Page 70 of The Crimson Princess
He cups my head and kisses me, a deep slide of his tongue, that is over too soon. “What just happened?” His voice is raspy with a gentle demand.
I lean against the wall, feeling the weight of my grief. “I’m missing my mother. She was really all I had. You have an amazing circle of friends.”
He plants his hand on the wall beside my head, the other settling warmly on my waist. “I know how much losing your mother hurts. You were close to her. I was close to both of my parents. And I can tell you from experience, the loss will hit you at random times and feel as if it comes at you from nowhere and everywhere all at once.”
“We used to go to little bars around San Francisco and just watch people. We’d try to figure out what their stories were. I’m still not sure I know yours.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What do you want to know?”
“The same thing I asked you the night at the bakery back in Ravengale. Why don’t you have a queen next to you?”
He tilts his head back, and I watch the muscles of his throat bob before he lowers his gaze to mine. “I’ve certainly not been celibate, princess. I wouldn’t pretend otherwise. Vampires are sexual beings. But my answer to why I have no queen hasn’t changed. And any female who claims the throne next to me would be a target for my brother.”
“I get that. I do. But I didn’t accept it that night, any more than I do now. You dismissed the idea of needing an heir, but what of your legacy? What about your followers who need a future that will not be corrupted by another ruler? You need an heir. You need a wife.”
“Are you volunteering for the job? Because if you are—”
My hand presses to his chest, the thunder of his heartbeat matching my own. “We’ve only just met and yet we both know that can’t happen.”
“Everything is possible. My mother used to say that. And while we share a bloodbond that erases the time you speak of, I am also not at all resistant to courting you.”
Courting me? Is he serious? And why are we even talking about this? Everything is not possible. If only it were.Toren, I whisper in my mind, his name is torment radiating from somewhere deep in my soul.
“Toren.”
This time it’s not me who says his name. At the sound of Stefan’s voice, Toren grits his teeth. “We’re not done talking about this.” With that, he releases me and turns to the other vampire.
Stefan says nothing, simply offering him a folded piece of paper, secured with a red seal. Toren accepts it and murmurs something unintelligible to Stefan, before he returns to me. He holds up the paper. “Intel. It’s time to go home.”
His hand settles on my waist and he blinks us into his living room, next to the fireplace that instantly glows with warmth. He leaves me there and walks to the window, the night upon us, the twinkling lights of Bloodstone’s city beauty beyond the glass. I hug myself as he offers me his back, the muscles in his shoulders knotting with each passing second.
When I can take it no more, I close the space between us and step to his side. “Well?”
He turns to face me, his expression grim. “You were right. Your father and the druids did come to an agreement, with you as the currency, and Bellar assumed to be the future king by your side. The druids, in turn, shut my brother out and together they plan to submit me to their rule.”
“I’ll never marry him. You know that. And then it falls apart. The plan won’t work.”
“Their plan isn’t what worries me. What worries me is how pissed off my brother is. He’s vowed revenge, and he wants it now, not later. He plans to use his rebels to attack and claim Ravengale and the Book of Life as his own. Once he does that, he can open the portal and submit the sorceress and he’d have unlimited power. And now you know why your father was so willing to have me at the Challenge. Just as I suspected, they want me to end Ruhn and then they plan to end me.”
“How do we stop it?”
“Wedon’t.Ido.”
I recoil inside at the division of those words. “What does that even mean?”
“I have to go out for a while.”
In other words, he needs to plan a war without the enemy present.
His hands come down on my arms and there’s a flex to his fingers, tension in the touch that I’ve never felt between us until now. “Roam freely. Explore. Read. Whatever you want. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
A huge part of me wants to remind him I’m not the enemy, to ask him to include me in his planning, to allow me to help him find a solution that brings our worlds together. But his need for space is palpable and I offer him the escape he craves. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
For a moment, he just stares at me, those blue eyes as sharp as my dagger, and then he’s gone, just gone, and I’m alone, in the vampire king’s home. In a few minutes, I’ve gone from the future queen he hungered for, to the thorn I can only assume he doesn’t want in his kingdom, let alone his luxurious bed.
