Page 169 of A Storm in Every Heart
“Yeah, but you’re not the rightful ruler,” Jett argues.
She glares sideways at Kastian. “Without me, therightful rulerwould have died years ago.”
“I agree with her,” Kastian cuts in. “Lyra should hold on to the crown, but I have a suggestion.”
“What?” Lyra barks.
“Don’t tell anyone what happened to Magnus. At least, not yet. That way, you can be him sometimes and make the transition smoother.”
She blinks, startled, then her expression turns pensive.
I sigh. I know I’ve thought it before, but Lady Lyra Von Bargen is not a meek girl, she’s a calculating woman who is clearly much more than she appears.
When Kastian and I leave the office, Jett is still inside with Lyra, helping to draft a letter to Daemon and Alix. It seems as if Hydratta and Vernallis will be forging an alliance after all, but I doubt Kastian and I will be on land long enough to see it happen. At least, not right away. We’ll have to see how things are going when we return in six months.
“I wish I had a chance to pack before we have to leave,” I comment.
Kastian looks sideways at me. “I don’t think it’s like a prison sentence,” Kastian says. “Connell clearly came to shore for long stretches of time. We can stop in the harbors to buy things.”
I grin. “But that’s so dangerous.”
He rolls his eyes. “You could find danger alone in an empty room, Princess. I doubt it matters much where we go.”
“Now you mention it, where are we going right now?”
He’s leading me up a flight of white marble stairs and I followed without question, trusting that he’s leading me wherever I need to go. Still, I’m curious.
“I’m taking you to my room,” he says. “My old room.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Why? Wasn’t once enough to hold you over for a few hours?”
His eyes heat. “Let’s agree that you’ll take that word out of your vocabulary.”
“What word?”
“Once.”
I laugh. “Touched a nerve, did I?”
“Absolutely. Once is offensive when every day for the rest of my life will never be enough of you…but actually, that’s not what I was thinking about. I want to see if I can find something.”
He takes my hand and tugs me faster up the stairs and down the hall until I’m practically running to keep up. A laugh bubbles up in my throat, and I’m grinning ear to ear when we finally stop in front of a closed door.
Kastian pushes the door open and my eyes go wide as I look around. “Wow.”
“Wow what?” he asks, walking deliberately across the room.
“Wow…I thought your room at the Ashwater Estate was strangely impersonal, but no. I see you’ve always been exactly the same.”
He scowls at me and I grin.
The room is dusty from lack of use, but underneath that I can tell that nothing is out of place. The bed is made, there’s barely any art on the walls, and not a single drawer has been left open. I wonder how Kastian is going to handle living with me…maybe it’s lucky that I didn’t have a chance to pack. It will take longer for a new mess to accumulate, and by then he’ll already be in too deep. I smile at the thought.
Kastian stands over a desk in front of a large window and starts opening drawers one by one. I walk over to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder.
“Ah, there it is,” he says triumphantly, reaching for something in the very smallest drawer.
“What?”
