Page 52 of The Royal Curse

“Right, sir,” Salvius said, and his footsteps retreated.

Silence fell, pressing down on me like a physical weight. Andreas’s jaw set, and he shook his head and buckled on his sword without a word.

I swallowed hard. “They know, don’t they?” I said, my voice thin.

Andreas hesitated, hands clasped around the hilt of his sword so hard that his knuckles had gone white.

“Almost certainly,” he said at last. He didn’t meet my eyes. “Damn it to hell. I hoped they—fuck. I was too careless.”

My vision blurred. He was ashamed of the men knowing he’d taken me to bed. Because I was a dawn mage? Because of my rank? Or worst of all…just because of me?

At least now I wasn’t aroused anymore. And my skin was covered in goosebumps. When had it gotten so cold in the room?

“Do you want to come down,” Andreas said abruptly, “or shall I report once I’ve seen Dario and read the letter?”

My shirt had to be around here somewhere. I fumbled until I found it, my fingers clumsy as I turned it right-side out. The numbness in my lips and tongue made it difficult to speak, but I managed, “Make sure no one’s in the hall and I’ll slip across and dress. I’ll be down in five minutes.”

Andreas nodded. A few horrifyingly awkward, silent moments later, I’d gotten myself clothed enough to pass at a glance, dashed across, and shut the door of my own room behind me. My stomach churned with nausea, and I collapsed against the door and closed my eyes.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck,fuck. I couldn’t even feel clearly, let alone think, too confused and sick to pull anything coherent out of my whirling mess of conflicting desires and fears. Andreas, the potion, the conclave, Andreas, his hands and mouth on me, the light in his eyes when he kissed me, the way he wouldn’t look me in the eyes at all when he realized the men he commanded had guessed that he had me in his bed. The needy, helpless ache in my stomach and chest when he smiled, when he called meYour Highnessin that low rasp of his, when he told me in such shameless detail how he meant to take me. The way I so often laughed and wanted to hit him simultaneously.

Or how I’d gone from resenting his authority over me to craving it.

How even though he’d clearly rather cut off his own arm than publicly claim me, I’d be willing to let him bend me over in the yard of the inn if he wanted to.

He liked me, didn’t he? Well enough to fuck me and smile at me and kiss me. But not enough, apparently, to stand beside me and endure the laughter and the whispers and the jeers that a guard fucking a royal twilight mage would inevitably draw from literally everyone. And how could I blame him, really? He wouldn’t be treated like a fellow soldier anymore by his comrades, and the nobility might not accept him. My mother would…it didn’t bear thinking about, because if she had even the slightest inkling of what Andreas had done to save me from my magic, even though he’d done itto save me, she’d want his head on a pike over the front gate of the palace, aesthetics be damned. I might be able to convince her he hadn’t taken advantage of me, but it’d be a close call.

Come to think of it, that might have had something to do with his horror at the idea of anyone knowing about us.

He’d never risk his career and his friends, and even his life, to have me. No matter how much he might like me or enjoy my body, a man like him, who could have anyone, would choose someone who’d be less troublesome. It was only sensible.

For fuck’s sake, when had I started imagining an impossible, perfect future with him by my side?

A hot trickle down my cheek brought me back to the here and now, and I blinked rapidly to clear my stinging eyes.

Thank the gods I had the potion, although I had to pray it’d work when I needed it. Maybe if it didn’t, Andreas could tell the guards that he had no choice but to fuck me, and then they wouldn’t laugh at him quite as much.

Wearily, I pushed off the door, feeling as if I’d aged thirty years in the past five minutes. This tight, twisting sensation in my chest keeping me from pulling in a full breath had to be embarrassment and shame, nothing more. I couldn’t let it be more.

Andreas’s lips on mine, the smile in his eyes, the way he’d said my name…

I had to bite my lip to keep in something between a moan and a sob.

The conclave. The river. The journey. I could focus my mind on that, treat Andreas like the paid guard he was and not like the man I—fuck.

I laid out fresh clothing, packed my things, and washed as much of my body as I could with a cloth and a basin, scrubbing at my skin as if I could scour away any trace of Andreas’s touch along with the more tangible evidence he’d left behind.

And then I drew in the deepest breath I could, straightened my spine, set my features in the mask of a prince who didn’t at all want to fling himself on his guard’s chest and beg, and went downstairs.

Chapter Nineteen

Dario’s explanation clearly didn’t completely satisfy Andreas, and he was frowning as we dismissed Dario to go and get a hot drink after his long ride.

“He’s overeager, I think,” Andreas muttered. “He wants to redeem himself for his damn fool blunder with the bridge. Not that I didn’t blunder too.” He still wouldn’t look me in the eye, gazing down at Carlo’s letter in his hand as though it would spontaneously sprout more information if stared at hard enough.

“Carlo’s steady and reliable,” I said. “And he agrees with Dario.” The letter had indeed urged us to take this opportunity to cross the river if I still wanted to try to get to the conclave. Carlo had sent Dario back while he remained to help get the ferry ready, as Salvius had said.

But Dario’s enthusiasm and Carlo’s good judgment left me cold—literally as well as figuratively, an icy shiver racing down my back as I thought about mounting up in the dark, about the nighttime ride, about so many horses and men on a crowded boat crossing a roaring torrent of water.

---