Chapter 46

Thorne

Iwoke in the morning to Hanna in the bed beside me. Golden morning light sifted through the window and fell across her pale skin. Her arms were folded underneath her face as she lay on her stomach. Her bare arms and shoulders were dappled by the light.

I could barely breathe, looking at her.

My body was sore when I stretched, but no longer wounded. I’d come so close to death that I felt strange about being alive.

I’d made decisions with the expectation that I would not be there to see what came after. Kaelan had his memories back. I didn’t know if he’d have the sense to grovel to Hanna, but I hoped he would.

He hurt her in ways that I never would, and that I never even could, and it didn’t matter. She loved him so completely.

I’d been struck with jealousy the night of their wedding, but the emotions that settled on me now felt more bittersweet. Her face was so beautiful and at peace right now. Her pink lips were faintly parted, her nose and high cheekbones dusted with freckles. I was happy for them both that they had their love for each other. How could I begrudge her that?

At the same time… I wanted that mouth for my own. I wanted to be the one to kiss those lips tenderly, to lean down and press a quick kiss to her cheek before I had to separate from her. I could imagine how perfect those lips would look wrapped around my cock, and I wanted to be the one who she looked up at with a mischievous glint in her gaze. I wanted to see her carry my child.

I wanted all of her.

But I’d seen how broken-hearted she was without Kaelan. I would never try to take her away from him, even if I could.

Then her gaze slowly flickered open. She smiled as soon as she saw me, an unreserved smile that made an answering smile twitch around my lips.

“You’re not dead,” she whispered.

“No.”

“How were your dreams?” she asked. “When you were wandering in the forest between life and death?”

They were all of you.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I rolled carefully to sit up. The blankets slid down to my waist, and I realized someone had removed my blood-soaked clothing. I was wearing only sleep pants now.

“Who… cleaned me up?”

“Dare. Bitching the entire time.”

“Sounds about right.”

“He’s very thankful you’re alive.” She shifted and sat up. I averted my eyes, though the glimpse I’d seen of her, with her long blond hair barely covering her nipples, stayed with me. “Though you can’t tell from how he acts.”

“Typical.” I knew Dare would always be Dare, but I wanted to know what my relationship would be like with Kaelan now. Just because he might feel guilt didn’t mean he would feel forgiveness. Kaelan was… difficult.

She rose and padded barefoot across the room, and there were soft slipping noises as she pulled her clothing on.

I should ask her why she had been naked in my bed, but I didn’t.

There were too many doors I didn’t want to open if she might close them.

“You watched over me last night.”

“I did. I couldn’t stand not to see you were alive and safe, all night long. Not after almost losing you.” Her voice was offhand, casual, but that didn’t change the underlying sweetness.

“Where are Dare and Kaelan?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure they’re off at breakfast, plotting how we are going to make the kingdom ours and end the life of a certain wicked king.” She came toward me, still buttoning her blouse. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and her eyes were suddenly kind and concerned. “Thorne. I’m sorry about Caer Far?—”

“It doesn’t matter.” I rose from the bed too, moving slower than I should.

Though the truth was the loss of Caer Far burnt in my chest.

“It matters to me.”

She stood there, waiting for my response, standing almost in my way of exiting the room.

But I wasn’t ready to talk about Caer Far, or what protecting Kaelan had cost the ones I loved. Our home was gone. Edric would never have destroyed the magic protecting my home if he hadn’t sought to punish me for protecting Kaelan.

I couldn’t acknowledge that yet. It seemed like too much… too much guilt, too much pressure on my friendship with Kaelan. And when they realized I was the reason, it seemed like too much weight of my sisters’ and my mother’s wrath…or worse, their grief.

It was all too much to feel, so I would do my best to feel nothing.

“Let’s go to breakfast,” I said, pulling on the trousers and the clean tunic that had been laid out for me. The borrowed tunic was too tight in the chest and shoulders. Not many men were the same size as I was.

She sighed faintly behind me, but she didn’t say anything.

Kaelan had barely spoken to me all morning, except for a curt question over breakfast inquiring about my health and a grunt when I said I was healing.

Hanna, being Hanna, had thrown a roll at him.

He’d raised his eyebrows and folded his arms over his chest. “Do you care to defend your actions, pelting me with baked goods, or do you want to just add that receipt to all the others we’ll settle later?”

“You’re being weird,” she told him.

Kaelan just grunted again.

Dare picked up the conversation after that and carried it largely on his own, with help from Hanna. I could feel Kaelan’s attention radiating toward me, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

He’d beaten me almost to death. That should’ve settled shit between us.

“Dare, would you take Hanna down to the market?” Kaelan asked with a glance out the window. “She’s desperately in need of some new clothes.”

Hanna’s lips curled up mischievously. “Am I?”

Dare looked as if he were going to protest, then Kaelan added, “And I need you two to find Azora and Jaia. Bring them to me. I need to… apologize.”

“Really?” Hanna asked in a tone of wonder.

“Receipts,” Kaelan offered her in a quiet, stern tone, which just sent her into bubbly laughter.

“You are adorable,” she told him, no matter how fearsome everyone else found him, and she slipped into his lap and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Kaelan twined his arms around her waist so she couldn’t escape him and kissed her hard.

It was only when a disgusted-looking Dare and a still-smiling Hanna had headed out the door that Kaelan turned to me. “I need to speak to you without Hanna.”

I grunted in response. I’d known that already, and so had Dare and Hanna. Kaelan at times had all the subtlety of a battle axe.

“This is yours, I think.” Kaelan laid the cuff I’d carried for Hanna down between us. “I saw it when I was tracking you… I assume you sold it to pay for something you two needed.”

“A potion for Hanna.”

“The poisoned blades.” Kaelan’s jaw tightened. “I punished the men who hurt her.”

“It was your father who sent them in.” I stopped myself from calling him Kae to soften those words; I wasn’t sure the two of us were that close at the moment. “They weren’t the ones at fault.”

“They made her bleed, and so they bled,” Kaelan said unapologetically, clearly not caring if he was fair when it was Hanna’s wellbeing at stake. “Why the cuff, Thorne?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve worn it constantly. And I remember now… you started wearing it after I met Hanna.”

I grunted.

“After we met Hanna,” Kaelan amended.

“She didn’t know me until we dragged her here to make her your bride,” I reminded him.

“No, but you knew her.” He picked up the cuff and turned it in his fingers. “It’s charged with powerful magic.”

I didn’t want to have this conversation, so I just grunted.

“What have you been up to, Thorne?” His voice was quiet. Dangerous.

I didn’t answer.

“You carried it for her sake?” he asked. “All these years?”

“Yes.”

“And it has so many enchantments because…”

“Because she needed them,” I said. “She almost got killed by that shape-changing monster?—”

“I remember now,” he said, looking irritated. “If I’d remembered, I’d have gotten her a charm of seeing.”

Bitterness tinged his voice.

“If you hadn’t lost those memories, Edric would have used them to bargain with the Snake Queen.”

“But then you never gave it to her.” Kaelan picked it up and tossed it in his hand. “Why?”

There was no more point in playing around.

“I love her. But you already know that.”

He drummed his fingertips on the table.

The tension that stretched between the two of us felt like a bow string being drawn tighter and tighter, until it has to snap.

“If you love her, why didn’t you give it to her?”

“Because she’s not mine.” My voice came out raw. I couldn’t sit across from him anymore, watching him toy with the bracelet that carried all my love, my protectiveness. It had been the only thing I could do for her all those years when she didn’t even know who I was.

And Kaelan was right. I hadn’t even fucking given it to her.

The chair fell behind me. I hadn’t realized I’d stood up that fast, and I made my way to the window, leaning against it. The air outside was sweet and fresh. It had felt as if Seraphine’s poisonous fog had tainted everything for a long time, but now it was finally gone.

I expected Kaelan would have more to say to me.

Instead, I turned to find the door just closing.

The cuff glinted on the dining table, left behind.

Either a gift, or a warning.