Page 121 of Enchanted Heir
“Would you like to be?”
Something in his voice had me looking up into those eyes that seemed more gray than blue today.
Didn’t he see? He had helped me get some closure in the grieving of my father just so I could start the process over and begin fresh with his death. Didn’t he see how unfair this was? That he’d made me love him and was going to just disappear. That he was killing me in the most beautiful of ways. “Well, why do you continue to keep me locked away up here in protection? You said you’d keep me to the final four, and we’re almost there.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I protect you because you’re important, Jorah.”
I groaned and rubbed a hand over my forehead. “Krew, in case you hadn’t noticed, I have zero magic. Zero. I’m not a pawn here. I’m not even in the damn game. Not sure I ever was to begin with. You don’t need me. The throne doesn’t need me. The Six surely don’t need me. My blood just matters, that’s all.”
His magic was slithering into action and that’s when I realized he was really,reallymad. “That is not all. You are important.To me. And I don’t know why you cannot get that through your thick head.”
Why was he making this so hard? Couldn’t he just go back to being a jerk like in the beginning? It’d be easier for both of us that way. “There’s no one to see us now, Krew. You can cut the act.”
He ate the space between us in three strides. “It was never an act, Jorah. Not from me. Not from the very start. From the moment I first kissed you, until now.” He leaned over and brushed a quick and hard kiss to my lips before pulling back to further glare at me. “So you want to push me away? Try all you’d like. But I’m not going anywhere, love.”
Except he very much was. He was going to die on me. Tears burned my eyes, making him blurry as I tried to blink them away.
He moved none too gently to take the journal out of my hands. “You want to take this out on me? You want to hate me for making Easton your guard? So be it. I can take it. But I’ll still be right here when the dust settles.”
But would he be?
He tossed the open journal on the nightstand, and it knocked up against my water glass sitting there. A little water sloshed out, but fortunately, it didn’t fall entirely over.
I gasped. That was one of his mother’s favorite journals. “Krew! Your mother’s journal.”
“I don’t care about the journals, I care about you!” He paused, clenching his jaw. “You are drowning in grief right now.”
I was listening but hadn’t taken my eyes away from the journal yet when I noticed on the large spot where the water had spilled onto the journal, there was a word showing underneath the queen’s words that I was fairly certain hadn’t been there before.
“Jorah. Talk to me. Please. You want to yell? Yell.”
I reached for the journal, wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me.
He reached to grab it out of my hands.“Jorah.”
I shook my head. “No, Krew,” I pleaded as I reached out and squeezed his hand on the journal. “Look.”
My change in demeanor must have confused him because he looked down toward our hands.
Sure enough, there under some lines about the princes, was a word where the water had spilled. The wordgiven. Near a sentence where adding that word would make no sense at all. I pointed to it for Krew, “That word was not there when I read that page a few minutes ago,” I said softly.
“I—” Krew stopped and looked at me, his eyes bright, his skin still slightly glowing from the magic churning in him. “She loved to paint.”
Now I was the one confused.
“She loved to paint,” he repeated and looked toward my water glass. “Particularly watercolors.”
For a second all I did was look to the water and back to the journal. “What does this mean?”
Krew was up and walking for the bathroom, returning in record speed with a towel. “It means my mother may have left a message in those journals. What if it’s been there this entire time? A message she didn’t want just anyone to read.”
CHAPTER30
We turned on the lights at the table The Six met at. Krew dipped the small towel into my commandeered water glass and gently brushed it across the page.
“Careful,” I hissed. “Don’t tear the page.”
“I know,” he agreed. “We need a paintbrush to do this right, but I fear sneaking to my mother’s paintbrushes in the middle of the night will definitely look suspicious.”
