Page 48 of The King's Pawn
Instead, she turns slightly onto her side, the tension in her body loosening just enough to tell me she’s anchored in sleep.
I pull the covers up around her, tucking them carefully beneath her chin and smoothing them over her shoulders. The gesture is absurdly gentle, too gentle for a man like me, and the awareness of that fact makes my jaw tighten.
For a long moment, I don’t move.
I stand there in the quiet of her room, the storm still raging somewhere beyond the thick glass, watching her breathe. The fire has burned low, embers casting a soft, wavering light across her face. Shadows play over her features, but even half-lit, she looks impossibly young, stripped of the sharp edges she wears so instinctively when she’s awake.
Something dangerous coils low in my chest.
It feels too much like longing. Too much like guilt.
I tell myself it’s responsibility. That this is the natural consequence of involvement with agreeing to this arrangement with her father. Of proximity and the damage done by tellingher the truth about her mother. I tell myself I’m only standing here to ensure she’s settled and that she won’t wake alone and frightened, giving her an excuse to go wandering around the estate and get into trouble again.
Her face is calmer now, the lines of distress softened into an expression that’s vulnerable and unguarded. I have seen countless people sleep—soldiers, enemies, lovers I never bothered to remember after the fun is over—but this feels different.
Watching her like this feels… more intimate in a way that unsettles me. As though I’m witnessing something I have no right to see.
Slowly, without fully deciding to do it, I reach out.
My fingers brush a loose strand of hair away from her face, the contact barely there, a whisper of touch rather than a full claim. Her skin is warm and soft. She exhales, shifting closer into the pillow, and my hand stills immediately, hovering there as if caught mid-crime.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
Every rule I’ve ever lived by warns me away from moments like this. From tenderness, from attachment, from allowing another person to matter enough to alter my choices. This is how men lose wars. This is how empires crumble.
And yet…
I let my hand fall back to my side instead. I stand there and commit the rise and fall of her chest to memory.
When I finally force myself away from her bedside and turn toward the door, I move quietly. I don’t indulge myself bysparing another look over my shoulder before opening the door and slipping out into the hallway, closing it behind me with care.
The sound is soft, but the weight I carry with me out of the room is anything but.
Goddamn it…
10
SASHA
By morning, the storm has passed.
The hills beyond the estate lie under a sky the color of dirty snow, pale and bruised, streaked through with low clouds that refuse to fully disperse. The sun fights its way through in thin, watery rays that do nothing to warm the air.
The estate feels different in the light. Quieter. Muted, as if someone has turned the volume down on the world. The guards move more slowly, doors close with softer sounds. Even the dogs are restless in a subdued way, pacing the perimeters without barking, sensing that something has shifted.
I stand at the window of my study with a cup of coffee, cooling forgotten in my hand, and replay the night again.
And again.
And again.
Her voice comes back first, sharp with panic, frayed at the edges. The way her hands shook when she wrapped them aroundherself, fingers digging into her skin as if she could anchor herself by sheer force of will.
Then there is the moment I can’t dislodge no matter how many times I replay it. The moment she stopped fighting me, resistance ebbing from her muscles in fragile increments, drained out of her slowly until she’d leaned into me and allowed me to hold her close and put her to bed without fuss.
She’d trusted me like I was… safe.
The thought makes my grip tighten around the porcelain mug.
