Page 83 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
I can sleep, I can sleep, I deserve to sleep, I need to sleep, there’s no reason I can’t—
If only Greer were here. If only, if only, if only—
I doze off for a weak hour, my consciousness in and out, and there is a dream, a dream about a boat, a boat that will take me someplace I need to go. The sound of water laps through my dreams and there’s the flash of sunlight off a sword as it’s thrown into a deep, still lake—
My eyelids flutter open and I’m breathing hard. I can still smell the fog and the grass, and the strange tang of blood…
It was just a dream, Ash, I tell myself. I flip ov
er onto my stomach and try meditation again.
Hours of this go by. Racing thoughts, irritation, breathing. Until I realize that I’m nudging close to two days without sleep now, and I need to to get up and shower and dress because it’s time for the debate.
I wish I could say that I perk up as I reach the University of Denver, that my mind somehow shakes off the murk and the gripping haze of exhaustion. I wish I could say that even though I don’t perk up, I still manage to stand beside Embry and deliver a ringing offense and defense of the night’s topics.
I wish I could say that I win.
But I don’t.
Instead, I fumble for answers that normally I know well. I struggle to keep up with Embry’s charming, smiling arguments, and I can’t seem to gather my thoughts together, they drift away like leaves on a lake, they slip through my fingers like water. I sound as I feel—tired and confused—and the debate seems to last weeks. It’s my entire life, these bright lights and the handsome, sweet form of the man I love growing even handsomer and sweeter as he fills with strength and confidence, as he realizes he’s winning. I see him glance at me once or twice, that confidence tempered with concern, as if it worries him that I’m not doing well, and I’m so grateful for those glances that I almost forgive him for winning and myself for losing.
When it’s over and I walk off the stage, everyone is silent. Belvedere and Merlin and Trieste. They don’t say anything as we make for the car, and I don’t say anything, and there’s nothing to say really. I lost. I’m fried from my trip to Carpathia and this campaign and Lyr and everything, and it got to me. I deserved to lose.
A young woman runs up to me, and I recognize her as Embry’s personal assistant, Dinah. “Mr. President!”
We stop and I hold up a hand to stop Luc, who’s just stepped forward to block her path. She’s out of breath, like she’s sprinted all the way to me, and her hand is slightly damp as she presses a rectangular plastic card into my palm. “The Four Seasons,” she says, glancing over to where Merlin and Trieste stare at her and looking a little intimidated by them. “He said he’d be there tomorrow too.”
And with a flush, she turns and leaves.
“Well, you definitely won’t get any sleep now,” says Merlin.
TWENTY-ONE
EMBRY
now
I almost expect him not to come. In fact, I’m certain he won’t come; I don’t know that I would, in his shoes, and given what’s on the news at this very moment…
Complicated, shameful fury overwhelms me once again, just like it did after the debate when I sent Dinah after him. No, he has to come, he has to, because that’s the deal between us, it’s always been the deal. We don’t run away from each other and we come when called. No matter the hate, no matter the pain, we come when called.
I’m pacing and tugging at my tie when I hear the electronic clunk of the hotel door, and turn to see Ash walking in.
He looks like shit.
No, he looks good enough to eat.
No, it’s both.
He wears his insomnia like fucking Heathcliff and his torment like Edward Rochester. The smudges under his eyes only set off how green and brilliant they are, the tired press of his mouth just begs the person looking at it to make him smile, make him laugh.
His hair is in the kind of Stygian tousle that would make Charlotte Bronte cream her Victorian panties, and his sweater clings to the hard planes and curves of his chest and stomach and arms. His tailored slacks hang off his hips like they worship his body.
Same, pants. Same.
And that desperate exhaustion surrounding him—it’s heady, it’s intoxicating. He looks wrecked and reckless, beaten and dangerous. Everywhere on me I feel goose bumps, a wisp of fear ghosting over my skin, telling me, showing me, warning me.
I ignore the warning.
