Page 50 of The Throne Seeker

A smile cracked onto her lips. “So were you. Truly.”

Tristan lifted her jaw so she peered straight into his bottomless eyes. “I don’t care what my father says. Now that we’re both in this succession, I want to face it together—just like you said, not as two separate candidates, but as one. I promiseto support you in every way possible. My men are just as much yours as they are mine.”

Her gaze softened, touched at his unwavering loyalty. He wanted to be a team, to win not just for his sake, but for hers, too. A wave of gratitude flooded her heart, melting her defenses away.

“You’d do that?” she whispered.

His eyes roamed her face, becoming hazy. “Rose, everything I own already belongs to you. We can just consider this a… rigorous relationship exercise.” His mouth turned upward into a smile.

She smiled back, her heart beating faster.

He held up his pinky. “You and me?”

It was something they used to do when they were younger. She intertwined her finger with his. “You and me,” she repeated.

The moment her finger latched on to his, he leveraged it and pulled her into him. “We’ll be the fiercest king and queen this province has ever seen.” He stroked his thumb across her cheek. “I’m sorry about earlier… I just can’t stand how Grant looks at you and how I thought you were looking at him.”

She pulled away. “Listen, Tristan, I need you to be honest about something… Have you been dissuading suitors from seeing me?”

He massaged the back of his neck as his eyes lowered. “Would you be angry if I said yes?” He braved her gaze again.

She let out a sigh and rested her forehead against his before responding honestly. “No. I suppose I ought to be, but you’ll have hell to pay if my mother confirms it.”

“I know I shouldn’t have,” he apologized at once, “but I can’t stand the thought of you with someone else.”

The mere thought crippled her heart. “Come sit.” She tugged his hand, her pinky still linked with his.

He sat down on the bed first, leaning against the headboard. She joined him, resting her back against his chest.

His strong arms snaked around her waist as he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

After a brief content silence, he spoke. “Can you imagine falling asleep like this?”

“It’d be the best night’s sleep I’d ever had.” Her body ached for it as she said the words.

“Or the worst,” he murmured huskily into her ear. “When we get married, I’m certain I’ll barely let you escape to eat.”

She tilted her head to meet his gaze, her mouth splitting into a grin before his followed suit.

He placed a feathered kiss on her forehead. “I like seeing you like this,” he whispered against her skin.

“Like what?”

“Relaxed. Happy… I haven’t seen you like this since you’ve been back,” he said as he played with her hair lazily.

“It was simpler then. No one cared what we did.” She hesitated, contemplating what was ahead of them. “What will we do if we don’t win the succession?”

“What do you mean?”

“If neither of us wins, what would we do? Where would we go? What happens to your family?”

“You doubt us?” He raised his eyebrows at her with a small smile playing on his lips.

She shook her head. “I just wondered if you’d thought about it.”

“Well, if we lose by some terrible circumstance, my father is still the king. So until he dies, this will be our home. My mother will not outlive him, I’m afraid. Even if she did, she’d move back with us to our home in the mountains.”

“Highland Haven,” she recalled. She had never been to the manor, but the name lived well in her memory. Tristan and hisfamily spent a few weeks there every summer for their family retreat. She longed to see what it was like, but she and her mother had never been invited. It remained a special place meant only for their family.