Page 50 of Lies That Blemish
When the morninglight filtered through the open tent roof, I smiled, looking up to find Kohen watching me sleep. I was draped over his bare chest, tangled in his arms.
“Good morning, my queen,” he said.
Queen. Is that what I would become?
“Morning.” I kissed him chastely before going over to the washbasin to brush my teeth and wash my face.
It was back to reality. I was already thinking of the Lottery and how to tell Elaine I married Kohen Badshah!
“Are you freaking out?” Kohen asked as he came up beside me.
“A little,” I laughed, looking down at the ring on my finger. I had zero excitement when Alek gave me a ring, but every time I looked at this one, it gave me butterflies. Which reminded me I’d have to tell Alek.
“Regrets?” Kohen asked, hurt lacing through his voice.
I peered over at him, meeting his blue-eyed gaze. “No,” I said firmly. “Just a lot of stuff to deal with. I think we should keep this quiet for now until I figure out how to tell everyone.”
I pointed to the ring.
Kohen nodded, but was acting closed off. He brushed his teeth quietly, and then we stepped outside together, hands threaded through each other’s.
I felt different after last night. Older somehow? I was a wife. How the hell had that happened?
“I have to tell you something,” Kohen said beside me, and my stomach dropped out. That didn’t sound good. He was acting off.
I faced him, and he took my face in his hands. “Remember when I told you there would be a time when your power wouldn’t work?” he said.
I racked my memory and nodded. “You said I would need it, and it wouldn’t come to me.”
Kohen sighed. “When that happens, you are with Maxim.”
Chills rose up my arms. “With Maxim, how?”
Kohen was silent for a moment. “As his wife.”
A lump formed in my throat as my heart picked up speed in my chest. “Do you think it will still happen?” I asked him. Now that he was seeing multiple futures, I hoped this one wasn’t possible.
Kohen brushed the hair back from my face. “You aremywife. That won’t change,” he said, but his face betrayed his true answer. He wasn’t sure what he thought anymore.
Liana landed with Onyx beside us, and I peered over at her.
‘We should get back. The cadets are coming out of the Wilds.’
I nodded. Looking down at Kohen’s mother’s ring on my hand one last time, I pulled it off and slipped it onto the locket chain at my neck, the one with my mother’s picture in it. Kohen watched me quietly, and I chewed on my lip.
“I’m going to call a truce between our people. Draft up some kind of long-term peace agreement or something we can both sign.” Continuing to bomb each other now was just stupid.
Kohen nodded. “And when you are ready to tell them of our marriage, I will gladly sign Imbria back into Amersea. We can rule it as one. Together.”
“You would do that?”
He nodded. “We are stronger together.”
I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to drag him back into the tent andneverleave. He seemed to be thinking the same thing.
“We can do this.” Kohen grasped my fingers. “A short period of hardship for a lifetime of happiness.”
He pulled me into his arms and kissed me as I smiled against his mouth. “You are like a ball of sunshine sometimes,” I told him.
