Chapter 14

CHAPTER14

“Iget that you’re upset for whatever reason but take a breath.” Thalia wiped the sweat from her brow as I shook out my hands. “Your emotions are hindering you.”

I wasn’t upset. I was confused, and hell, maybe I was angry. I didn’t know what to feel.

Evren being back was supposed to fix things, not confuse me more, but all I could think about were the words he had said before he left my room. The words that threw me more than anything else ever could.

He had felt different somehow, the conviction in his words left no room for misunderstanding, but I didn’t know if I was ready for the heavy consequences of his choices. He said he would choose me, but would he be making that choice to keep his kingdom safe or because of his feelings for me?

“We need to train.” I wiped my sweating hands down my trousers and lined myself back up.

Thalia was trying to teach me how to control myself when not only using my magic but in hand-to-hand combat as well, and it was much harder than I thought it would be.

“Okay, but you don’t need to run yourself into the ground to not think about him.” She looked toward the doorway, and her mouth tightened in a hard line.

I balled my hands into fists before shaking them out, and I tried to let her words roll off me.

“Don’t hold back this time,” I told her just before she lunged at me and let a flare of her magic come barreling at my chest.

I lifted my left hand, blocking her magic with my own, but her fist connected with my shoulder before I could stop it.

“Shit,” I cursed as I almost lost my balance. My shoulder was already aching from the hit, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t ready to stop. “Again.”

Thalia nodded once before lining herself back up, and I tried to watch her eyes to see the directions her thoughts were going. But I was wrong. She lunged to the left, her leg kicking out toward me, and I shifted my weight, bracing for her attack, and I completely missed the way her magic slammed into my right side. I hit the ground with a loud grunt and clenched my teeth at the bite of pain in my hip.

“Stop overthinking.” Thalia pushed her hair out of her face. “You’re not trusting yourself, Adara. You need to take a moment and catch your breath.”

I crawled to my knees before pushing back to my stance, and I tried to control the anger that was coursing through me. “I don’t need a break.”

“Then I do.”

I looked up at Thalia because it was the first time she’d ever told me she needed a break. Her eyes were pleading, and she rubbed her hand across her brow.

“I’ll take over.” I snapped my head in the direction of Evren’s voice and watched as he strolled into the courtyard. He was dressed in his usual black attire, and there was no trace of the man who had been attacked. He looked every bit his normal self.

“I don’t really think you should be doing any training.” I pressed my hands into my hips as I try to swallow down a breath. “Weren’t you the one crumpled on the floor last night?”

Evren smirked as he circled around me and stepped in front of Thalia. “I did a lot of things last night, but miraculously, I’ve got my energy back.”

I tried not to react to his words, but all I could think about was what he looked like at the end of my bed. All I could remember was the feel of his magic against my skin.

“I don’t want to train with you.”

Evren smirked harder and cocked his head as he looked at me. “It would seem you’re all out of choices, considering you’ve worn Thalia out.”

“Where’s Sorin?” I looked around the courtyard, but it was only the three of us there. “I would rather finish my training with him.”

Evren bared his teeth, and he took a moment before he spoke again.

“I thought we made it clear last night that you are mine. You will train with me.”

I heard Thalia let out a snicker under her breath, but she turned her back to us as if she was giving us privacy.

“I’m not staying here.” I didn’t mean it, but I was desperate to make him as off-kilter as I felt.

Evren moved slowly around me, and I shifted my body to mirror his. Something Thalia had taught me.

“And where will you go, Adara?” His power shot out and hit my left hand. I hissed and lifted it against my side. He used enough power to make it sting.

I shook out my hand and watched him. “I don’t know.”

“That’s because there is nowhere for you to go.” Evren sent out another shot of power, and this time, it hit my other hand.

“Stop it,” I demanded of him, but he didn’t listen.

“Make me, princess.” He cocked his head and studied me. “Show me what Thalia has been training you to do.”

I shook my head softly, but he wasn’t having it.

“Make me stop.” His words were controlled and did nothing but fuel my anger.

I could feel it rising. Irritation over what he was doing, rage over the life we had been dealt.

I was angry, and he was only making it worse. He pushed and pushed and pushed until he gave me no other choice.

I could feel my magic rising inside of me like my anger was a living, palpable thing. I tried to push it down, to control it like Thalia had taught me to, but he was making it impossible.

Another stream of his power shot out, and I slammed my own magic into it before he could hit me. Evren grinned.

“Stop.”

But he wasn’t listening to me. His black smoke left his fingers once more and his magic came at me so quickly that I wasn’t prepared. But I still managed to block it with my own within the last second.

“Good,” he encouraged me, and I gritted my teeth as sweat rolled down my back. “Stop trying to see where my power is coming from with your eyes. Feel it in your gut. Trust it.”

Anger rose inside of me, and in that moment, I could feel it, his power rising to the left and before I could think better of it, I let my own power slam into the left side of him. It hardly made an impact, his body barely budging, but it was the surprise in his eyes that made me smile.

“Feel it in your gut, Evren. You should have seen that coming.”

He smiled then, the look predatory, and part of me wanted to just run inside and hide. I wanted to lock myself in the room and not have to deal with this, but another part of me, a much bigger part, wanted to fight. I wanted to show him what I was capable of.

I wanted to prove to them all that they were underestimating me.

“You’re right.” He grinned harder. “I should have.”

Another stream of his power shot toward me, but I was too busy staring at his handsome face to notice. It hit my right hip, barely knocking into me, and I felt like he was toying with me.

“Is that all you’ve got?”

“For someone like you, yes?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I balled my hands into fists as I stared at him and noticed that Thalia had left us completely alone. The traitor.

“You’re weak.” He nodded toward me, and I bared my teeth. “If you were to leave like you say you want to, you wouldn’t survive a day.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” I growled out, and that only made him smile harder.

“Yes. I do.” He nodded and moved to his left.

I countered his movements step for step and kept him squarely in front of me.

“I know that you want me even though you don’t want to admit it.”

I scoffed, but he continued.

“I know that you are capable of so much more than you are allowing yourself.” He nodded toward my hands, where my magic was still swirling from my fingertips. “And I know that the sound you make when you come against your own fingers is so much quieter than when you come against mine.”

My magic shot out of me before I could control myself, and it slammed directly into Evren’s stomach. His breath fell from his lips in a rush just before his ass hit the ground.

I should have felt remorse as I watched him wince, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so.

I heard the door open behind me, but Evren simply waved away whoever it was.

“Is someone coming to help the prince from his weak little mate?”

Evren leaned forward and pressed his arms to his knees. “I don’t think you’re weak, princess. I think you’re scared.”

He was right. I was scared. I was fearful of letting myself fall into him completely. Holding on to that fear and every ounce of anger I had left was the only way I could protect myself.

“I think you are capable of far more than even you are willing to believe.”

I didn’t want to listen to him. Not a single word. So I turned on my heel to walk away from him, but his voice stopped me.

“Hit me again.”

I looked at him over my shoulder like he was crazy. “No.”

“Do it, princess.” He ran his hand over his mouth. “Hit me again and this time use every bit of power you can muster.”

“I’m not doing it.” I shook my head as my hands trembled at my sides.

“Hit me with your power,” he growled at me, and my magic bowed and writhed at the sound of his command.

“I don’t answer to you, Evren.”

He laughed, low and harsh. “You’re going to answer to someone, princess, if you don’t learn to use your power. Whether it be me or my brother. Is that what you want? To be the Starblessed girl who answered to someone else?”

I balled my hand into a fist as my magic begged me to let it do exactly what he was asking. “And what of you?” I nodded in his direction. “Do you answer to no one or are you simply a pawn in a game of queens?”

His jaw clenched. “Is that what you really think of me, princess?”

“I hardly think of you at all.”

His mouth curved up in a wicked smile as he looked up at me. “Gods, you’re fucking beautiful, but I think I’ve told you before that you aren’t a very good liar. If you weren’t thinking of me, you wouldn’t be sleeping in my bed while I was gone.” He pushed from the ground and stood back to his full height. I watched as he stared at me. “You wouldn’t be pleasuring yourself with your fingers buried between your thighs while I watched, would you?”

When I didn’t answer, he continued.

“There are far worse things you could do than think of me, princess.”

My hands trembled at my sides.

“And yet, I can’t think of anything.” I pressed my hands against my hips as I watched him take me in. “What could be worse than a girl thinking about the man who betrayed her?”

His eyes narrowed even though he tried to hide it. “There are many things.”

He stepped closer to me, and I held my ground. I didn’t want him to see how much he affected me.

“I could never get to touch you again.” Another step closer and my mark sparked against my skin. “I could never taste your blood on my lips or feel the power of my mate coursing through me like a fucking drug.”

My breath shuddered out of me, but he didn’t stop. Another step closer. Then another until he was but a few steps away. “You could refuse my hand even though it’s exactly what you want, and you could let my brother take you away from me.”

He stepped closer still until the toe of his boots pressed against mine. “There are a million things I can think of that would be worse than my mate thinking of me.”

I wanted to retort with something to mess with his head as much as he was mine, but I could barely remember to breathe as he looked down at me and pushed his hand through my hair at the base of my neck. He gripped me there, forcing my head to tilt up to look at him, and my chest heaved with the struggle to remember why I didn’t want him.

“But I would much rather think of a million things that I could do to you.” His gaze ran over me. “Every moment that I was away, I dreamt of the things I would do to your body. The things that I could teach you.” His thumb slowly dragged along my jaw in a lazy pass as he stared down at my mouth. “I dreamt of our wedding night. Of what it will feel like to be inside of you when you are completely mine and mine alone.”

I gasped at his words and an ache began between my thighs as my traitorous body reacted to everything he said. Gods, I could imagine it too.

He ran his thumb over the artery in my neck, tracing my racing pulse as he licked his bottom lip. “You can keep telling me that isn’t what you want as well, princess, but your body tells differently.”

He widened the curve of my neck even further and pressed his nose against the same spot he had just been touching. He inhaled deeply before the soft groan passed his lips. He pressed his mouth against my skin, soft, subtle, a ghost of what I wanted him to do to me, before he spoke again. “When we do wed, there won’t be a single part of you that you can hide from me. Everything that you are will belong to me. Just as you possess everything that I am.”

His words were so sure, a promise of what was to come, and I shook my head even as I felt the truth of them. “That will never happen.”

“How does that lie taste?” I felt him smile against my neck before he gently grazed his teeth against my skin. “I haven’t tasted a single part of you that I didn’t like.” His tongue followed his teeth, and I shuddered beneath him. “If you need to lie to yourself to be okay with what’s happening, then do it.” He slowly dropped his hand from my skin and took a step back. “I’ll take whatever fucking part of you I can get.”

He turned from me then and walked away before I could mutter a single word.