Page 42 of A Monsoon Rising

In truth, it could have been anyone because he couldn’t see a face, but all he could do was feel, and it felt like her, soft skin stretched over wiry muscles, molten sunlight in his arms. She was saying his name over and over again, her every touch as soothing as safe harbor in a storm, as gentle as forgiveness. She returned his kisses eagerly, as though they lived in a world where there had never been a war and he was wanted and adored—and that was how he realized he was dreaming.

Alaric opened his eyes to pale morning light filtering in through the gaps between the curtains. Reality settled over him in gradual splinters of sight and sensation that slowly coalesced into a complete picture. At some point during the night, or perhaps the early hours of dawn, he and Talasyn had met in the middle of the mattress. He had pulled her to him so that her back was against his chest and he was curled around her, one arm clamped around her waist while the other had slanted upward and his hand cupped her breast through hernightshirt. At some point, his dream had spilled over into the waking world and he was hard against her buttocks, thrusting haphazardly against her.

Alaric knew that he should stop. He should disentangle himself from Talasyn and flee to his side of the bed. But he was too groggy for common sense, too frustrated from his unfinished dream, too lost in the feeling.

And Talasyn was moving as well. Movingwithhim, shifting her hips for a better, more perfect angle. She let out a breathy little moan, murmured something nonsensical, and the sounds pierced his heart at the same time that they brought him back to sanity. This was wrong. She was clearly still asleep, tangled up in a dream of someone far kinder than he was. He made to release her, but the moment his grip around her waist loosened she clutched at his arm, her blunt nails digging into his bicep, holding him in place. She craned her neck to look at him, long enough for him to see that her eyes were open and her lips were parted, before she turned away to hide her face in the pillow as she rubbed herself all over him.

Caught in her spell, he dipped his head forward, his lips grazing the slope of her neck. She arched against his chest, one hand reaching back to tug at his hair. Her nipple peaked through the thin fabric beneath the pad of his thumb and blood roared in his ears.Hehad done that, she hadlethim, and the sun had fully risen now, panels of amber illuminating the curtains, shafts of bright gold streaming into the room and over the bed where he and Talasyn rocked together in this fumbling imitation of sex. But no matter how clumsy it was, no matter how that one lingering rational part of him screamed that he shouldn’t be doing this, it was still all so amazing and new and he wasalmost there—

Alaric lifted his hand from his wife’s waist and wrapped itloosely around the back of her neck. Her flushed skin warmed the cool metal of the wedding band on his finger. “Would that you were alwaysthisobedient,” he growled.

Talasyn elbowed him in the stomach. Hard. “Fuck you.”

Even though she’d quite literally knocked the breath out of his lungs, he couldn’t suppress a grin. He plucked at her breast in retaliation and she yelped, squirming against him in just the right way, just the best way. He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling the scent of mangoes and promise jasmines, his hips snapping against her, bringing him closer to the edge—

“Stop.” She moaned it into the pillow, ragged and overwhelmed. “Alaric, we have to stop.”

His hands fell away from her immediately. The rest of him was a little slower on the uptake, but eventually he sprang to the edge of the bed, the sudden loss of her bringing with it some semblance of wakefulness.

Talasyn shuddered and her back, still turned to him, twitched with heaving breaths. It almost sounded as though she was crying. Alaric could only stare at her dumbly until the fog of lust clouding his senses abated and cold realization set in.

His proud, strong wife, curled in on herself, looking so small and shattered over the sheets. The air rife with each panicked gasp that she took. Her confusion was almost tangible, cutting him as deeply as despair.

This washisfault. He was the one who’d been giving her his rage and the cold shoulder, only to not be able to keep his hands to himself in the end, even though he knew better. Even though the stolen sariman sang within the Citadel. Even as the Kesathese fleet prepared to invade Nenavar.

Talasyn had told him that she thought they could protect each other. She had said it so wide-eyed, in the moonlight. In reality, she should be protecting herself fromhim.

He destroyed everything he touched.

Self-loathing ate at him. He got out of bed and holed up in the bathroom, both to collect himself and to give Talasyn what privacy he could. As he splashed cold water on his face, he contemplated how best to discuss with her what had happened. If they even should.

What would he tell her, though?

This was another mistake. We have to stop making those—possibly.

You took away the loneliness, even for just a little while—no.

This was why I didn’t want to share the bed. It’s reallyyourfault for insisting—bad idea. He didn’t have a death wish.

The correct thing to say was still eluding him by the time he returned to their chambers. He would let Talasyn take the lead, he decided, and go from there.

It turned out, however, to be a moot point. Her side of the bed was empty. He couldn’t hear her moving around in her dressing room, but its door was open, as though she’d left in a rush.

Alaric didn’t think much of it at first, not even when Sevraim was the only one who broke fast with him in the dining room. It was understandable that Talasyn would want some space after what happened. But when he didn’t see her all morning and neither she nor her lady-in-waiting showed up for lunch, his restraint cracked.

“Where is your mistress?” he demanded of the blue-and-gold-liveried attendant serving him and Sevraim.

Starting at being addressed so suddenly, the man almost dropped a platter of omelets stuffed with goat meat and scallions. “I … don’t know, Your Majesty. Her Grace set sail shortly after sunrise.”

“Sheleft?”

The attendant gulped at the frost that had leached into theNight Emperor’s tone. “Lady Jie might have an inkling where the Lachis’ka went. I shall fetch her at once.”

Meanwhile, Sevraim was stuffing his face with freshly caught oysters on the half-shell, studded with flecks of the first shipment of Kesathese peppercorns. To Alaric’s great annoyance, he wasstillstuffing his face with them when Jie strolled in fifteen minutes later.

“Emperor Alaric.” The lady-in-waiting dipped into a perfunctory curtsy. “The Lachis’ka has departed for the Light-weaver shrine on Belian. She will return in a sennight, in time for the next eclipse.”

“And no one thought to inform me?” Alaric gritted out.

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