Page 120 of The Golden Rose Of Valenul

He chuckled airily. “I’d visited Valenul and filled in as a guard the night you were taken. Outside. I saw you through the windows with Darien Gard.”

How had it felt for him that night? To have a bond snap into place without notice, as it did with the fae, and endure watching her with another man? Her fiance, at that.

“When you were taken,” he continued and returned the arm over his eyes with a shuddering breath, “I saw the soldier below your window die—saw you carried from the balcony—and pursued you relentlessly.”

Had he been on the same route as Darien? That they never crossed paths was strange. It made sense, though, if Azriel went to find Madan to assist. Their home, so close to the dhemon keep in Eastwood Province, provided a central location to meet, plan, and prepare. All were pieces to a dangerous puzzle that Darien did not have.

“Despite all you did,” she said, “you let Madan take all the credit. Why?”

“Your father knew I had a hand in it. Madan told him I’d provided shelter for you after.”

She shook her head and clutched at her throat. They had downplayed his assistance even to her. “Why? Why lie at all? Why not tell him—tell me—the truth?”

“Like you said.” Azriel exchanged the arm for both hands to rub his face. “I almost died.”

How different her life would be in that moment had he not survived the dhemon keep. Mere nights ago, she would have married Loren, oblivious to his capacity for abuse. Would she have loved him still? The very thought of it all made her stomach roil. Azriel had become as important to her as the moon in the sky—a beacon of light amidst the darkness in her life.

“Yet you did not.” Ariadne slid closer and gently peeled his hands from his face, the sheets dropping from her grip. She laid across his bare chest to hear the strength in his heart. “And you did not come back until Vertium.”

Azriel drew his fingertips up her arm before brushing them across her cheek. “This—us, together—wasn’t a possibility at the time. To be so close, to see you with someone else…I couldn’t—”

His voice broke, and the words faded. Again, his hands went to his face, hiding him behind his palms. Ariadne stilled as his chest heaved beneath her. She did not know what to do. She had never seen a man succumb to his softer emotions in such a manner. Particularly not someone she loved.

“Azriel,” she said quietly and touched his wrist. “Azriel, I did not mean to make you think on such things.”

He shook his head, curled his fingers into fists, and pressed them against his eyes as he loosed a shuddering breath. A tear slipped down the side of his face. “It’s not your fault. I’m not sad. I’m happy. Elated, even.”

“Then why ever are you crying?”

“The gods have blessed me more than I deserve.”

Ariadne’s face softened and shifted to kiss the curve of his jaw. “You deserve the world for all you have done.”

The fists lifted away from his eyes, and Azriel gave her a melancholy smile. Without another word, he pulled her up to kiss her softly. He pushed her hair back from her face, and she lost herself to him again.

Soltium arrived sooner than Azriel anticipated. Leaving the manor and giving up the precious time he had alone with his wife didn’t sit high on his list of priorities. He’d freeze time if he could to prevent the outside world from interfering with his happiness.

For it poked and prodded its way into his life more often than not. Papers piled onto his study desk, a sign of his neglect as Governor. Letters and documents describing the ins and outs of Eastwood Province from Lord Knoll, requesting lands and tax extensions, required his signature and blessing.

Even as he sat at the desk to pour over the legal papers and contracts, he couldn’t focus. Two drastically different thoughts stole into his mind.

The first, which he preferred over all else, was how he and Ariadne could make better use of the desk’s surface. If she were to so much as poke her head around the door, he would sweep the pages away and replace them with her. He’d indulge in her body—a far more pleasant way to spend his evenings.

Yet no matter how much he tried to focus on the work laid out before him or even the fantasies of what he’d rather be doing, he couldn’t stop the less-palatable intrusive thoughts. Those of his brother.

After sending Madan away almost a week ago, Azriel hadn’t heard a word from him—nor had Razer, his one constant connection to the Caersan. Above all, that frightened him most.

With almost five centuries of life together, fights with his brother were nothing new, and Azriel had gone weeks without seeing or speaking to him. They’d threatened each other’s lives before, yet most often, their disagreements ended in blows. Madan had given him many of the scars on his body, including a rather gruesome stab wound to his gut. While Azriel knew he’d given Madan just as many in return, his brother’s full Caersan lineage hid the damage beneath the quick-healing properties in his blood.

Bastard.

Throughout it all, however, he always knew of Madan’s whereabouts, thanks to their telepathic friends. Between his link to Razer and Madan’s to Brutis, they’d never been able to stray far from one another.

It was the threat of dhemons closing in on Laeton that made Azriel wary of the silence. Perhaps Madan had quietly returned to Eastwood Province. It would’ve been the wise choice as he still owned a small house in Asterbury where he and Whelan often spent days together. The estate in Monsumbra was more likely, however.

Getting there safely, though? Impossible. Madan had as big a target on his back as Ariadne, and Brutis wouldn’t be able to carry him there unseen. It’d be by horseback or carriage alone.

Azriel shook the image of his brother, dead on the side of the highway, from his mind. This is exactly what the dhemons wanted. The more he panicked, the more likely he was to slip up.

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