Page 58 of Return of the Vengeful Quee

“I’m ready to be of service. Unless you’d rather Holland try his luck.” He quirked one eyebrow, and she sighed.

“Fine. It’s not like you can do much anyway. There are no supplies in the brig.”

“Hmm.” He was already hunting through the small stash of fishing gear on the table, muttering under his breath.

Moments later, Charis was seated, with Tal standing behind her, an assortment of objects strewn at his feet. As he began gently tugging his fingers through her snarled curls, untangling them bit by bit, she checked and double-checked her nails as if it was the most important thing in the world, despite the fact that she’d already cleaned them as much as was possible in her current situation.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost be back in her chambers in the palace, seated at her vanity, while Tal undid whatever monstrosity of a hairdo her older handmaiden Mrs. Sykes had given her. Laughing at his jokes. Leaning against the solid warmth of his chest. Feeling something deliciously fizzy spread through her veins as he whispered against her ear.

She wanted to tell herself those moments were lies. The callous game of an expert spy.

But if she believed Tal’s story of accidentally falling in love with her, then those moments were real and precious and gone forever.

She wasn’t sure which was worse.

Her eyes stung with unshed tears, and the table blurred as she tried to blink them away. Behind her, Tal stilled, his hands wrapped in her hair, and then he said quietly, “Do you remember when Mrs. Sykes put your hair up in that awful bun? You looked like someone’s grandmother. The kind that smacks your hand if you reach for a cookie.”

She drew in a shaky breath and said nothing. He began scooping her curls toward the top of her head.

“Or that time when I still hadn’t admitted to myself how much I wanted to be with you, and you wore that dress, and I walked into the bath chamber, took one look at you, and forgot how to talk in complete sentences?”

“I don’t want to do this.” She’d meant to sound firm and commanding, but her voice wavered with grief.

“I’m almost done.” He bent to grab some things from the floor and then resumed work on her hair.

“I meant . . . I don’t want to remember.” The table blurred again, and she blinked furiously before any tears could fall.

He was silent for a long moment as he worked on her hair. Then, letting his hands rest on her shoulders, he said softly against her ear, “And I don’t want to forget.”

His breath warmed her neck, and his fingers traced a gentle pattern against her skin. Something warm unfurled in her belly and spread, leaving a trail of heat in her veins. A slight tip of her head, and she could lean against him. A small turn of her chin, and her mouth would be next to his.

“Charis.” He whispered her name, his lips grazing her earlobe, and she tilted her face toward him.

For a long moment, his lips hovered a breath away from hers. Nothing existed but the heat of his skin and the delicate ache of longing within her.

Then Holland barked an instruction to Grim, and Charis was suddenly, exquisitely aware that she had an audience and that she’d nearly made the foolish choice to give in to her attraction to Tal.

She leaned away from him. Before she could figure out what to say, he stepped around to face her, looked her over with a critical eye, and said, “It isn’t the fanciest updo I’ve ever managed, but it will do.” His cheeks were pink, and he sounded out of breath. The warmth in his eyes as he looked at her sent another spiral of heat through her veins.

Quickly, she reached up to pat her hair and found her curls arranged beneath a small length of fish net and secured with hooks bent into coiled hairpins. Casting about for something, anything, that would steer the conversation into safer territory, she said, “If being a spy doesn’t work out, you could always be a hairdresser.”

He leaned toward her and said with sudden ferocity, “You aren’t going to die today, Charis Willowthorn. You’re a force of nature. You’re faster, smarter, and stronger than anyone who comes against you. Don’t you dare walk into that palace thinking you don’t have options.”

He wrapped his hand around hers and squeezed. “There are always options. Always one more strategy that you can see, even if no one else can. When you meet their queen, remember who you are. The only person who should be terrified today is the invader sitting on your throne.”

The ship bumped up against the pier with a jolt. Above them, the door opened, and the slap of a Rakuuna’s steps echoed from the stairs.

The chaos within her steadied as she held Tal’s gaze. He believed in her, and despite how much pain it brought her to admit it, he knew her best. “Thank you,” she said before she lost the courage to allow him to see that his words had helped.

As a Rakuuna opened the brig and ordered the humans to leave the ship in a single file line, Charis raised her chin and strode toward her destiny.

Twenty-Two

RAIN SWEPT THE streets of Arborlay in silvery sheets as Charis, Holland, Tal, and Grim rode in the carriage provided by the Rakuuna guards who’d greeted the ship at the dock. Burk, the other surviving Caleran crew member, followed in a separate carriage with Reuben, who was clearly worried that he was needed beside his queen.

Charis recognized the boy who drove her carriage. Before the invasion he’d been a groom in training at the palace. She’d tried to make eye contact with him, but he’d stared at his boots, his shoulders hunched against the rain.

Was he still willing to be loyal to the true heirs of Calera’s throne, even if it meant risking his life? Or was the fact that he worked for the Rakuuna proof that he’d refused to join the rebellion?

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