Page 8 of Lies That Bind
Liana and I passed a dense stretch of woods.‘Tell him to land over there and meet us,’I told her and pointed out an open patch of grass away from any roads or villages or signs of life. I wantedto tell Kohen that whatever we had started was done and get it over with. We were just professional colleagues now.
Liana landed, and I slipped off of her and paced the meadow. Reaching up, I touched my lips and tried not to think about how Kohen had kissed them only a day before. How could so much change in twenty-four hours?
I’d planned to have a mildly passionate love affair with Kohen until my father found out and threatened to kill us both before forcing me to marry someone of better breeding. Now that was definitely not going to happen. I was officially living under a microscope, and though Kohen was a sworn member of the Imperial Fleet, he’d never be good enough to be seen as a partner for me. In fact, if anyone saw us together romantically now that I was the empress, it would be a public relations nightmare. He was a Badshah, after all. His father’s son. The man who took thousands of Amersean lives. A terrorist.
My stomach ached when I thought about what I was giving up without even being able to have it first.
I didn’t even hear him land until the sound of his footsteps was behind me.
I pulled up every single wall I could around my heart and spun. Even so, the sight of his handsome face peering down at me with concern, his chiseled muscles pulling at the fabric of his black shirt, caused my stomach to bottom out and my heart to constrict.
“Thank you for meeting me,” I said formally and held my hands clasped in front of me, fingers laced together.
He slowed, his gaze cautiously running over my body like a physical caress.
“Of course, Aisling. Are you okay?” My name on his lips was like a reverent prayer.
I cleared my throat. “I’m fine. But I needed to talk to you about a few things privately.”
He stepped closer to me, and I stepped back from him, causing his brows to bunch together in the middle of his forehead. “Why are you acting weird?” The hurt in his voice killed me.
I straightened my spine. “Kohen, whatever romantically may have started with you and I has to stop now. I’m empress, and unfortunately a relationship between us would not be accepted by my people.”
“Ourpeople,” he corrected, and it felt like he’d reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. “Aren’t the Imbrians your people, too, now?”
Shame colored my cheeks. “Of course they are. But…” Why was he making this hard? “Your father, and in turn,you, are not an acceptable match for me.” I kept it short and to the point.
He grinned, and it caused my stomach to flop over. Why was he smiling, and why did he look so handsome doing it? He took another step forward, and I stepped back again until my butt hit the trunk of a tree.
“Then we will make them accept us,” he declared.
He grasped the fingers of my uncasted hand, unlacing them as he stroked my palm with his thumb, sending waves of warmth throughout my body. My eyelids fluttered as my heart hammered like a war drum.
“They won’t,” I told him. “And neither will the Fleet or my advisors, or Elaine, or?—”
He leaned in, his hot breath on my neck. “Then we’ll hide it from them,” he whispered, dragging his lips across my skin, which left a trail of fire in their wake. I whimpered, gripped by a throbbing need.
“Kohen,” I panted.
“Yes, my Empress.”
Oh stars, that nearly undid me right there. In all the grief of the last twenty-four hours, Kohen Badshah was my one bright spot.
“This won’t end well,” I told him as he peppered kisses along my collarbone, and I wrestled my hands free to thread them into his hair. Kohen pulled back, meeting my eyes with his blazing blue ones.
“Yes it will. It ends with you as my wife, Aisling.”
I gasped, and then his lips were on mine, scorching, hard, insistent. That was a lie. It had to be. Bedding Kohen, I could believe. Butmarryinghim? It would never happen. Not in a million years. Now I knew he wasn’t truly seeing the future clearly. Maybe some things he did, like when he knew I would break my wrist or the attack on the training center, but I wondered if his visions were clouded by desires. His tongue stroked mine, and I moaned as I deepened the kiss, pressing my pelvis into him. I was just about to reach up into his shirt when something he said at the imperial graduation ball came back to me. I pulled away, panting. “Wait… last night…” I could hardly believe it was just last night. “…you said that was the last time you would kiss me for a long time. We’re kissing now. A day later.”
He chewed at his lip and nodded. “I think that sometimes I see things out of order. I’m still learning how to piece them together on the timeline. I thought it was?—”
I frowned. “So your visions can change?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. But I might get the timing wrong if I think I’m seeing something that happens more recently, and it’s really farther in the future.”
It sounded like he could be wrong about the future, but I didn’t want to press him.
That reminded me of the other thing I had been wanting to ask him. “Kohen, would you ever lie to me?” I asked him.
