Page 137 of Unrivaled
I said nothing.I thought of the way Audrey’s expression would soften for him.Not for the man.For the dream.
He wasn’t giving her that dream.I’d tried to warn her.
Dreams were resilient things, though.They filled our heads and lingered around our eyes, clouding our judgment.
She deserved that dream.But she didn’t deserve this man.
“The Duke’s making progress,” he told me, as if I’d asked.“He broke the resistance at one of the passes with force and magic.”He met Kadan’s glance with a slight nod.“I hear Alric sold him the salt he’s after.”
“Shit,” Kadan muttered.“When’s it arriving?”
“Once the snows melt.Late spring, I’d say.”Luca nudged the dice in front of him.It rolled onto the six, but he didn’t react to the win.“I do worry about how Audrey might react to our plans for her father.I’d hate to wound her.”
Kadan’s brows rose.“There’s no love lost there, is there?”
Luca was quiet for a long moment before looking, pointedly, at me.
“I haven’t asked her how she’d feel about your plans,” I told him, without a scrap of a lie.
“Does she speak of him often?”Luca asked me, the picture of doting concern.
The last time I’d seen Audrey, she’d been shedding mud and debris she’d picked up during her jaunt through the orchards.They’d gone away from the crowds, just her and Isolde, slipping away and leaving me guarding an empty tower with an aching heart.She’d smiled at me the way she’d smile at a stable hand on the way through, her body moving with the fluid quality I recognized from the aftermath of our training sessions…and more intimate times.She’d be a puddle, now, asleep in the center of her bed in a cocoon of blankets.I could feel her warmth on my hands, the way her skin would feel against my lips.
If he thought her delicate still, after what she’d shown him these past moons, then he was a lost cause.As for how she felt about her father…it would’ve been easy to reflect on the hours she spent drilling, the buckets of sweat and the bruises and the aches and the hours lost to repetitive movements all done for a single goal.
But that wouldn’t have been fair.How much of that plan hadanythingto do with her feelings for him, I still wasn’t sure.The rare long, heavy sighs, the way she’d look out to the horizon, her brow furrowed ever so slightly, the way she shook like a leaf with fear and also with rage, the way she’d soothe and pamper guests, the way she never flinched with a door opened too hard but always stilled, thefailure is not a choice you can makemindset—thatwas her father.Whether she knew it or not.
Not for the One himself would I tell a word of that to Luca, though.He’d had all the same opportunities I had to see it.He just wasn’t looking.
“I can’t speak for Audrey,” I told him.He waved his fingers as if that was a given.The arrogance of the man grated.“But, best as I can tell, most people feel some way about their parents.”I refused to have my own experiences in my head as I spoke.“He’ll always be her father.Some work through it, some ignore it, but it’s there, at least at some point.”
Luca’s expression remained perfectly bland.The disbelief was in the little curl of his lip, in the way he ducked his head as he reached for his cup.It wasn’t the answer he wanted, so he was opting for disbelief.Mayhap, if I pushed him too hard, he’d even go to mockery.
He wanted me to tell himno, she’ll love you well, even if you murder him.
The opportunity to needle him just a little, to say,she’d need years to forgive anyone who hurt him, probably,was right there.It wouldn’t even be a lie.Mayhap I’d been spending too much time with Isolde, that I was so sorely tempted to rattle Luca’s chain.Mayhap I’d been spending too much time with Thomas that instead I looked down at the cup of cider before me.The painting behind me stared through me.
It said everything that needed to be said.
“I just want to make it as easy on her as I can,” he told me, spreading one hand wide in a gesture of gentle helplessness.
“Have you considered discussing it with her?”I asked, in a level tone I was very proud of.
From his chair opposite me, Kadan shot me quick look, not a hint of emotion on his face.But I knew he was laughing on the inside.How many other fuck-ups had Luca walked into because he was too arrogant toask?The laughter bubbled up in me too, loosening my shoulders, letting me sit back more comfortably.
“I couldn’t put her in that position.”He underscored the seriousness of this with a deep frown and a sharp shake of his head.The laughter in my chest swelled.He couldn’t ask her about her own feelings, but he could watch her organize the largest faire the country had seen in decades in a few short months, coming out of a plague?There was probably a trade joke in there about scarcity and sense.She would’ve strung it together.
“Not just because it’d cause her undue worry,” he went on, as if we cared, “but because last time I entrusted her with a secret he would’ve killed her, if she hadn’t been so clever.”
I felt coldness trickling over my skin.Whatever this story was, clearly Kadan knew it, because he didn’t look surprised.“He’s in the South, mired down for at least another two years, bar the brief visit coming soon,” Kadan pointed out, sensibly.“She’ll be asking questions, you know.She’s old to be unwed.”
Under the table I’d be able to locate Kadan’s foot with precision.A swift kick would’ve been excellent retribution for that remark.Before I could do more than consider it, Luca opened his mouth.
“Well, I told her I’d take care of it.”
Someone kicked the air out of my lungs.
He was pulling strings to keep her for himself.
