Page 7

“I love you,” I said in his mind, my body repeating it without words.

He deepened our kiss, stroking his tongue ring over and around my tongue—reminding me of the promise he’d made and broken and then remade when he got on his knees in his tent and begged my forgiveness.

He had it. I’d given it. I’d give him anything.

Someone coughed.

I moved on instinct, landing in front of Laurent with my dagger drawn and my fangs bared.

Artur of Lar Guna stood steps away, a mix of shock and poorly concealed disgust on his face. He was a big male—nearly as tall as a warrior, although he was nothing of the sort. He’d purchased his spurs at a young age and then used his deep pockets to climb the ranks at court. Laurent didn’t particularly like him, but Lar Guna was rich. More importantly, he was loyal. The vampire was a devout male who had protected Sorina when Nicolae would have thrown her in the Rift. Laurent had never forgotten it, and Lar Guna had sat on the Council since Laurent ascended the throne.

Laurent moved around me. All nonchalance, he straightened his mantle as if Lar Guna hadn’t just witnessed us trying to swallow each other’s faces. “Did you need something, my lord?”

A stain bloomed across Lar Guna’s bewhiskered cheeks. His fangs showed between fleshy lips as he looked between us. “The queen is anxious to leave, Your Grace. She was wondering where you were.” His gaze flicked to me again before settling somewhere in front of Laurent’s feet. “You and the general.”

“Well, you found us,” Laurent said lightly. “You can tell my wife the general and I will be along shortly.”

I sheathed my dagger. Lar Guna tracked the movement.

“Was there something else, Artur?” Laurent asked.

Lar Guna hesitated. Just as Laurent’s expression hardened, the vampire bowed. “Nothing at all, Your Grace. I’ll deliver your message to the queen.”

“You do that.”

As Lar Guna’s footsteps faded, I realized the blacksmith’s hammer no longer fell. Heat spread over my nape. It didn’t matter if Lar Guna blabbed. The whole courtyard probably already knew how Laurent and I had spent the last few minutes.

“It doesn’t matter,” Laurent said, clearly discerning my thoughts from my expression. Anger darkened his eyes. “Fuck him. His shock was an act. Everyone knows about us.”

“Yes, but we’ve been careful. We allowed them to pretend.” We fucked in the Rose Room, where no one could hear. Laurent paid his servants a fortune to look the other way when I slept in his bed. No one mentioned that I never used my bedchamber, or that my clothes frequently littered Laurent’s floor. In public, we were a king and his general, and the people of Nor Doru went along with the fiction that we were nothing more.

Laurent looked at me now, his lips slightly swollen from my kiss. “Maybe I’m tired of pretending.”

I felt my brows pull together. “What do you mean? You want to live…openly?”

“Would you want to?”

The question caught me off guard. Such a thing had always been impossible, so I’d never given it any thought. But if the look in Laurent’s eyes was any consideration, he’d given it plenty. “People would talk.”

“They talk anyway.”

“Not as much as they’d talk if we did that.” I shook my head as reality snuffed out any tiny spark of hope that might have flared inside me. “No. It would never work. You saw Lar Guna’s face.”

Laurent narrowed his eyes. “Would it bother you to live openly?”

I opened my mouth. Shut it. My nape grew hotter, like I’d wandered into a patch of sunlight. “No… I don’t know. Why does it matter?”

“Because it shouldn’t matter at all,” he said swiftly, the vehemence in his tone nearly knocking me back a step. He saw my surprise and stepped close, his voice softening as he grasped the edges of my cloak. “I love you, and I’m not ashamed of it. When we were younger, hiding made things exciting. Like…” He frowned as he seemed to search for the right words. “I don’t know, maybe it felt like we were getting away with something. But I don’t know if that works for me now, Varick. You are not my dirty secret. I don’t want you sitting with your knights while I sit beside Given in the Great Hall.”

“Have you mentioned this to her?” Our conversation was yet another reminder that there were three of us in his bed now. And he was a king. Whether he liked it or not, a lot of people took a great deal of interest in his marriage—and his marriage bed.

“No,” he said, “but I think I know how she’ll respond. Given spent her whole life being bullied into hiding who she really is.” A smile touched his mouth. “And our princess is learning to appreciate the unexpected.”

“She might not appreciate us kissing in public.”

He scoffed. “Only because she won’t be able to keep her fingers off her pussy.”

“You should probably discourage her from doing that in public.”