth sense, she drifted into the antechamber and opened the door to the courtyard, the wind buffeting her with the force of a giant. Stepping outside, she found herself in a hell of wind and rain.
The air shrieked as it circled the courtyard, carrying leaves and branches and rain that bit into her bare arms and slapped her cheeks. The tempest was deafening in its fury, multipronged bolts lancing across the sky, the thunder battering her eardrums.
In the midst of it stood Aren.
He was shirtless and barefoot, staring up at the sky, seemingly heedless of the tempest circling around him. Or of the danger he was in.
A branch ripped from one of the trees to hurtle across the yard, exploding against the side of the house. “Aren!” But the storm drowned out her voice.
It was impossible to keep her feet as she struggled down the path, knocked over time and again by gusts of wind that threatened to lift her into the air. Her hair whipped in a wild frenzy, blinding her, but not for a heartbeat did she consider turning back. Regaining her feet on the slick stones, she lunged.
The winds died as her hands closed on Aren’s arms, as though the world itself gave a sigh and relaxed, the debris falling softly to the ground and the rain easing into a gentle patter against her skin.
“Lara?”
Releasing a ragged breath, she tilted her face up to find Aren staring down at her, his expression bewildered, as though he couldn’t comprehend how she’d come to be standing before him.
“Is it over?” she asked, finding it difficult to breathe. And even more difficult to think. “The storm?”
“No. We’re in the eye of it now.”
The eye of the storm. Her chest tightened. “What are you doing out here?”
The hard muscles of his forearms flexed beneath her grip. “I needed it.”
Instinctively, she understood what he meant. Most people sought solace from danger, but for him, the danger was solace. The rush of adrenaline that cleared his mind, that wiped away the uncertainty that plagued every decision he made as king. The fear of erring. The consequences of doing so. In the storm, he knew his path.
She understood, because she felt the same way. “You could’ve died today. Doing what you did.”
“You would’ve died if I hadn’t.”
His hands closed around her arms, and though his palms were feverishly hot, Lara shivered. “You might have been better off if I had.”
His grip tightened. “Do you honestly believe that I could have ever forgiven myself if I’d stood there and watched you drown?”
“But what I did—”
“Is in the past. It’s behind us now.”
Her pulse was a dull roar in her ears as his words sank in. Aren had forgiven her. How he’d found it in his heart to do so, she couldn’t understand, but there it was. What she’d wanted more than anything, but hadn’t had the hope to wish for.
“Do you want to leave Ithicana? Because if that’s what it takes for you to be happy, I’ll set you on any shore you wish with everything you need to make a life for yourself.”
Lara had planned to leave. Her father’s assassins would soon been on her heels, and she hadn’t believed there was anything to be gained by staying. A relationship between the two of them would never have a chance—Aren would inevitably discover the truth about her and would never forgive her for it.
But Aren knew the truth. And against all odds, he had forgiven her. Now . . . now the thought of turning her back on this place, of turning her back on him, was the worst future she could imagine.
“You can’t let me leave Ithicana.” Her throat felt tight, and the words came out breathy and strange. “I know too much. You’d be risking too much.”
His eyes burned into hers, and never in her life had she felt like someone else saw her so perfectly. “I can let you go, because I trust you.”
She couldn’t breathe.
“I don’t want to leave.” The words were a truth dug from the depths of her heart. She did not want to leave Ithicana. She did not want to leave him. She wanted to stay, to fight and sweat and bleed for him and his harsh, wild, and beautiful kingdom.
The storm circled, watching but leaving them untouched for this one moment.
Aren’s hands loosened on her arms, and for one terrifying heartbeat, she thought he’d let her go. That he wanted her to go.
Instead his fingers traced up the backs of her arms, the light touch leaving rivers of sensation in their wake. Gentle strokes up and down, as though he were calming some wild thing that was apt to bite.
Or testing the waters.
His hands grazed the sides of her breasts, and Lara exhaled a soft breath as his thumbs hooked on the straps of her dress, easing them down as he bent, his lips brushing one naked shoulder. Then the other.
A whimper escaped her as Aren pulled her damp hair away, exposing her neck and kissing her collarbone, her throat, the line of her jaw. Only his grip on her dress kept it from falling away and leaving her naked before him.
Lara wanted to touch him.
Wanted to feel his sleek skin stretched over hard muscles, but she was afraid, because she knew to do so would be her undoing. There would be no turning back.
Aren’s lips paused, and she held her breath, waiting for them to descend on her own even as she wondered whether, if she allowed herself to sink into this hot pool of desire, she’d ever surface again. Whether she’d want to.
But he only rested his forehead against hers. “I need you to say that you want this, Lara. That you’re allowing this because you choose to, not because it was forced upon you.”
Her chest burned, and emotion so intense it hurt surged through her. She pulled back so their eyes locked. “I want this.” And because that wasn’t the sum of it, she added, “I want you.”
The storm returned with a vengeance as their lips collided, but Lara barely felt the winds as Aren lifted her against him, his hands gripping her hips as she wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms sliding around his neck. His mou
th was hot, his tongue slick against hers, the rain drenching their skin as he carried her through the tempest and into the shelter of the house.
Inside, his feet slid on the wet tile and they slammed against the wall, knocking what remained on the shelves to the floor. He braced himself, his hands to either side of her, his breath hot against her throat as Lara ground against him. Her heels dug into his back as she pulled him closer, wanting nothing between them, even as the friction of his belt against her dragged a moan from her lips.
Her back arched until only her head touched the wall behind her, and her dress, the skirt already bunched around her waist, was pulled down to expose the top of her breasts. She felt Aren’s breath catch.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he growled. “Insufferable and venom-tongued and the most incredible woman I’ve set eyes on.”
His words made her thighs slick and she gasped. “Door. Shut the damned door.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” He slipped his tongue into her mouth, tasting her, before allowing her to slide to the ground, the hardness of him pressing against her stomach before he turned to wrench on the door and shut out the storm.
The heavy bolt in place, Aren stalked toward her, his hazel eyes predatory, ever the hunter. Lara stepped backward into the bedroom, daring him to follow. Luring him in because she was not, and never would be, anyone’s prey. Her calves hit the solid wood of his bed, and she stared him down, stopping him in his tracks.
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