“Of course you can,” he said. “But you don’t have to. I know that we’re in a complex situation. But I cannot stop myself from caring for you, in whatever capacity you’ll allow. If you want to be friends, we will be the very best of them. If you want to be enemies, it would be my honor to bare my neck to you. The only thing I can’t be to you is indifferent.”
Her wide eyes drank him in, allowing the slightest smile to unfurl over her lips. She leaned forward yet again, knowing the danger it put her in. But it was impossible to resist the warmth of him.
“You will make this impossible for me, won’t you?”
Mirquios shook his head. “Blame the gods, Princess. I’m merely a victim.”
“I cannot allow this to be anything other than friendship,” she whispered, desperate to follow her words as they landed on his ears.
“I know,” he returned, his eyes locked on hers.
She swallowed—it may have been dulled, but the Tether was not silent. It begged, pleaded for her to close the short gap between them.
“Perhaps we could always have the library,” Lunelle said, her throat tight with every emotion she couldn’t stomach. “Maybe dreams could be enough for us.”
Mirquios nodded, unable to form much more than a deep sigh. He held out a hand toward her, an invitation she tentatively accepted, the wild heat between their palms so intense she felt it even through the rippling walls of the astral.
It was the most they could give one another.
It would never be enough.
“Read your book, Princess. I’ll keep watch,” he laughed, sliding from the table to the floor beside her chair. He leaned his head against the arm, handing her the book of poems.
“What are you watching for?” she asked, settling back into her chair and cracking her book open.
“Plutonian princes,” he mumbled.
When she woke, the pain began anew, stretching and pulling as she rolled to her side and let a few tears slide onto her pillow like liquid starlight pooling at the corner of her lips.
It was impossible—untenable.
She’d never be able to stand it.
ChapterNineteen
“This is brilliant,” Kwan said, reading over the message once again.
“I thought so, too,” Luxuros responded, sipping from a heady ale Lunelle had already decided wasn’t for her—she needed only to see Lura’s lips pucker in disgust to know. She watched the commander carefully, the heat of him still hard to trust.
Luxuros had arrived in the middle of dinner with urgent news for Mirquios. He’d darted through the dining hall and pulled him away, the rush of whatever he told his king sending a shiver over the Tether.
They’d left for The Underground immediately after Oestera retired for the night. He hadn’t asked her to come along so much as it was simply understood at this point.
“Who would have thought we’d havetwoLunar princesses on our side by the Equinox?” Kwan smiled and waved at the bartender, sending for another round. The Mercurians huddled against the table, thrilled to break the news to the rebels that not only was Lunelle bound to them, but Astra had already been of great service to their mission in Ellume.
“She is not bound,” Luxuros said. “Not yet. We’ve had a few hiccups with rogue assassins, but I plan on taking her to Ehlaria during the Equinox. Loleena has already offered to bind her?—”
“You will not?” Lunelle asked.
Luxuros turned toward her, shifting his large frame next to her king.
His king, she corrected herself.
Lux pulled back his sleeve, revealing a series of shallow scars and a thin pink line in his palm.
“I’m afraid I’ll be bled dry by the end of my time in the Lunar Court,” he chuckled.
“Bloodmoon won’t do it?” Kwan asked.
