“Then tend to them,” she snarls back.
“It is your job?—”
“Not anymore.”
“Elena—”
“Can’t make me do anything!”
“She is your chieftain!”
“I didn’t vote for her.”
I grab the weave I’ve been working on and head outside.
It’s easy to get lost in the treads, the world falling away as the pattern comes together.
Though it’s gotten harder to do that as of late, as my mind often goes to places it ought not.
Was there ever a path for us to be together? I think not, yet I mull over the possibilities endlessly.
Looking up from my weave, I see two Tempest men watching me intensely.
I know it would be good for me to take an interest in one, but the very thought of taking someone other than Ramsey fills me with dread.
“Oh, mother,”I whisper to myself.“If only you could see me now.”
I’d wanted to hate Nori for what she revealed at the meeting, but I quickly got over it, because the fault lies in one person and one person alone: my father: the King of Penticar.
I remember being ripped from my home shortly after my mother’s death, and how confused I was that I no longer had the title princess.
My new mother sat me down, sternly telling me that if I ever tried to use it again, I’d be whipped so hard, my skin would be stripped bare.
I was only five.
They concocted a story about me being the child of a cousin, destined to one day inherit Castle Louderbend, as they had no natural children.
I never forgot who I was, though. Or my mother.
A growling mutter grabs my attention, and I see Ramsey arguing to himself as he makes his way over to his hut. Which he does often, and for reasons I cannot say.
Not that I care.
I do care.
Elena warned me she didn’t believe he could make me happy, and she was probably right.
Still, I can’t help but think about him, and I know time won’t help, for several tall, attractive blue men have now shown interest in me, and none of them have made me forget him.
Why do I worry about being miserable with him if I’m so miserable without him? The way I see it, I’m doomed either way, so I might as well be with the man I want.
And yes, I do want him. Every time I see him, an insatiable hunger grows in my loins. A memory of how he made me feel.
But my desire extends beyond lust, to a home we could make together. To our children. What it would feel like to fall asleep in his arms every night.
I close my eyes, imagining him glaring down at me, lamenting about my scent, and nearly giggle.
How could two people, so unalike, be drawn together as we were? As we still are… It might seem prideful for me to assume he still has feelings for me, but Ramsey is handsomer than the other Tempest men, and is high-ranking in his tribe. He could have easily courted almost any other Penticari woman, yet he chose me and has not looked to another.
