Page 108 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Mina, help me. All I was trying to do was get a hold on Apollo’s reins without pressing every damned inch of our bodies together, but Enora wouldn’t stop squirming and digging her fingers into my leg as she tried to twist and look back at me.

I let out an exasperated sigh. “No, I don’t. It’s a very…private activity.” The last thing I needed was to have to spend the rest of our ride explaining to Enora why it was something I only did alone, which would quickly spiral into why she hadn’t seen a single set of wings around other than Eilir’s. “And would you just stop already?”

She blinked up at me, feigning innocence in her hazel eyes. “Stop what?”

With my arms hovering clear of her body, I nudged Apollo into a trot. “Stop squirming around like something bit you on the ass.”

That innocence morphed into something I could not read for the life of me. “Am I making you uncomfortable, Maksym?” she chuckled as she turned her attention ahead, but it was a remarkably humorless noise. “You’ll have to let me know if you find me less revolting once our wedding rolls around.”

I stiffened. “I do not find you revolting, Enora. Not at⁠—”

The wicked woman took advantage of my moment of befuddlement and seized Apollo’s reins, guiding our steed into the start of a full-on gallop with the ease I should have expected from her.

“I know that,” she tossed back at me, and I glimpsed the edge of her smile. “But, no offence, I’ve just been itching for a proper ride, and you don’t look like you’d know what that meant if it bit you in the ass, Your Majesty. Now, hold on.”

Without even a second to parse a proper retort to that incredibly low blow, I let out a string of curses and wrapped my arms around Enora’s waist, lest I see myself blown clean off Apollo’s back as blue nytefire kicked up around his hooves and he tore down the pathway back to the Keep.

As much as I didn’t entirely want to admit it, Enora’s awestruck gasp and unbridled laughter were the most refreshing things I’d heard in an eternity.

24

AN EARTH-SHATTERING TRUTH

ENORA

Jasper and I spent three entire days pouring fifteen years of unspoken resentment into beating the ever-loving shit out of each other in the stadium just outside the Keep proper.

I’d torn calluses off my palms, lost full range of motion in my shoulder, and stopped bothering to count the number of bruises I’d gained when I’d topple into bed.

Thank the goddess for Eilir, who was always waiting for me with a warm washcloth and the consideration to pry off my boots after I’d collapsed—apologizing profusely to them for my behavior earlier in the week had proven to have bountiful returns.

For the first time in ages, I was pushing my body well beyond the limits it begged me not to exceed and then some, and I was sleeping better than I had in months.

If only the same could be said about my tolerance of my oldest friend’s presence.

No matter how fiercely I poured my fury into sparring with him, the betrayal and resentment I felt just wouldn’t fucking ease.

If anything, I felt even more volatile, and my old, traitorous friend had a black eye, bruised ribs, and two broken fingers to show for it.

The mornings were easy enough when I was too damned tired to think about much other than putting one foot in front of the other and blocking Jasper’s assaults. But as the minutes turned into an hour and then two, my anger would bubble.

Sometimes, it was when he goaded me or put me on my ass, or when I’d stumble entirely on my own. Other times, I’d suddenly find myself unable to think about anything other than how he’d looked at me on the very last night I saw him before he left Odessa.

A memory I’d suppressed for so many damned years, suddenly as vivid as if it had only just happened the night before.

I was consumed with wondering if he had known then that he was about to break my heart, and that was why he’d gone along with our heated moment in the fortress gardens.

Had he already spent weeks, or even months, planning his departure?

Or was it a spur-of-the-moment decision to abandon everything?

The simplest course, given that we spent entire days together, would be to ask Jasper, but I had no faith in two things: his ability to be honest with me, and my ability to muster up the resolve to ask.

Who knew what damage the weight of the truth would do to my increasingly capricious mental state? Even my soon-to-be husband made himself incredibly scarce after I’d ripped him a new asshole when he’d shown up midday on my second day of training and thought he had an open invitation to critique.

Well, it was that, or the ride we’d shared the day before that had rattled him so much, he made one attempt at engaging with me before accepting he found my physical presence truly revolting.

Needless to say, when Jasper suggested we give our bodies a morsel of rest and spend some time focusing on the intellectual side of my preparation for the Agōn Ferr, I begrudgingly accepted.