“Yes. I placed it in a safe location. Jerrod will never get it.”
“Is it powerful?”
Hector nods.
His gaze shifts to the tent opening and lingers before drifting back to me. “I have been thinking about our situation. I need you next to me as I make a push toward Sharhavva, the Hematite’s capital city.”
“What does that mean for us?” I hate the vulnerability in my voice. How weak it makes me sound. How desperate for him.
“Do you agree with my invasion of Sharhavva?” he asks.
I tighten my hands into fists. “Will you defeat Jerrod if you invade the Hematite city?”
“I will weaken his strongest city, and from there, he will be unable to recover.” Determination and certainty bleed from Hector’s words. “After I kill him, I will put into place a better person to rule.”
“Jasce?” I ask, thinking of the chieftain’s son.
“Yes.”
“Then, I stand with you, Hector.” It feels good to say those words, and to mean every single one of them.
His eyes search mine, studying me, as if he’s trying to detect a hidden meaning behind my vow. I hold his gaze, not wanting to hide anything from him anymore.
“Good.” He breaks eye contact, looking back at his stack of parchments. “We leave in a week.”
“Until then?” I lift a brow, waiting for his answer.
“You’ll move your stuff into my tent. My men need to see unity between us.”
Hector’s words cut into my chest, carving a valley of pain. He only wants me for appearance again.
“So, it’s for appearance?” I ask bitterly.
“Unity is important. It garners respect for you and I.” Dark strands of hair fall over his forehead as he stares down at his parchments again. “Without it, they will see me as weak.”
“You think they will see you as weak if you’re at odds with your wife?”
“Yes.”
Sadness and disappointment swirl inside my stomach. He may give in and bed me because of our binding tattoos, but he doesn’t want or need any other part of me. He just wants the pretense of a happy marriage.
“Why do I feel like every time I’m around you, you’re silently building a wall—brick by brick?”
“Maybe I am,” he says, his tone tired.
“You don’t have to.” I hold out my hand for him to see the ring with the bloodstone. “See. I am wearing the ring you made me. And I am different now. I have accepted the part of me I couldn’t before. I accept you, and I’m learning to accept my Bloodstone heritage. Isn’t that enough?”
Hector barely glances at my hand. “You said you couldn’t be you when you were around me,” he says, his voice hard, yet Ifeelhis hurt in my chest.
“It wasn’t you,” I say, wanting to explain what I said months ago. “It was my Bloodstone magic. It was destroying me, Hector. You know that.”
Instead of responding, he shuffles the top parchment to the bottom of the stack and studies the next one. Frustrated, I put my hand in the middle of the document. The muscles in his jaw clench, and he lifts those silver-blue eyes to me.
“I know things happened while I was gone,” I whisper, my heart aching. “I hope someday you will trust me enough to tell me everything. It couldn’t have been easy. You had to carry that weight by yourself—“
“—I had my cousins. My council,” he says in a flat voice.
He isn’t going to let me in.
