Page 20 of The Blade in the Ashes
I turned to face him with a tired sigh, taking in the sight of his flushed cheeks, tense shoulders, and shadowed eyes with a twinge of apprehension in my gut. His chest rose and fell steadily with heavy, irritated breaths.
“You are walking a very thin line, Theadora.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
His hand snapped out to capture my wrist as I shifted away from him, pulling me back and forcing me to meet the weight of his gaze.
“You think because you stood against that farce of a Dragon that you’re prepared to stand against aGod?This isn’t a game, Thea. There will be very real consequences if Hyrax suspects you’re willing to stand against him.”
A chill raced down my spine at his words. Still, I put on a good show of squaring my shoulders as I lifted my chin proudly.
“I know what I’m doing,” I repeated. “And believe me, I’m certainly not playing games.”
I was ready to dance across that line, knowing exactly how thin it was, as I tried to kill Hyrax and reclaim my kingdom.
He scoffed, nearly throwing my arm away from him as he released it.
“No games, hmm?” He moved across the parlor to the bar cart, keeping his back to me as he poured amber liquid from the decanter into one of the crystal glasses. Without lifting his gaze, he held it out to me and began pouring another for himself.
“As you made clear on the day you proposed this marriage arrangement between us, I don’t have many allies in this castle.”
His jaw twitched when I referenced our marriage as little more than anarrangement, but I ignored him as I sank into the stiff couch.
Hadn’t this couch once seemed comfortable? All at once, the fabric felt too tough. The back was too stiff. Everything about it seemed wrong.
Or perhaps the room itself seemed wrong.
Or the suite did.
Or the entire fucking castle seemed wrong.
Caldrius rolled his neck, a pop echoing.
“You’re going to...” He paused, glancing around me over his shoulder. “Accept this then?”
I downed the whiskey in my glass and handed it back to him, shifting forward in my seat so that I could set about removing the many pins in my hair. My head was throbbing from the pinching tension on my scalp, and my neck already ached from the damnable weight of balancing the crown on my head.
Caldrius sat the glass back on the bar cart, lifting his brows in silent question to ask if I needed another. I shook my head. What I needed right now was a good night’s sleep, not to be sharing whiskey with him.
For a moment, he just stood and watched me, enraptured by the way my hands worked through the curls in my hair.
“I suppose I should be relieved then,” he mused, tracking the movements of my fingers in my hair.
“You can feel however you want about it.”
Tongue darting out to wet his lips, he lowered himself to a crouch before me. Without taking his eyes from mine, he reached up, running his hand through the blonde strands of my hair until he found the last pin and gently pulled it away, letting my hair topple down freely. He traced over those tendrils with his eyes and fingers, holding them between his forefinger and thumb until they ended and his hands came to encircle my hips.
“Well, now that you’ve startedadapting, this seems like a good time to discuss something I’ve had on my mind.”
My spine was rigid, locked with tension. Gods, he was so close to me, and so infuriatingly tall. Even in this position, with me on the couch and him crouched before me, his face was slightly aligned with my own.
I swallowed. “And what is that?”
His thumb was tracing delicate circles along the bodice of my dress. I could almost feel his touch on my bare skin despite the corset.
“I’ve been thinking about our wedding,” he told me, his hand beginning to move. Up my waist. Along the edge of my breast. Over the lines of my shoulder.
“It’s not a particularly fond memory for me.”
