Her voice is flat and… resigned as she says, “Samfer was my… guardian. In a sense. After my parents passed away from the Winter Fever that took my magic he moved into our house to take care of me. Though I would’ve been better off alone, without him. Under his ‘care,’ though I loathe to use the word, I unknowingly committed some crimes. What they all were, I couldn’t tell you. Anyway, one day, I woke up, and he was just gone. And had taken almost everything in the house with him, everything my parents had left after they’d… died, save for the cot I was sleeping on and some of my mother’s old clothes, some of their personal effects, things he couldn’t sell, I suppose. After he left, the King’s Guards came banging on the door asking questions about him, about the things I’d done with him. Some questions I didn’t have answers for, and as for the rest, my friends in the village lied to the guards, covered for me. That day in the throne room, after you left, your father threatened to round them all up and throw them in the dungeons if I didn’t stay to train to take the Aquilith trial. I… I could never have lived with myself if they were taken. So… I made a deal for their freedom.” She shrugs as if what she’d just told me was nothing.
Anger streaks through me. Disgust at my father blackmailing her with something so out of her control. “I wouldn’t have let that happen. Let him throw you and your friends into the dungeons. I hope you know that, Eira.” She doesn't say anything, just looks haunted as she stares over the view as if remembering her conversation with my father that day. It’s a look I know well. “I’m so sorry, Eirabella. I told you bringing you here was to keep you safe. I… I didn’t imagine my father would do anything so heartless, so despicable.” Though I should have.
She gives me a tight, sad smile. “It’s not your fault. It’sfucking Samfer’sfault.”
In all the times she’s insulted me, yelled my name with hate and loathing it’s never sounded so bitter as when she spits her former guardian’s name. It makes me wonder what she endured under his care. And how I can find him and make him pay, slowly and painfully, for any unhappiness he ever caused her.
“Fucking Samfer,” I say, echoing her words.
Surprisingly, for that, she gives me a wide grin. “Damn right!” she giggles and raises her glass in a toast.
I reach over and clink her glass with mine. “I’m sorry for sleeping in your room after you’d asked me not to. I hope you understand why now. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you, or make you feel unsafe in any way.”
She nods. “I understand now.”
“I’m glad. Or else, I’d have had to tell everyone you drool like a troll in front of a roast boar buffet in your sleep,” I add, with a grin.
Her mouth drops open and she conjures a snowball as if out of nowhere and smashes it into my face before I can even react.
“What blasphemy!” I shout through a mouthful of snow and laughter. It tastes sweet like raspberries. Her magic’s signature smells just like her. “Violence against your beloved prince and mentor!”
She just falls over, hugging her side as she laughs. “I’m not going to lie. Knowing that one day I was going to be able to do that was what was motivating me to train so much.”
I let out a snort. “Glad I could be of help. Now at least show me you can clean it up!”
With a dramatic roll of her eyes, she flicks her wrist and the snow is suddenly gone, and I’m bone dry again. Done without so much as a sweat. She leans back again, downing the last of her wine and conjures a tendril of water to take the glass from her hand and lay it down on the ground beside her, before disappearing as if never there. Such a manoeuvre comes second nature to her now, I can’t help noticing proudly.
“Back to the husband thoughts,” she muses. “All this”—she waves her hand, gesturing to the castle and its surroundings—“it’s a lot. Like you said, you think about it all the time, the kingdom, the people. That’s a lot going on in your head. I wantsomeone who’s present. Someone who... I don’t know. Can be in the moment. With me. Put me first. Not all the time. But at least some of the time.” She sighs, as if imagining such a man. And he’s obviously not me.
The way she says it, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Can be in the moment with me, put me first.” But for me, she might as well have asked for someone to pluck the moon from the sky for her. But wouldn’t it be nice? my mind whispers. To live in the moment. To be present with her?
She leans in closer, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Anyway, I stand by my declaration that you’d be terrible at being a husband,” she adds, her grin widening. “And you haven’t convinced me otherwise.”
“I’m not terrible at anything,” I reply, amused. “And I mean… anything. Name it. I’m good at it.”
The edges of her mouth curl up, and what I would give to hear exactly what is on her mind right now. “Oh, I could name a few things, but then I’d be compelled to make you prove just how good you are at them, Your Highness, and I’m not sure that that would be a good thing for either of us,” she teases, her hand landing on my knee, her fingers tracing small circles there. The touch is light, playful, but it sends heat through me all the same. “Fun, but probably not wise.”
I watch her for a moment, her pink cheeks, her bright teal eyes, the way her ebony, blue-streaked hair catches the sunlight. I scooch a little closer, just because I can. She’s clearly drunk, but the honesty she’s displaying isn’t all that different from her sober self. It’s just a little more… slurry. But her openness, her way of sharing what she’s passionate about, her joy for life, it’s the same. As is her complete disregard for the walls I’ve spent my entire life building around myself and the way she has constantly torn them down with the softest, simplest of words like they’re nothing.
She tips her head back again, staring up at the heavens, her giggles bubbling out like music. “You know, I have a feeling I won’t remember much of this tomorrow.” She laughs softly, the sound free and uninhibited, and it tugs at something deep inside me. `
And that’s when I feel the words slip out before I can stop them. I lean over her, my face desperately close to her. “Gods, it’s dangerous being around you, Eira,” I whisper, my voice lower now, rougher, almost needy. “You make me want to do things that I shouldn’t.”
Her eyes meet mine, hazy with her inebriation, the laughter fading as a more serious look flickers in them. “Like what?” she asks, her voice barely audible.
I lean in, my lips almost brushing hers, my heart pounding in my chest. “Like you make me want to say fuck it all and kiss you until we both forget where we are, who we are. Kiss you until you beg me to strip you down to nothing but your soft, sweet skin and trace my tongue over every inch of you until every sliver of you is burned into my mind. You make me want to flick my tongue over your sweet little clit, tasting you, drinking you, until I make you so hot and needy for me that you beg to climb over me and slide yourself onto my cock, the same cock that you have made achingly hard since the moment I met you. You make me want to fuck you, harder and deeper than you’ve ever been fucked before, so that you’re screaming my name, and begging for more, and just as you’re about to come, I’m going to slide down your body and drive my tongue into you again and again and again, until there’s nothing left in your mind but the memory of me making you come completely undone on my face. And then… we’ll do it all over again.”
Her sultry, velvety soft eyes widen, and for a moment, I think I’m going to do it.
Do everything I’ve just said. I think I’m going to give in.
Into every want, every need. Even though I know I can’t.
Not now. Notever.
“But I can’t,” I murmur, finally pulling back, though every part of me screams to close the distance between us.
The look of disappointment in her eyes nearly breaks me, but I know this is the right thing to do. “Why not?” she whispers, her voice filled with hurt.
