Page 71 of The Traitor's Curse
Oh, buggering hell, I couldn’t lie to myself. I was grateful for it now.
And I simply didn’t have the strength to try to do the moral thing, or the correct thing, rather than what I longed for more than anything in the world. Even staying in bed until late morning I still hadn’t slept nearly enough. I’d skipped breakfast in favor of coffee, and I’d skipped lunch in favor of confronting Zettine. Come to think of it, I’d skipped supper the night before. Perhaps someone with a stiffer backbone might not love the man who’d killed his father. And perhaps someone with a stronger sense of right wouldn’t blackmail his council into legalizing his marriage to his own stepbrother.
Those very respectable and moral people could bloody well go be self-righteous, and lonely and miserable, without me.
“You really want me to be honest with you?” I asked him. He nodded, brow furrowing, and stood up a bit straighter, as if he meant to take what I had to say like a man. “I’m not sure I have forgiven you, and perhaps you’re right that I can’t and won’t. For the way you lied to me, anyway. But I don’t care. I’m too tired. I have to be the Crown Duke with everyone else. Please just put me back in bed, and feed me a roast beef sandwich, and tell me that you love me. And then kill anyone who tries to wake me until tomorrow morning when I need to meet with Zettineagain.”
Benedict slipped an arm around my waist and drew me close, using his other hand to pull me into a fold of his cloak. His low laughter warmed me even more than his embrace.
“Your rose petal lips look so beautiful all dewed with raindrops,” he said, his tone suspiciously sincere, “and even lovelier wrapped around my cock. Maybe I should write a poem about your perfect mouth wrapped around a roast bee—”
Even in the cold, the tips of my ears burned like fire. “Shut up, Benedict! I’m hungry! And I—” I had tears in my eyes, actually, accounting for at least half the water on my eyelashes. My knees shook. Gods, I’d fall down in a faint right here from sheer starvation. An hour of fencing with Zettine had taken the very last of my strength. “I love you,” I said, and my voice came out so weak the words were almost lost to the rain.
But not quite.
Benedict went utterly still, staring at me with his mouth open, rain washing his long hair down against the sides of his face in damp tendrils, eyes so wide I could see the whites all around them.
“You what?” he said blankly, and blinked. His arms around me had gone rigid. “You—I beg your pardon, you what?”
“I love you!” It seemed easier to say the second time, perhaps because I hadn’t known how true it was until I said it once.
But of course I loved him. I needed him like air, and I’d never really thought about anyone else since the first moment he looked into my eyes. Besides, no one else had ever loved me like he did, and that counted for more than I’d realized it could. Even if I hadn’t fallen in love with him spontaneously, I probably would’ve just for the way he’d protected and cared for me.
And killed my father. Dromos help me, perhaps I’d inherited something of my family’s ruthless insanity after all.
“I love you,” I repeated, and the third time, it simply flowed off my tongue like warm honey. “Once I’ve forced it down the council’s throats, will you marry me? You don’t have to,” I hastened to add, lest he think I meant it as a ducal command—not that he gave a fuck about those, anyway. “But you had to bond your magic to me. You’re tied to me through no choice of your own. I want you to choose me. Do you understand? Marry me because you want to. I’ll make sure there’s a codicil in the contract. That you can’t inherit the throne if something happens to me.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Benedict said, and he sounded a little dazed. “I learned a bit about these bonds when I visited Ixyon. If you die, I die.”
“What? You—what?” I tried to pull away from him, the shock of that giving me more energy than I’d had all day, but he was like a brick wall. “How could you not have told me this? I thought you weren’t going to lie to me anymore!”
“It just hadn’t come up yet, Lucian, I wasn’t lying—”
“It hasn’t come up yet,” I forced out through my gritted teeth, “because we haven’t died. At which point you wouldn’t have to tell me anything.”
“It’s not as if it goes both directions,” he said, sounding like a person who thought he was being eminently reasonable. “If I die, you’ll be completely unaffected.”
“Completely unaffected,” I repeated, unable to believe my ears. Had I thought I was in love with this infuriating idiot? Clearly, I’d inherited farmorethan my share of my family’s propensity for insanity. “Completely un—I love you. And I’m beginning to regret it. Would it affect you if I died?”
“Well, since I’d also be—”
“Benedict!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and almost sounded like he meant it. “Yes. Even if it didn’t kill me, I’d kill myself. You’ve made yourpoint. But even if you love me,” and the way his lips twitched up, as if even saying it made him happy, forced a smile out of me in helpless response, “you don’t love me as much as I love you.”
“You can’t possibly know that, and I can’t believe how arrogant and presumptuous you are! Don’t try to tell me how I—”
He cut me off with a hard, searing kiss, bruising my lips and bending me back over his arm, squeezing the breath out of me.
Benedict lifted his head an inch, barely enough to look into my eyes. “I do know, because no one’s ever loved anyone as much as I love you. So however much you love me, it’s less.”
I still couldn’t quite seem to fill my lungs, as if my heart had expanded too much to give them room.
“Oh,” I gasped, like a fool. “Really?”
Benedict’s smile grew, creasing his cheek, bringing out the dimple that only made an appearance once in a blue moon—when he was truly happy. His eyes sparkled with his magic, and with joy, and with more love than I’d known could exist, at least for me.
“Really,” he said, with his usual unshakeable confidence. And he kissed me again.
