I cleared my throat. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” A blatant lie. Every time felt like the first time with her. Pathetic.
She reached for the tea, her nose wrinkling at the first sip. “You’re an absolute monster in the mornings.”
“So you’ve said.” I settled on the edge of the bed, opening my journal and pretending to focus on my notes instead of the naked woman beside me. “Daily.”
“Normal people sleep until the sun’s up,” she added, licking honey from her thumb.
I forced my attention back to my notes. “We aren’t normal people.” When I glanced up, her hair was a fucking disaster around her shoulders, and I wanted nothing more than to bury my hands in it again. “You know Quill will come looking for you soon.”
The groan she let out was pure drama. “She used to sleep in so well. I don’t know what this new phase is.”
“Hard to say. Children can be so fickle.” I bit back a smile. I’d been bribing that kid with sweets for a week to develop this early rising habit. It suited my schedule, but Paesha was extra growly in the morning and I loved it.
She jabbed my thigh with her toe. “Liar. Are you… Oh, my gods. I can see it on your face. Are you bribing her?”
“Absolutely not. But the staff is already moving around.”
“Fine,” she sighed dramatically. “But it should be illegal to be this functional before sunrise.”
I rubbed my thumb across my bottom lip. “Maybe if you didn’t insist on staying up so late…”
“Terrible mistake. It won’t happen again,” she said, finally getting up and giving me a full view of her body as she stretched. “My obsession with you will pass any day now.”
I swallowed hard, handing her the robe I’d laid out. “Sure it will.”
After dressing, she sat back on the bed beside me, taking another sip of her tea, grimacing. I reached for my coffee but she snatched it first, taking a deliberate sip from my side of the cup. I kept my face neutral as she handed it back, though the urge to wipe away her mark warred with the impulse to drink from that exact spot.
I chose the latter, maintaining eye contact. Let her think it didn’t bother me.
“How long have you been awake?” she asked. While I glanced down at my notes, I felt her fingers slide through my carefully combed hair. I continued reading as if I hadn’t noticed, though every nerve ending screamed at her chaos.
“Long enough to know Aeris was last seen in Silbath and still no sign of Ezra,” I replied evenly, ignoring the mess she’d made of my hair. I’d fix it after she left.
She tore into the bread with her fingers. From my peripheral vision, I watched her deliberately let honey drip onto my side of the bed. My jaw clenched involuntarily, but I kept my focus on my journal, pretending I hadn’t seen. This was fine. The maids would change the sheets anyway. They weren’t even my sheets. Completely fine.
While I was concentrating on being unbothered, she reached over and turned my journal upside-down. I paused for half a second, then continued reading as if nothing had changed.
Try harder, darling.
She tried to hide that adorable smirk as she ate, taking several more sips of my coffee before she officially left the bed. As she passed my carefully arranged boots by the door, she nudged one slightly askew with her toe.
I noted it silently, promising myself I’d fix it later.
“Any word from Tuck about the Parlor?” she asked, gathering her hair up. “You’ve been noticeably absent over there lately, I’m sure.”
“The place could burn to the ground for all I care. It’s only a facade.”
She moved to the mirror, tossing a few of the hairpins I’d taken out last night back into the mess she’d made. When I looked back down at my book, she deliberately moved something else. Little menace.
This was normal. Comfortable. Almost perfect. Until she whispered something I couldn’t hear. Until she turned away, trying to hide the madness. Until her cheeks flushed when she turned back to me.
I set my coffee down and crossed the room, sliding my fingers around her neck. “I hope you told them to fuck off.”
“Most of them,” she whispered, closing her eyes to take a deep breath. “Will you tell me about Levanya?”
A flash of the fallen warrior queen seared my mind. “Levanya was peace and power. She was strength. She’d already lost her kingdom by the time I found her and she was on the precipice of a battle with the kingdom that’d taken her throne.” I couldn’t help my smile as I pictured the fearless woman. “She would sit around fires every night with the small company that followed her. They’d tell stories and live on meager dinners. She refused any kind of help. In fact, one time I brought her dinner and she got mad at me for not serving everyone else before her. But that’s how she was. She was injured on a battlefield before I met her. She’d kept the wound hidden from everyone. When she finally told me, she wouldn’t accept help. So, I confessed who I was. How I could help her. It was the first time I’d given our story to one of you. I went for the healer and Ezra showed up. He waited until I was across the field before he fired that fucking arrow.”I swallowed the pain of that memory. “She was gone before I could make it to her side.”
Paesha’s eyes flickered between mine as she listened. “She never blamed you. She wants you to know her life was never in your hands. But I don’t understand how Ezra was able to kill her. If she was a queen, isn’t that an absolute law. The gods cannot interfere with the mortal royals?”
