“Yes. People around me are weapons to be used against me.”
Suddenly, without the fog of magic and jealousy clouding my mind… I understand. “Do you think I would be used against you? If she knew I wasn’t a punishment to you?” Still whispering despite the sound ward.
His shoulders slump but it’s a relieved gesture, like I landed on the real reason he put the sound ward up. “Yes. Being my punishment gives you purpose to her and if you don’t have purpose to her--” He breaks off, blowing out a breath, nodding his head in Morin’s direction. “In front of others, that’s what you must remain. I don’t really even like involving Vera in all of this, but it seems cruel for you to have… no one.”
I feel even more foolish than when I’d woken this morning, and I claw, searching for something… I can still be angry with him about. “And what about the women you bring to your bed?”
“Woman,” he corrects. “And she knew she didn’t mean anything,” he says with a shrug.
Singular?“Woman?” I repeat, the disbelief in my voice blatant.
He shrugs again. “Yeah.”
“Did you sleep with her on multiple occasions?”What am I doing?I really can’t help myself.
“No.”
“Just the…once?”
“Just that one time.”
“Why then?” I ask angrily. Why wait until I got here to suddenly bring someone back to his bed?
He pushes out a slow breath. “Because it had been a very long time and—-.”
I snort, doubtful our ideas of what constituted a long time were in alignment.
“Since before…almost two years,” he says finally.
Two years.
“And I was angry,” he says heavily.
“Because you had been forced to marry me.”
“Yes, I was angry because I was forced to marry a nought.”
A nought.There it is. Finally, I have the thing I’d been searching for. A justification to be angry with him again. But surprise ripples through me when he flashes me a grin, a hesitant, almost timid grin, but a grin nonetheless. “Who was also a very infuriating girl.”
“You were the infuriating one,” I mumble.
“And also…. very….” He lifts a palm, eyes skirting over the field. “Beautifulandinteresting.”
Warmth washes over me, flaming at my cheeks, and my chest is lifting, sinking, and tumbling all at once.
“And, I was worried…I think I was just trying to quell my desire to…get close to you. To care about you.”
“No, you hated me then.”
“I never hated you, Pandora. It’s just…look at the life you’ve been given. I hardly wanted that for anyone. Let alone feel responsible for it. But before you got here, I was…” He pushes out a ragged exhale. “I have enjoyed having you maybe more than I should, and for that, I’m sorry. Because you’re right. You didn’t get the choice.”
My heart hammers in my chest, whooshing in my ears.
“But I want you to know—I put up the sound ward because I want to tell you if our circumstances were different. If I wasn’t in this situation and we just happened upon each other, I would choose—“
“Don’t,” I say hoarsely. “Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
