Page 107 of Promise of Darkness
“Come this way,” Kyrian calls, turning and striding toward the stone arches that seem to lead directly into a castle hewn into the rock. “I’ve had my servants send for refreshments. You seem as though you need them.”
* * *
Kyrian sinksonto the enormous carved stone throne in the middle of his audience hall, kicking his legs over one arm and snapping his fingers for wine. “So tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You’d know that if you bothered to show up for the alliance meeting.” There’s nothing to say Thiago is angry except for the cool, supercilious arch to his brow.
“I had better things to do rather than waste my time watching three petty bitches try to put me in my supposed place.”
Servants spring forward, a pair of women wearing gowns of berry red that drape at the throat, leaving their backs and spines bare. Though they offer us refreshments, there’s a fierceness in their eyes that leaves me in no doubt that they’re not merely servants, and I’m fairly certain the golden ornaments in their hair have sharp ends.
“As much as they irritate me too, we need them,” Thiago replies, accepting a glass.
“It’s debatable.” Kyrian’s eyes flash fire and he glances at me.
“She knows.”
There’s a faint softening of the Prince of Tides’ shoulders. He rubs his finger around the rim of his wineglass. “Year by year, it all plays out the same way. You must be weary of the game by now, old friend.”
“Would you be weary? If that was Meriana?”
Kyrian’s finger stills on the glass.
“No. I would not be weary. I would spend a thousand summers hunting the seas so I could cut that bitch’s heart from her chest while she watched.”
Meriana.
That was the name of the woman he’d once loved.
But it’s clear that whatever emotions he felt toward her have long since faded.
“And I would spend a thousand winters waiting for my wife to recognize me, if that was what it took,” Thiago replies in a deadly soft voice. “But she’s right here, so perhaps you can stop talking over her head as if she’s not.”
Kyrian shoots me a disdainful smile. “I used to think love was a gift, but it’s not. It’s a poison, slowly ingested over years, and it’s ultimately fatal. Remember that, Your Highness, when you must return home to your mother again. Because you’re leading him to a slow, steady death as surely as the sun will set in the west, and I don’t think the bastard has the strength to avoid his fate now.”
The words stun me.
I think I understand Eris’s anger toward me—she cares for her prince. But Kyrian’s anger feels more personal, as if he’s seeing another face painted over mine and his words are intended for her.
That doesn’t make them feel any less personal.
Or true.
I don’t know what I feel toward Thiago—the entire revelation was such an upheaval I’m still finding my feet—but I know when he looks at me, he sees his entire world. It makes me feel safe and overwhelmed and nervous.
Nobody has ever loved me.
It’s all I ever longed for when I was a little girl, and it feels as though that dream has been delivered on a gold platter, but I somehow missed the steps leading up to it.
I wanted someone who would never turn away from me. I wanted strong arms I could curl up in when night fell and I was alone with all those little thoughts that eat at me sometimes. I wanted someone to protect me, someone who would fight for me, someone who would always be there for me.
But what if I get him killed?
What if all I do is take and take and take, until there’s nothing left?
Those dreams were a child’s dreams, but I’m a woman now, and I know sometimes the world can be cruel.
“If you felt any sense of love for him, you would set him free,” Kyrian continues. “Or you may as well put a blade in his heart right now and end it mercifully.”
