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He’d clean tomorrow. All he wanted right now was to crawl into bed beside his beautiful mate and not wake up for the next two days. Hopefully, by then, this entire, fucked-up series of events would make sense.

Only problem—said beautiful mate wasn’t in bed. She was on the couch, and he immediately redirected, shuffling tiredly.

He kicked off his shoes at the threshold to the common room, climbed over the back of the couch, and lowered himself down. Taly was cocooned in a fluffy blue blanket. She didn’t look up from her book, but she did shift to make room for him, letting him slide down between her and the cushions where their bodies aligned, not quite like a puzzle. There were a few awkward elbows to work out. But eventually, they settled into a cozy tangle of intertwined limbs.

Skye sighed and let the tension of the day melt from him. This, right here, was everything he needed. Just the warmth of her body and the steady beat of her heart. That sound was his lifeline. As long as it kept going, so did he.

“Where’d you go?” she asked eventually. “You just disappeared from the party.”

Already half asleep, he had to fight his way back to the waking world, enough to mumble, “Ivain wanted to debrief about… what I saw.”

“In that man’s head?”

He nodded against her shoulder and offered nothing more.

A few moments passed…

“Seriously? Are you really going to make me drag it out of you?”

Skye sighed into her shoulder. “It’s late,” he murmured, hoping she would take the hint.

But Taly turned to look at him, taking away the pillow of her neck. The firelight flickered, casting a warm glow on her face that highlighted the tenderness in her eyes. As well as the curiosity. The suspicion. The dogged stubbornness that wouldn’t—couldn’t—let this go for even a handful of hours...

“Youexecuteda man.” He sighed tiredly and rubbed his eyes. “No, c’mon, Em. That’s not nothing.”

She was right, of course. Just not in the way she thought.

“Taly, you do understand my position, right? I’m a prince. Sometimes executions are a part of my responsibilities.”

Indeed, he was 12 years old the first time he was asked to do the honors. Seeing as it was one of his own would-be-assassins, it had seemed appropriate.

Taly punched his shoulder.

“What was that for?”

“You were being condescending.”

“It’s not condescending to state a fact.”

Her lips pursed. “The way you said it was condescending.”

He loved this woman. For some reason… “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not. I know when you’re lying, Skye, and right now, you arelying. You’ve been acting weird all day, and then you turned a man to literal sludge. What is going on?”

He wasn’t lying. He just… wasn’t telling her everything. Because he wanted to go to bed, not hash out this clusterfuck of an evening. He didn’t want to tell her about how he’d lost control, didn’t want to go into the reasons why. That was goingto be a longer conversation that just pushed him farther away from his goal of oblivion.

“Okay, fine,” Taly said. “You obviously don’t want to talk.”

Skye started to relax.

“Just tell me one thing.” He groaned. “Why did you close the bond?”

In truth, he was surprised she’d noticed, considering how she tended to mentally shy away from that connection. As if by not looking at it, she could pretend it wasn’t a problem.