Page 115 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
“Does anything when it comes to us?”
Us. And no, it didn’t. Then realization dawned. “You came here because you wantusto sleep in the same bed?”
He gave me a rigid smile, as if in pain to be asking. “If you’ll have me.”
Having Zandyr within reach had ended badly last time. Well, perhaps not badly, but certainly madly. Kissing had not been part of the plan. Liking it even less so.
“And if I say no?” I asked.
“Then I will go out the same way I came in and trouble you no more. There must be some remedy hidden in the Archives somewhere. I am a patient man. Tired, but patient.”
He might have been, but I wasn’t. In the wild, exhaustion meant fewer, more painful days, and Phoenix Peak was more dangerous than a forest.
“What if there is no treatment?” Remedies were for wounds and aching teeth. We needed a cure for whatever was making my heart beat faster anytime I saw him.
“Then we will look dreadful at our wedding,” he said with a straight face, even as laughter danced in his voice. “Possibly faint.”
I huffed a laugh and twisted my fingers together, as if I could braid a solution out of thin air. The simple fix was staring straight at me with his ice eyes, clad in his fearsome armor.
He sighed. “If I don’t rest properly, I can’t fight properly. And I need all my senses on high alert right now. The Senate of Sages is being particularly stubborn nowadays.”
Which meant the advisors were probably up to something. I needed my strength as well. We were playing a dangerous game here.
I licked my lips to agree. It was the logical solution, based on survival.
“I haven’t seen you in the last three days,” I said instead. “You didn’t visit.”
Gods, the floor might as well swallow me up now and save me the embarrassment of my own words.
“Me?” His brows rose. “I didn’t see you on the training grounds, in my study in the House of Scribes, or coming to visit my tower again. Have you suddenly mastered invisibility and I simply did not notice?”
“How was I supposed to know where you were? You know where to find me.”
“You told me we shouldn’t have kissed.” His tone was calm, but there was an unnamed emotion coating his words. Disappointment?
I had said that, hadn’t I? “I also told you I liked it.”
“Plenty of people like the mistakes they make.”
“Wait…you thought it was a mistake?” My heart cracked the tiniest bit.
“You obviously did.”
I tilted my chin up. “I did not. Kissing you just…made things more complicated.” Like wanting to see him and feel him all the damn time. “That doesn’t mean I regret it.”
It was truly complicated, navigating these feelings I couldn’t even comprehend myself.
A corner of his lips ticked up. It might have been my imagination, but his shoulders relaxed. “Very well, then. If wedecide to sleep in the same bed, we might be seeing each other every night, and we won’t have this issue again.”
If only it would be that simple.
“What if…what if we try it for just one night?” I began, doubting every word. I didn’t know what was worse–having Zandyr in my bed or not. “If it doesn’t work, we can pretend it never happened.”
Like we’d pretended until now that his lips had been on mine, sucking my tongue into his mouth. I cleared my throat, strangling that thought.
“Thank you, formidable Daughter of the Protectorate.” He gave a low mock bow, but I heard his small sigh of relief.
“I should’ve asked you to kneel,” I mumbled.
