Okay, well, Alaric could be a judgey bastard, but Sam never was, and eventually, Alaric would get over his opinion of me and Sam being in a relationship. I had a few ideas to help with that and get him to admit what his real problem was . . .
“So what happened?” she asked gently after sitting upright in her chair once more. “Because I could feel the tension between you two earlier.”
“For almost a year, I made regular visits to the Sovereign House.” I rubbed my face in a vain attempt to make the words come out easier. “Sometimes, he would show up at the outposts I was staying at. I don’t know how he did it, but somehow, he’d get into my room without anyone seeing him. We talked. He’d tell me about his life, all the things no one saw, and I talked about mine. What it was like growing up at House Corvinus and moving here. It was nice,” I confessed. “Talking to him was just . . . easy. Having someone on the outside of it all to talk to about everything. I think he felt the same.”
Samara nodded in understanding. “My relationship with Draven prior to all of this was different than yours, and I wouldn’t exactly say we were friends.” She paused and thought about it a little more. “No, that’s not right—we were definitely friends. We never spoke outside of times when I would visit the Sovereign House or the few times he would come to House Harker, never traded messages via striker or anything like that, but anytime we were in the same place, he would just appear like magic. It didn’t matter if we hadn’t seen each other in months or even years. The camaraderie was there, and falling into conversation with him always felt so natural.”
“You should know . . .” I inhaled a deep breath. “I talked about you with him. About how I felt about you. The way we flirted with each other nonstop growing up. How you marrying Demetri devastated me. He knows all of that.” Part of me wondered if that’d been what he’d wanted all along. Thateverything between us had been a lie and he’d just wanted information on Samara.
But just like I’d been too scared to ask Samara to stay before she’d left for House Laurent, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to confront Draven about it. Instead, I’d just let the humiliating thought fester in the back of my mind.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Samara narrowed her eyes at me. “That he was just using you for information.”
“Your perceptiveness is annoying,” I said wryly as guilt nipped at me. I should never have spoken to him.
“I’ll repeat what I said earlier,” she said, ignoring my comment. “I’m glad you had someone to talk to about all of this, because we both know Alaric would have been a prick about it.” Then her eyes darkened, and something predatory looked out. “But if it turns out Dravenwasusing you that whole time—which I don’t think he was, but I could be wrong—I’ll make him fucking regret it.”
She would. I had absolutely no doubt about it. “I think we have bigger problems to worry about, but I appreciate the sentiment.” My throat tightened around the words.
She sniffed. “You’llalwaysbe a priority to me, Kier.”
I smiled widely at her. “And again, I really want to fuck you right now.”
“Of course you do. I’m amazing.” She waved a hand towards me, gesturing for me to continue. “How does this story end?”
“We were discreet about our relationship, but I did occasionally speak to him at parties held at the Sovereign House. Six months ago, I walked up to him and greeted him casually . . . too casually, considering he was a prince and I was just . . . me.”
Samara’s eyes flared in anger as I spoke about myself in such a dismissive manner, but she didn’t interrupt, which I was grateful for. I hadn’t told anyone about me and Draven, noteven Alaric. He would have berated me for being so foolish to get involved with the Moroi Prince in such a way. More importantly, Alaric traveled in different circles than me. As one of Carmilla’s personal advisors, there had been a very real chance that he would have been in the same room as Draven one day, seated at the same table, and Alaric had a problem keeping his fucking mouth shut. The last thing I needed was him getting into a verbal sparring match with Draven in front of the queen.
I closed my eyes as I pushed the words out. The ones that had cut a deep wound in my already scarred heart. “He looked at me with this cool, almost bored expression and said, ‘It’s been fun, but I’m bored now. Also, watch how you speak to me in the future, courtier.’ And then he just walked off to stand by his mother’s side. He didn’t look at me, but she did.” My jaw tightened as I remembered the cruel, arrogant smile that had flashed across her face that night. “She must have learned about our relationship and didn’t approve. So Draven ended it. Maybe he already had all the information he wanted . . . I don’t know.”
Samara stared out the window, her brows slightly creased. I knew that look. She was cycling through scenarios in her head, analyzing each possibility before moving on to the next. I also knew from experience that it was best to let her sort through her thoughts, so I snagged a biscuit off the plate and ate it slowly, savoring each sweet bite.
“We need to determine what exactly the deal is between Draven and his mother,” she said thoughtfully. “Considering what happened between the two of you and the little hints I’ve seen, I think there is nothing but hate between them, but he clearly serves her. We need to know why.”
“Do you want to find this out because it will actually help us, or so that I feel like less of a fool for getting involved with him in the first place?” I tossed the rest of my biscuit back onto the table. “Because I’m an adult, Sam. It pains me that I gotplayed and that I let my feelings go too far. That I thought I might be in—” I yanked that word from my throat before it could slip past my lips and stomped on it. Then I inhaled and let out a deep breath. “Draven and I are in the past. I just wanted you to know because I will never hide anything from you, and because he will no doubt wield my past with him against us.”
“He already tried to,” she admitted, still staring out the window, half-lost in her thoughts. I bit my lip, toying with the question I wanted to ask.
“If things were different . . .” I cleared my throat. “If you didn’t know Draven was mixed up with the wraiths and he came here to ask you to consider marrying him . . . would you?”
Samara’s head whipped towards me, and she scowled before unwinding herself from the chair and closing the distance between us. My arms slipped around her as she slid onto my lap, and her fingers trailed up my chest before wrapping around my throat and squeezing lightly. I released a breathy exhale at the feeling of her nails digging into my skin.
“No, I would not consider marrying him,” she said evenly, and I believed her. Maybe it made me the biggest fool in the world, but I had no doubt she meant every word. “I do admit that I’ve always found him attractive and . . . intriguing. Perhaps I would have let him into my bed.” Her lips curved into a sinful grin. “Ourbed. But I would have spoken to you about it first, and if you weren’t okay with it, then I wouldn’t have taken things any further with him.”
Moonsdamn it all, but my cock hardened at the thought of Samara and Draven in bed together. With me. Without me. Either was hot. Even with everything he had done to me and what we knew about him now, my body still reacted to Draven completely of its own accord, the same way it reacted to Samara. The thought of both of them together?
Samara released my neck and let out a husky laugh. “Feeling excited, Kier?”
“You are all kinds of wicked.” I shook my head ruefully, even as I smiled at her.
She shifted until her legs were dangling off the side of the chair, and she nuzzled my neck. “Dinner tonight is going to be intense.” Warm, full lips brushed against my throat, and I let one of my hands slip down to her thigh, slipping underneath the high slit of her dress. “We should take this opportunity to blow off some steam,” she murmured.
“Excellent idea.” My fingers drifted upward, and Samara spread her legs a little further apart, causing a deep chuckle to rumble out of me. “Is there somewhere in particular you want my fingers to be?”
She nipped my neck before raising her head and glaring at me. “Don’t even think of making me beg. Between Draven and Alaric, I’ve had more than enough frustration today.”
“Oh?” Her breath hitched as my fingers just barely passed over her undergarments. So wet already. I wanted to rip them aside and feel the hot slickness beneath them but couldn’t resist teasing her a little. “And what did our dear Alaric do to piss you off this time?”
