Page 9 of Royal Ransom (Princess Procedural #4)

Taliyah

Cain was gone.

The knowledge hit me like a punch to the solar plexus, stealing my breath. The only physical connection I had to my brother was gone, stolen away by Janara’s vicious little pixie while we had our backs turned. She’d ransom my dead brother to bait me into her trap, just in case Fox’s draw wasn’t enough incentive to bring me in.

Worst of all, it would probably work. Losing him the first time had left me mired in depression for years. If I were being honest with myself, I still wasn’t over it and I sort of had him back—in a way, anyway. Losing Cain had been one of the most difficult times in my life, including the never-ending divorce proceedings I’d had to deal with. I couldn’t let Cain go, not like this. He couldn’t stay with me forever, but the goodbye was supposed to happen on my terms, not hers .

I felt as if I was falling through space with a wrought iron weight lodged in my stomach. I grabbed onto the back of the nearest chair to ground myself. It was instantly coated in frost.

“Tally?”

Maverick’s voice was quiet, his tone measured as if he were trying to talk someone off a ledge. I must have looked pretty damn bad if I’d robbed him of the ability to be snide.

“Give me a minute,” I said. My voice came out strangled, barely sounding like myself. For an instant, I heard the howling winter wind echoing in my words. “I just need...”

Time.

A resource in short supply now that Janara had Cain. I’d probably receive her updated terms by the end of the day: immediate and total surrender or my brother, Fox, and everyone else she’d captured would die horribly. Or be locked permanently under a layer of unmelting ice, in Cain’s case. Forever was a long time to be in solitary confinement.

“Tally, we’ll get him back, I promise. Just come back to the bar. We’ll figure this out.”

A rush of gratitude swept over me, my heart swelling in my chest. I didn’t believe the words for a second, but I was glad he knew me well enough to know I needed the comforting lie. Beneath the curmudgeon lay the heart of a hero. Not that he’d ever label himself that. Like a reluctant moth to an impossibly bright flame, I felt my heart move infinitesimally closer to my prickly warlock husband.

I didn’t care what he’d done when he’d disappeared. I didn’t care that he’d made a bad call. When it came down to the wire, I trusted him at my back. There weren’t many people I could say that about. Mav was my rock. I wasn’t abandoning him just because he was possessed. Whatever happened, we’d work through it together.

“She took him,” I said, my voice quavering. “She took him from my house, Mav. Even our best wards weren’t enough. What if Wren had broken in after school hours? She could have taken Sean and Charlie. Or Chloe. Oh God, what if they’d gotten Chloe?”

My steadfast babysitter was a changeling in the original sense of the word. She’d been kidnapped by faeries when she was young. By the time she returned, her birth parents were gone. Being taken back to Faerie again would be her worst nightmare. The simple folk remedies she used to keep them at bay would be useless if Wren dragged her to the heart of Winter.

“Can you please explain what in hell is going on?” Roland asked.

To be honest, I’d completely forgotten he was there. I looked up at him and shook my head. “I can’t explain this,” I said softly. Mav looked over at Roland and nodded. “I’ll explain everything later, when I can.” Then he looked back at me. “I’m so sorry, Tally,” he said, his voice gentle and warm, like a soothing blanket. He wanted to say more, I could tell, but he held back for the moment. I was grateful for that. I wasn’t ready to spill every fear that had flitted through my head.

I hated this. Hated being a royal. Hated that my very existence put everyone around me in danger. If I hadn’t moved to this blasted Hollow, none of my friends would be in danger. If the Morgans hadn’t adopted me, my brother would never have been threatened by a murderous faerie queen. If I hadn’t adopted Sean and Charlie, they’d be safe. I felt like a plague. I was hurting everyone I cared about.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with either one of you,” Roland said, shaking his head.

“You aren’t going to do anything with us,” I answered, facing him in all my faerie glory as my words lodged inside his brain, forcing my will. “You are going to continue acting like everything is normal. And you aren’t going to worry about what I told you earlier. It won’t even cross your mind again.”

“Right,” Roland said as he nodded and the concerned expression he’d been wearing blanched. He then turned around and walked out of the office, repeating to himself that he wasn’t going to worry about anything I told him. It was just as well because I didn’t have the wherewithal to handle him at the moment. Not with this newest bomb to land in my lap.

“Are you going to be okay?” Mav asked me tentatively.

“No,” I said honestly. “I’m just... so tired. I feel hollow, scraped out, empty…”

I risked a glance up. The storm-cloud gray of his eyes was captivating, and the look on his face was softer than I’d ever seen it. That was probably a bad sign. Maverick wasn’t the type to let his feelings show. The last time I’d seen him fawn over anyone this much, he’d been looking after his recovering undead sister. The feeling in his eyes made me want to melt into his gaze forever.

Maverick put his hand on the back of the chair, and wherever he touched, the ice melted. There was just an edge of autumn, the last warmth of the year in his magic. It thawed not only the chair but the ice in my stomach. Our hands rested close together, just barely and not touching. The energy between us was charged with something stronger than static electricity. It was almost palpable. He leaned forward. I did the same, inching steadily closer. He took my hand, and I gasped quietly. For a split second, it felt like his hand had sunk into mine.

“Mav…” I breathed his name. “What’s happening?”

He shook his head and pulled his hand away for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said, brows furrowed. “I wish I did.”

Though I felt oddly naked without his touch, I held myself back from reaching out to take his hand again. The air was still so thick with that strange charge. It was like I was suspended in a room with no air.

Maverick leaned toward me. I had ample time to step back or push him away. He watched my expression carefully, some emotion I couldn’t name flickering far back in his eyes when I stayed perfectly still. His hand wrapped around the nape of my neck. He pulled me close, rested his forehead against mine for a moment, and we breathed each other in. I almost asked him what he was doing, but the question died in my throat. I didn’t care what was happening so long as it didn’t stop.

We’d been warned that being bound had certain implications, but the reality of it all was overwhelming. My skin tingled wherever he touched me, leaving this ice queen ready to melt. It simmered into a mild burn, making me worry my whole body might catch fire from the heat between us.

“I’m worried about you,” he said, sounding strained, almost angry.

Poor Maverick, always put into situations he had no control over. It was enough to drive a blood warlock up the wall. Couldn’t fate be kind enough to hand us an easy win, at least once?

I pulled back an inch to meet his gaze. It was hard to hold it for long. The intensity of those stormy eyes was staggering. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see lightning arc in their depths.

“What is it?” I asked, mirroring his touch, sliding my hand along the back of his neck. He leaned into my hand, but his face stayed pinched. Softly, I asked, “What’s the matter now?”

I don’t know how to worry about you... I don’t know how to handle it.

The words were as clear as if he’d leaned in and whispered them in my ear. Except... I didn’t see his mouth move.

“I don’t know how to worry about you either,” I said, more to myself than to him.

Maverick looked up at me, startled. Maybe even a little angry. “What did you say?”

“I was just answering you,” I replied, a little defensive. “You said you didn’t know how to handle—”

“I didn’t say it out loud,” he said. We stared at each other, understanding dawning on us.

My mind rushed with the implications. A tidal wave of fears, hopes, and insecurities attacked me with the force of a tsunami. I can read his thoughts, I thought. But can he read mine?

Tentatively, I asked without speaking, Can you hear me?

Maverick flinched so hard he nearly upended the chair he was leaning on. The motion was so violent that I practically jumped out of my skin.

“Yes,” he said aloud, his voice and eyes filled with wonder. “My goddess...”

Holy hell. Maverick almost never swore to the goddess. He was the closest thing to an edgy atheist I’d met in witch circles. He observed the traditions with all the enthusiasm of a lapsed Catholic, more culturally invested than interested in the religion.

I pulled myself up to my full height, trying to resist the urge to curl in on myself. I felt more exposed now than I had the first time we’d had sex. The idea that we were in each other’s heads, that the boundary of our minds had been breached, was terrifying. A little romantic if you squinted. But to the purely sane, it could be a nightmare. The last time someone had been in my mind, he’d messed with my head. Jonathan had done worse than assaulting me all those years ago. He’d warped me into someone unrecognizable. How could I let someone else in like this?

Apparently, Maverick didn’t agree with my assessment. He leaned back into me, a stunned smile curling his full mouth. He ran a finger along my jaw, under my chin, and around my cheek.

“Goddess, Tally. I swear I can feel your soul. It’s as beautiful as the rest of you...”

I felt peaceful in his arms, my blood humming with serenity. When he was inside me, the Winter in my blood thawed. I wasn’t Olwen; I was just Tally. The Tally he’d given up everything to protect. I had to trap a contented sigh in my throat. How had I forgotten the most important lesson I’d learned since meeting him? Maverick wasn’t Jonathan. He was an ass sometimes, sure. He had a temper. The truth was that Mav had enough issues to stock a library’s resource section.

But he was also one of the most selfless men I’d ever met. The only thing deeper than his well of courage was his loyalty to those he felt responsible for. He liked to pretend he was an irredeemable bastard, but I’d never met someone with a softer heart underneath it all. Comparing Maverick to my ex was like trying to compare Zorro to Ghostface. Just because they dressed in black and wore masks didn’t make them the same character.

Still, there were so many questions flying through my head. What did this all mean? Were these feelings real or just the byproduct of a ritual? I didn’t think so, but the doubt still nagged at me in quiet moments. I didn’t want to force him into something he didn’t want. We hadn’t defined what we were outside our sham marriage. I was always too scared to ask. But I needed to know almost as badly as I needed to breathe.

“Mav...”

“Of course I love you,” he thought back, almost sounding offended. “I didn’t think that was even a question at this point.” I was shocked and it must have shown on my face, because he continued. “I don’t say it because I try to live it.”

Because we’d both learned the hard way that talk was cheap, that sex was only fun when there was a little feeling in it. The nights with Jonathan checked every physical box but felt utterly soulless by the end, leaving me feeling dirty afterwards. I’d felt more loved from my first kiss with Maverick than I had in years of marriage to Jonathan. There wasn’t an agenda behind Mav’s smile. There was no betrayal lurking around every corner. When this man decided something, he stuck with it. He’d lay his life on the line for me whether we were platonic or intimate. Jonathan didn’t enter any scenario with motives half as pure as that.

“I could do with hearing it out loud every now and then,” I said finally, my voice coming out as a strained whisper.

His eyes twinkled with good humor as he leaned close, his lips hovering over mine. I let out a shuddering exhale, and my breath plumed. The temperature had plummeted; my control of Winter slipping in my distraction.

“I mean, you are about to be Queen of Winter. I know you’re not letting that bitch get away with kidnap, torture, and murder. If you’re making it an order, I’ll say it as often as you want.”

My lips twitched. “Just tell me you have an authority kink, Mav. It’ll be less embarrassing than calling me Your Highness.”

“I thought that was obvious too. I mean, I’ve said you could use the handcuffs—”

I slapped a hand over his mouth before he could spill more sordid details of our sex life. No one in the precinct had superhearing, but I didn’t want a single soul to know what we got up to in the bedroom. That was my business, and no one else’s.

“Hush. What’s up with the surprise telepathy?”

“Not sure. Possibly a combination of my blood magic and your winter power. There are no hard-and-fast rules when unstable magics fuse.” He thought for a second. “What number am I thinking of?”

I laughed even as I listened hard. I heard nothing this time.

“I think you need to send the thought to me,” I told him. “Touching seems to help.”

I locked my other arm around his neck, pulling myself closer until he was seated on the chair and I knelt between his knees. Our gazes locked. His eyes widened for a split second. Even I was surprised by my boldness, but something in me needed to be closer to him. Then his arms came around my waist, lifting me onto his lap.

“I was scared you were home when Wren arrived. When I felt my wards fail...”

It felt like a lead weight dragged my stomach into my toes. There’d been one hideous stretch where he’d been certain I was dead.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” his voice rattled in my brain, even as his mouth stayed still.

I closed the remaining distance between us. We embraced, Maverick running his hands up my back. One hand fisted in my hair, the other pressed desperately against the small of my back.

I heard another thought come my way. My laugh sent a buzzing sensation through both our bodies. “Eleven. You’re thinking of the number eleven.”

“How many minutes I was absolutely certain that I lost you,” he said without missing a beat. “Hard number to forget.”

There was so much left unsaid, but neither of us was willing to break the silence.

“I love you,” I whispered.

There. It was out. I’d finally wrapped my lips around those impossible-to-utter syllables.

Maverick tipped my chin up, molding his lips to mine with enough heat to melt me into my socks. I sagged a little, grateful he had a hand braced to catch me.

“I love you too.”