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He used his other hand to reach between us and spread my legs. He caressed me until I was slick and gasping. “Tell me.”

“It’s impossible.” The blood bond I shared with Eusia was not the only thing that would keep Theodore and me apart. But the contracts and the marriage and the prophecy all fled my mind as he settled his hips above mine, positioning himself.

He looked at me like I were as precious and faceted as a jewel.

“You think we’re impossible?” My fingers bit into his shoulders as he filled me in one frenetic, claiming thrust. I moaned and his lips met mine.

He tried to beat back the terror of what we faced with that kiss.

His lips were scorching, purifying, but a darkness lurked at the edges of my mind.

It pressed against my flushed skin—a threat cold as death.

“You’re already mine, Imogen,” he said against my cheek. “Mine.”

The rising sun gently lit the lines of his muscled body. It filled his eyes. I tried to lose myself in him. Tried to let his words settle over me like it was our very own prophecy, like it was a blessing.

Through our heavy breaths came a clicking sound. We froze. The lock I’d turned over last night was being undone by its key. The door flew open just as Theodore pulled away and jerked the blanket up and over our naked bodies.

Lachlan strode in, eyes on us for a second before he looked straight down to the ground with a curse on his lips. Beyond the threshold, Agatha stood frozen out in the hall, hands at her cheeks in mortification.

“ Out, ” Theodore bellowed.

“I’m sorry. I am.” Lachlan dropped to a knee, awkward gaze stuck on the ornate rug.

His voice was flat, but I didn’t miss the downturn of his mouth, the harshness of his words.

“The empress is up and in a piss-poor mood that you never returned to the engagement party last night. She’s insisting that you accommodate her and the princess’s ceremony on the beach.

They want the wedding and the war blessed today. ”

Theodore’s gaze on Lachlan smoldered like embers. His fist turned white where he held the blanket around us. I set a mollifying hand to the middle of his chest and his heart raged beneath it.

“Lachlan.” My voice quivered with embarrassment. “Leave. Please. We’ll be right out.”

He dipped his chin and rose in flinty silence. “Lady Imogen.” He spoke my name with unsettling formality. “You spent the night doing exactly the opposite of what you told me you would.”

Theodore’s eyes flashed. “Get out. ”

Agatha cursed at Lachlan from the threshold, but Lachlan ignored her and met Theodore’s glare. “As your commander and right hand, it is my responsibility to advise you. After the Obelian ceremony, it’s best that you and Imogen follow through with the severance.”

“I’m the fucking king—”

“If you refuse, I will set the severance to a vote with the council.”

“The council has no say in my personal affairs.”

“No, but your blood bond is, for all intents and purposes, the catalyst of this war. And it has the potential to create more problems with the empress.” He tipped his chin up in a challenge. “We have a say when your personal affairs compromise the kingdom.”

Agatha’s voice was unfathomable. “ Lachlan. ” His head snapped in her direction, an incredulous look straining his face. She shook her head, brown eyes wide and wounded. “You cannot force them. You cannot do to them what was done to us.”

Lachlan’s mouth fell open. “Agatha.” His voice turned imploring. “Agatha, this is different.” The way Agatha shut herself away, so thoroughly and efficiently, made Lachlan rear back. “Agatha—” He rushed after her, slamming the door behind him.

Everything was crumbling. Theodore and I lay twisted in the blankets, silent and stunned.

His eyes fell shut as he pulled away from me and moved to the edge of the bed.

His strong shoulders stooped. Guilt rose in me like bile.

I understood so keenly now why Theodore had not been able to abide my lack of duty, my selfishness, and my cowardice.

They were calamitous, and he had fallen headfirst into their depths.

The blood bond in my stomach rioted like I’d disobeyed it.

I had caused him harm. My gaze slid to the severing draught on the side table, next to my ring.

“Theo,” I whispered. “There was another line to the prophecy that I didn’t…

I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. The last line was ‘ What they have made will decimate the order of all things. ’” Theodore didn’t move.

“What Ligea and Nemea have made—me. I will ruin everything… I already have—”

“That’s enough,” he said softly. The shuddering silence stretched as Theodore rose from the edge of the bed.

He retrieved clothes and dressed himself, face stern and body tense.

Wrapped in a sheet, I pulled myself off the bed and made for the washroom with my head slung low.

As I passed the side table, I reached for the severing draught.

“Stop.” The word landed like a punch. I whipped my head toward Theodore and his burning gaze.

“You are so determined to believe you are some dark harbinger, some monster. I cannot believe—I refuse to believe that knowing you, that binding myself to you—” He swallowed hard.

“That… that caring for you could possibly be the cause of my ruination. But if you are to devastate me, then let it be completely. Lay waste to me and everything that’s mine.

A life without you in it is not one I wish to lead. ”

I held his impassioned gaze, my heart swelling and sinking at once. Words knotted on my tongue. “Think of what you are asking of me, Theodore,” I finally managed, my voice raw. “The people who would suffer if we stayed bound. The cost of it for your kingdom. I can’t fathom it.”

“I don’t have the solution yet. I don’t know—” He shook his head and gave me a crushing look of desperation.

“Do you think we are fated to be as we always have been? You, blighted by fear, and me, devoutly, miserably dutiful. We were both fading away.” He crossed the space between us.

“You have shone a light on me. You made me feel fury and terror and joy and longing. How do I curl myself back into the darkness after being so alive?”

My throat clamped around tears. Something cold and hard began to spread through my chest. Perhaps it was armor growing around my heart, or perhaps it was my heart itself, shriveling, calcifying, because I understood clearly what I had to do. And I knew just how awful it would be.

I took in his disheveled appearance, his waving hair that looked very much like my fingers had run through it all night. He did not resemble the untouchable king I’d first met. No, I had peeled back his defenses, and he had hardly put up a fight.

“We should hurry,” I finally managed. “Be sure to wear your crown.”