Page 54 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

A week of being home on Wylan soil, and though I’d taken a day to recover upon our arrival, I sat in on a ton of meetings about the plans to return Artem.

We all thought it best both Zavatari siblings not go back to Agria at the same time, so Amos and I would personally deliver Artem back to the queen. The morning after next.

Kessara was recovered from her burnout, though I’d been an absolute ass in demanding she eat every few hours. While she might be recovered from the way we’d had to fight our way out of Agria, I wasn’t.

Not even a little.

It’d been my actions which had put us in that place. A place to be attacked. And even in the heat of the moment, my brain was so fogged by the need to protect her, that I hadn’t even thought of running my power within the ground until it had almost been too late.

I’d messed up. Royally. Pun intended.

I slipped into my room to find Kessara already asleep. As she had been the last two nights. While I’d been busy planning the trip to return Artem, she’d been equally busy spending time with her brother and some of the team.

I quickly showered and slid in next to her, ready to further torment myself.

What the hell was I doing?

I was married to a princess. One I had almost gotten killed. My skin ached to hold her against my own. I’d done the unthinkable and fallen for my wife. My wife who deserved to be free. Who deserved someone much more worthy than me.

She rolled over and reached for me as my heart cracked further.

I brushed a kiss to her hand and got back out of bed, throwing the covers back. I couldn’t do this. It wasn’t pretending anymore. And now that I was admitting to myself where my feelings were, I needed to back off. Way off.

Princess Kessara Astra Zavatari didn’t ask me to fall in love with her. But it’d happened all the same.

We were married in order to keep her safe, in order to keep her ex at bay, in order for her to be able to stay in Wylan with her brothers. And yet, if I was truly honest with myself, I knew there had been some feelings from the very start.

I wanted her in the mornings, sleepy and snarky.

I wanted her in the evenings, tired from her day.

In every space, in every capacity, she’d invaded me.

She’d taken over my mind first, and now she was rooted into my chest. I didn’t want to remove her from those places, but I feared I’d have to before things went any further.

As I moved to look out the balcony, her groggy voice said, “Owen. Come to bed.”

“In a moment,” I lied. I waited until her breathing evened out and she went back to sleep and then like a coward, I fled.

I couldn’t sleep beside the woman I loved and not touch her, not chase away these demons which plagued me .

So I left, walking across the castle in nothing more than sweatpants and headed to my old room, the one I had stayed in on the delegate side of the castle when I’d been Jorah’s guard.

Sleep was elusive there, too.

And after only a few hours of restless sleep, I woke to a pounding on my door, followed by the queen of Wylan barging right on in.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

“Good morning,” I told her.

“Owen,” she hissed.

“Jorah.”

She sat at the foot of my bed. “I demand you tell me what is wrong with you. You haven’t been the same since you returned home from Agria.

You told us what happened, but apparently not all of it.

I’ve given you space, but all you’re doing is moping around in it.

My hormones are raging and when I woke up this morning to feel you were across the castle, I decided giving you space wasn’t doing you any favors. ”

So many words. There were so many words coming from her mouth, and I was still barely awake. “Can you come back in an hour to berate me?”

“No,” she snapped. “You’re going to talk to me and then I arranged for you to spar with Miles this morning. You are just demented enough that I know having a weapon in your hand will help.”

That only reminded me of having to spar with my own wife in front of her parents. Having to prove myself worthy. Which I had technically done, passed the test, only to tragically fail shortly thereafter.

“Owen,” Jorah said, voice cracking. “We might only be kin bonded, but I can feel your pain.”

I did my best to block her entirely through the bond lately, but it still must have been spilling through. She was brewing another heir, she surely needed all the sleep she could get right now. “I’m sorry, Jorah.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Her voice went soft. “But just as you never let me suffer alone, I refuse to allow you to.”

“Stubborn ass,” I jested.

“Takes one to know one.”

I let out a long sigh, sitting up a little in bed. Might as well rip the bandage right off. “I fell in love with my wife.”

Her eyes went wide.

“It is entirely real for me. And just as I realized that, I almost got us killed.”

She gave her head a shake. “Those men attacked the two of you. You didn’t cause that, Owen.”

“Didn’t I? I was the one who upset her by offering her the crown of Agria.

Because I would give her anything she’d ask of me.

And then I was the one who asked Keir and Zaire to drop us in that clearing because I was desperate to make amends.

And then when we fought back, I was too distracted with trying to push down my magic as she’d asked that I didn’t even think to send it beneath the ground, hidden.

Add on top of everything that we didn’t bond because of me , and that Calix keeps throwing that fact in her face thinking it’s because she wants him, and that grates on my every last nerve. ”

“Owen,” she said gently.

“I can’t think straight, Jorah!” My chest was heaving. “What if Calix is right? And I can’t bear to make mistakes when I know that even the small ones could hurt her. I do not like this feeling at all!”

She reached over and squeezed my wrist. “This is love, Owen. To fear for the piece of your heart outside it. To fear what the other person will do with it.”

“Well, I don’t want it. I want that piece back. So I can set her free. We married so that she could have her freedom here. This was never the plan! ”

“Wasn’t it?” she asked gently. “Do you really think Krew and Keir, her brothers, wouldn’t have helped her if you hadn’t stepped in and offered to marry her?”

I considered her words.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why it is that she agreed to it so quickly? Both of you did.”

“She had no choice!”

“Didn’t she? Krew would’ve kicked Calix out of Wylan regardless. None of us asked it of you. Yes, it was rather effective but not required.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but she wasn’t done.

“If you ask me, you’re running scared, Owen.” I again butted in to defend myself, but she put up a hand to stop me and continued, “This is the first time I have ever seen you like this. I am worried sick about you. Talk to her, Owen. Tell her. ”

My voice was rough as I finally got out, “But she deserves to be free.”

“Remember the night Krew tried to kick me out of his Assemblage? He thought the same thing. I just prefer my freedom tucked in and tethered next to him.”

“I can’t dare to hope that high,” I whispered.

“You can,” she encouraged. “Risk it all. You’re Owen Gerald Raikes. If you go down, you go down swinging. What’s the worst that will happen? You will mope around for about a week? Oh wait.”

I swallowed hard. “I loathe how effective your little pep talks are.”

She grinned at me. “I know. Now. Should I find you in this room tomorrow morning, as your queen who is also your best friend and cannot stand when you are being too stubborn for your own good, I will dispatch a team to retrieve you.”

“Yes, Your Highness. ”

She stood up and turned to leave. “Get down to the training ring. Miles is waiting.”

I’d been trying to work through things on my own but had obviously been flailing about and it had shown.

In this moment, I was just grateful that someone loved me enough to know I needed someone to reach a hand out and pull me out of it.

I didn’t know if it would work, but I was thankful for it all the same.

Sweat ran down my bare back in beads. It was cold enough that both of us should have shirts on, but the sting of the cold and the combination of how fast we were moving were making me feel something other than guilt. Other than helplessness.

Next to grief, helplessness had to be the worst human emotion to have to stomach. Knowing that there was nothing you could physically do or say to fix something. It simply was.

I despised it.

I threw my body around and caught an upward attack from Miles as we both tripped one another and went rolling.

“This is the day, old man,” he told me. “This is the day I get you.”

I winked at him. “Maybe tomorrow.”

On we went, swords clashing and clanging, sweat dripping. I took a hit in the gut, only to spin around and angle my sword at Miles’s throat. What would be a kill shot, were we really trying to remove one another’s heads instead of gently injuring one another.

Miles’s eyes went wide as he seemed to see something behind me.

“You really think I’m going to fall for your cheating ways today?” I snapped, chest heaving.

But instead of a smart comment in return like I expected, he shoved me backward just as another weapon came striking for me .

I threw up my sword to block it and came face to face with my wife.

And dammit, with a weapon in her hand? The urge to knock her sword to the ground and kiss her overwhelmed me. I didn’t like the rage I saw all over her face, but I did still find her most attractive.

“Princess,” I greeted.

She shoved downward and freed her sword from mine. “So we are back to that?”

“You are a princess,” I offered. “It would do me well to remember it.”

“Uhh,” Miles interrupted. “Hi, Kessara. I’d like to disappear and let the two of you work out whatever this is, but I need to make sure you aren’t really going to hurt him first.” He paused as he looked to me. “He’s the big brother I never had.”