Page 47

A chuckle warmed his throat. “Tell that to your pulse. It’s practically deafening me.”

Her breath whooshed from her lips, tickling his neck. “That is so unfair.”

“Is not.” He lifted the hand he still held and pressed her fingers to the spot under his jaw that betrayed his own pounding pulse. “See?”

She raised her head so that she could look at him, but her hand stayed there against his neck even after he moved his away. Confusion…hope?...darkened her gaze from gold to amber in the moonlight. “Why are you nervous?”

“Because.” He swayed them around so that the scant light from the nearest watchtower caressed her face. “Because for the first time in decades, I’m desperate to kiss a girl. And I don’t know if she wants me to.”

Her brows creased in that way they only ever did when the subject was her. “You can’t mean me.”

Silly, stunning, perfect Arden. He moved his now-free hand to her back as well, sliding it up toward her neck. “See anyone else in my arms?”

“But…why?”

He’d known the question was coming. It was Arden, after all.

Still, he didn’t know what answer to give her.

What answer would show her somehow that she was worthy of far more than a kiss?

That she wasn’t second best, or third, or fourth.

Not in his eyes. She was everything. So he drew in a long breath, held her gaze, and whispered, “Because the first moment I saw you in the courtyard, I admired your strength. When you first told me about your sister, I admired your courage and selflessness. When you first walked down the stairs into the ballroom in that dress you didn’t want to wear, you took my breath away.

And I never got it back. You’ve been taking it away again every minute of every day. ”

Were those tears making her eyes shine? Good ones, he hoped. He leaned closer, to the side, and feathered a kiss over her cheek. “I would call you beautiful, Arden, but it’s too weak a word. You’re stunning. Glorious. Fascinating.”

“But I’m not.” The objection was weak, her fingers taut against his neck.

He smiled into her ear. “Tell that to my pulse.”

Her breath of laughter melted her a little more, and that hand on his neck moved around to the back of his head, fingers burrowing into his hair.

The heat in his veins made a mockery of the centuries of self-control he’d learned.

Made him feel twenty again, with the first taste of love firing his blood.

But not. More. Because this wasn’t like that, not like anything he’d experienced in all his years.

She wasn’t like anyone else. Throat tight, he moved his face before hers again.

“I want to kiss you, but you don’t have to let me.

I’m not…I’ve never…you can say no. Walk away. ”

The hand at the back of his head pulled him closer, and a bit of the fire in his veins smoldered in her eyes. “Seidon.” She lifted onto her toes, putting her mouth only one tantalizing inch below his. “Don’t be an idiot.”

All the invitation he needed. He was smiling as he lowered his head that last inch, as he touched his lips to hers for that first longed-for kiss.

He tried to keep it soft, gentle, thought he was—except that the next thing he knew, her lips had parted and his head was swimming, and he was tasting sugar and need and Arden .

Time stopped. Or spun out of control. He didn’t know which, didn’t care. There was only her, clinging to him every bit as desperately as he clung to her, and it felt like his heart was trying to hammer its way out of his chest.

Then, somehow, sometime, a fracture. A deep “Ahem!” that sounded as though it had grown impatient from previous attempts he hadn’t heard.

Arden started, attempted to jump back, but given that his arms wouldn’t obey the foggy command to let her go, she only managed to put an inch of space between them. Seidon stared at her flushed face for a long second before he could convince his eyes to turn.

Enoch stood a few feet away, fury carefully banked in his gaze, etching his smile into polite, horrible lines. “Pardon me for interrupting, Your Majesty. Lady Arden.”

Seidon’s arms loosened, and Arden slipped out of them. Fury or not, Enoch stood on his balcony at ten o’clock at night, long after he should have had the friary locked up for the night. It couldn’t be for a good reason.

He didn’t want to care. Didn’t want to worry about it, not right now. He wanted to tell his old friend to go away, pull Arden in again, and convince her—with either kisses or words or both, he wasn’t picky—that he could be her forever.

But telling Enoch to go away didn’t mean he would. And saying it would make Arden go rigid and remember that she didn’t believe this was possible. And really, he ought to be thanking the Triada for an interruption that brought reason and recollection of himself back.

Because he’d never felt anything quite like that, to know how to defend against it. What if he’d forgotten himself? Disrespected her?

Knowing his own cheeks were flushed, he fastened on a civil smile—and rested a hand softly on the small of Arden’s back. Because he couldn’t let her think he regretted those last however-many minutes. “Enoch. What is it?”

The friar sent Arden a pointed look, no subtlety in it at all. “An urgent matter, Your Majesty. A private one.”

Urgent? Seidon went stiff. They’d already discussed the dwindling numbers of friars…

the dwindling faith in the people. They’d already gone over the old Writ about mounting up on wings like a hawk that Enoch had so wanted to find the night of the attack—and which they’d both agreed was a promise of how the Triada would renew the faithful.

None of those things were urgent , but they were the only things beyond the ordinary that they’d discussed in the last month.

Arden stepped away, her hands clasped before her to try to hide their trembling—not that the hiding worked. She nodded toward Enoch. “Of course, Father. I’ll…I was just…” She cleared her throat, smiled. “Good night.”

Seidon echoed her goodnight, rather than telling her to stay. Let her hurry along the balcony to her door, unlock it, slip inside, when he wanted to grab her hand again and hold on.

He dragged in a long breath and turned to Enoch as her door clicked shut. “All right. What’s so urgent?”

His old friend lifted his chin. “Good question. I had no idea why I felt the Triada pressing upon me the need to come and see you. But I suspect now it was to keep you from destroying that girl’s heart.”