Page 31 of The Ocean's Heart
He watched me, his expression unreadable as I laid the blankets on the floor. They weren’t big enough to cover us completely, but the fire would keep us warm, and the mattress would provide a little cushioning for the top half of our bodies if we laid it vertically.
I threw a quick glance his way. “You might want to move the table.”
He did so but didn’t join me on the makeshift bed.
I arched a brow. “Do you intend to stay awake all night?”
“You wish for me to lie with you?”
Hadn’t I made that clear? And was I imagining the suggestiveness in his tone? “Yes. Please. In case it gets cold,” I added quickly.
He joined me, lying behind me like he had the night before and framing my body with his. I bit back a sigh of contentment because how could this feel so right?
He draped his arm over my waist, and my fingers itched to caress his skin, so pale where mine was brown. I wanted to see the shades side by side, but instead I curled my hand into a fist.
“I could get used to this,” he whispered softly, his breath moving through my hair.
His words echoed my desires. “Then why don’t you?” I squeezed my eyes closed as if that would make the words I shouldn’t have said disappear.
He rested his chin on the top of my head, tucking me against him. “You deserve love, and that is not something I can give you.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because I’m cursed.” He exhaled heavily. “I never allowed myself to say it out loud before. I’ve made it a point to disbelieve it. But there is a part of me that has always known that I am broken. I can want to possess and own. I can feel pleasure and pain and physical yearning, but I cannot love or be loved. It is why I did not execute my wife, as was my right. She needed love, thrived on it, and was given to a cold-hearted king unable to provide her with this most basic need. She betrayed me, and I understood it. But I did not forgive Chorles’s betrayal because he was my closest friend.”
“Did you…Did you kill him?”
“Yes.”
A little chill entered my blood. “He was your closest friend. Could you not have forgiven him too?”
“I did wrong by my queen Evya, but Chorles I was always a loyal friend to. He did not deserve my clemency, but had he come to me and expressed his feelings for Evya, then I may have seen it in my cold heart to set them both free. Instead, he chose to lie and cheat and deceive, and in doing so he broke the sanctity of our friendship.”
Would Vaarin help me if I told him the truth now? Would he still help my people? I didn’t want to sully what was growing between us, this warm, real thing that I believed could become more and?—
What was I thinking? There could never be a him and me. Not even if I confessed. I was no one. Nothing. And he was the fucking sea king. Any connection between us, any tender feelings he might have were for a princess. Not for her bodyguard.
I blinked back hot tears. “We should sleep.”
He hugged me close. “Then close your eyes, Little Princess.”
With guilt building a nest in my chest and all the awful possibilities of what would happen to me once my deception was complete, I doubted I’d ever fall asleep. But the steady beat of Vaarin’s heart and the crackle of the fire soon proved me wrong.
ChapterSeventeen
VAARIN
Ican’t read her this morning. It’s as if she’s taken all her emotions and locked them away, and I miss them. But I respect her guardedness, especially now that she knows I cannot be the man she needs.
There is a hollowness inside me as we take the final stretch of our journey toward the cove where our ship awaits. The gorge we’re in will take us all the way to the coast, where a perilous path will lead us into the cavern where the ship is hidden.
She hasn’t spoken since we left the shelter, and I long to hear her voice. “Tell me about your isle.”
“My isle?” She arches a brow. “There isn’t much to tell. It’s overcrowded and all but barren. My people are starving, but we have beautiful coastal views and plenty of fresh air. A shame that air cannot fill a child’s belly or bring milk to its starving mother’s breast. There are deaths, many of them. But the births come quickly to replenish us.”
I cannot imagine such an existence. To live with constant gnawing hunger. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes, so am I.”
