Page 63

Chapter thirty

I ce crystallized in my veins.

He lowered me to the bed and turned away.

“I didn’t want you to stop,” I whispered, suddenly feeling like a shell of myself. Feeling lost.

“And gods , I don’t want to,” he groaned, and ran his trembling hands over his face. “But I have to, Ella.”

I lifted my fingers to my swollen lips where I could still taste him—sweet, hot, and alive on my tongue.

I looked down at the skirt of my sea-green dress still hiked around my waist, leaving my thighs and the white lace undergarments he’d given me in Tovick fully exposed.

And I was suddenly very cold, very… aware of myself.

Face flushed and body wracked with violent shakes, I straightened my dress on my shoulders and pushed it down to cover my knees. I grasped at the blankets on the bed and wrapped myself in one.

“You don’t have to hide yourself just because I can’t give you what you deserve, Ella. ”

I froze beneath the heat of his stare, afraid to look up. I didn’t want whatever he thought I deserved. I only wanted him, but he didn’t seem to get that.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he insisted.

But I didn’t believe him.

“I thought….” I cleared my throat and finished folding the blanket over my lap, steadying my voice. “You said there was no line you wouldn’t cross for me.”

“Then I was wrong. Because this one…” He shook his head and pointed to the ground. “I will not cross this one.”

“Because of your wife,” I said, giving voice to what I already knew was true. “Right?”

He gave no denial other than a defeated shake of his head and a run of his calloused hands through his hair.

I felt the blood leave my face. I’d become so worked up, so desperate to get what I wanted that I hadn’t considered that even though she was gone, he might feel like he was betraying her.

Vile embarrassment unfurled in my stomach, threaded with guilt that drew me deeper into myself.

Gavin had made his urges clear, but he was still a man missing his wife, and I was acting like a fool.

A young, reckless fool trying to seduce him into satisfying my own selfish desires.

Even his proclamation of love had been a defense to ward me off.

He was only trying to protect me from the pain of inevitable loss.

Sex and the feelings it brought forth were things I didn’t understand.

But he did. And he needed to protect himself from the guilt of being with someone who wasn’t her.

His sorrow made it clear that she would always have him, whether in life or in death, and I never would.

“She’s gone, but you can’t let her go.” I averted my eyes from his. “I understand, and I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. ”

He reached for my hand, but I withdrew it and retreated toward the headboard.

“Look at me.”

I refused.

“This is my fault, Ella. Mine. Not yours.”

“I’ve been selfish.” I focused on methodically intertwining my fingers one pair at a time until my hands were folded together.

Mine were the hands I could rely on. Only mine.

I needed to get that through my stupid, na?ve little head.

“I won’t push you again. You’ve made yourself clear, and I didn’t want to listen.

We will head to the Caves tomorrow, and that will be the end of this.

” I stared at my fingers, unable to look at him without shattering into a million pieces I wasn’t sure I could clean up on my own.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hand shift toward my cheek, and for once, I hated his unwavering inclination to guide me back to him. He must have seen this because he halted mid-reach.

“I want to go to sleep.” I let a foreign discomfort settle in my bones. “I don’t think you should stay here tonight.”

“Ella,” he choked out. “Ella, sweetheart, please—”

“I am your queen !” The words were empty and raw. Finally, I listened to caution. I erected that wall of self-preservation I should have kept between us this entire time. “And as your queen , I am commanding you to go .”

I sucked in a shaky breath as one last tendril of yearning rose out of my heart to seek him, to grasp the thin, wispy light still alive between us.

But he left the room before I could utter a word, slamming the door behind him.

A pathetic sob wrenched free from my throat. That newly constructed wall of self-preservation shattered. Tears spilled to quell the firestorm in my throat .

He could say he loved me. He could look at me like I was the most important thing in this world.

He could touch me. He could kiss me. He could probably even have sex with me.

His passionate, breathtaking words and all-consuming presence could lay claim to my heart and soul for eternity, and it wouldn’t matter.

I would never be to him what she had once been.

He still didn’t love me enough.

He still didn’t love me like her.

The people in this world wanted me for the blood in my veins, not the heart in my chest. They didn’t want my words or my thoughts, they wanted the gods’ powers I wielded.

Even Elias Winterton, my betrothed, would never know me as Aryella, the girl.

I would be his trophy before I was his wife.

My wants and needs were secondary to the Queen of Nyrida.

And though I had hoped and prayed it wasn’t true, Gavin Smyth was no different.

I didn’t get to have who or what I wanted.

And me? Without my crown or my powers? I was no one’s first choice. I had been foolish—with all of the burdens I carried—to hope that I could be.

***

He returned three hours later. When I heard the door unlock, I turned away from it even though doing so required me to lay on my wounded side. It hurt, but not as much as my heart. It had been weeks since I felt numb, but as I lay in bed, I wished for it.

I’d changed out of my dress into a dark-green sweater and black pants, feeling too exposed to wear my nightgown and refusing to be cold. To have a reason to want him in bed with me.

The wind rattled against the rusty panes, making sleep impossible.

At least there was the reflection of him in the window—vivid enough to make out his movements.

He sat in a chair in front of the fire, watching the flames dance, entranced in an awakened daze.

He held a drink in his hand but never lifted it to his lips.

As I lay awake, I decided to plan for the morning. I would tell him we needed two horses and that we were to head directly toward the Caves. Whenever we stopped to rest, I would require my own space, and when we passed through Tovick, I wanted Damond to take over as my escort.

Maybe the cleanest break would hurt the least.

I had just finished wiping my eyes again when I heard a knock at the door. The chair creaked beneath him as he rose. Two long strides, and he was wrenching open the door with annoyed fervor.

“Smyth?” A timid male’s voice came from the hallway.

“Felix?” Gavin grumbled, then cursed before mumbling something unintelligible to the man on the other side of the door. I tried to remember if Gavin had mentioned a Felix in any of his stories, or if the others had spoken of one from the Caves, but I couldn’t recall the name.

I didn’t bother sitting or turning to face Gavin, but he must have known I was awake, because his footsteps neared. “I will be right outside. Please stay here.”

But after thirty seconds, I rose from bed and tiptoed to the door where I could hear their voices in the hallway.

Cringing, I turned the door handle as silently as possible to expose a crack.

Gavin’s back was to our room. He towered over Felix, but they were angled so that I could make out half of Felix’s thin face and frame, his blond curls and pointy nose.

“He knows you have Simeon’s daughter, and he’s camped three hours south, by foot. He wants a trade.” Felix nodded in the direction of our room and shifted anxiously from one foot to the other. “He’s got your wife, Smyth.”

Gavin’s muscles tensed, a subtle change in his stature that signaled insidious danger rising to the surface. “Is that so?” he finally replied, a sheet of ice covering what I knew was a tsunami of rage beneath .

Felix swallowed hard, nodded, and said in a low, shaky voice, “Just give the girl up. You’ll get what you want, and this will finally be over for you.”

Gavin’s left hand flexed at his side. After a long, terrifying pause, he uttered with a distant voice, smooth and cold, “Let’s discuss this outside, Felix.” He gave one nod towards the end of the hall where a door led outside to the woods behind the inn.

I held my stomach with one hand and my mouth with the other to keep from throwing up.

Beads of sweat and tears burned every surface of my skin.

Silent sobs wracked my chest. I should have known.

How stupid I had been to say I didn’t want to know.

He’d said he wasn’t going to give me up, but he’d lied to me once…

Through my blurry vision, I made out his worn leather bag that sat on the floor beside the fireplace.

I lunged for it and began to dig. For anything.

For proof that he wasn’t going to betray me—give me up to Molochai of all people, as Felix had suggested he should.

For proof that he was , because at least there would be no questioning.

Then, I could run. And in my heart, maybe I could eventually mend and make peace with it.

The leather, cedar scent I loved wafted from his bag, undeniably him. There wasn’t much in the worn leather sack other than clothing and hygiene essentials—no different than mine or anyone else’s belongings. With a frustrated grunt, I flipped the bag over to empty it fully.

An old, leather journal fell to the ground at my feet, and out of the journal, a stack of papers bound with twine.

Letters, each one older than the last.

I began with what looked to be the most recent one .

Day 146,797

Smyth,