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Jaxus called her attention back to his story, and I grit my teeth.
I stretched my arm and casually draped it around her shoulders.
His eyes followed the movement, and I didn’t miss the look of amusement that flickered for a moment.
I reached for my drink and used the action to slip my arm down to Zaria’s waist. As I took a drink, I drew her against me.
“Subtle,” she said in my mind.
I flinched. “What?”
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
Damn it. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ve been inching closer and closer all evening. Now you’re what? Staking a claim?” She laughed with the group to cover our secret conversation. “You’re jealous.”
I was well and truly caught out and had nowhere to hide. “What if I am, Sol?”
Her eyes shone at the admission the words were, and I was taken aback. I pulled her closer and leaned into her ear, ending our silent conversation for the sake of appearances and maybe as an excuse to claim her further under the watchful eye of the competition. I murmured my words against her skin. “You like it, don’t you?”
She softened. “Maybe.”
“Admit it, Sol. No maybe about it.”
“Why do I have to admit it when you wouldn’t?” She leaned away from me, and I felt my claim slipping.
“Fine, I admit it. I’m jealous. I hate the way he’s looking at you, and I hate the way you don’t seem to mind,” I said through the bond.
She bit her lip, keeping her amusement covered. “I’m actually impressed you can admit it.”
Her reaction was not the rejection I’d always expected if I let my feelings be known, but if she liked that, I had plenty more, so I went for it. “Sol, I would burn down this village if he tried to take you from me. He knows what we are to each other, and he knows what he’s doing.”
“And what are we to each other?” she asked so innocently, though I was under no illusion that she knew exactly how she laid me bare with the question. It wasn’t one I could skirt around and continue pretending.
“Sol, you can’t ask me that here.”
“Why not?”
“Because we are among friends, and I am not rational when it comes to you.”
“I didn’t ask you to be rational. I want you as you are.”
“A possessive bastard?”
“Yes.”
I blew out a breath. Aware that we were, to all outside eyes, engaged in a silent stare-off, I broke her gaze and reached for my drink. “This is dangerous territory.”
“How so?”
“Because we are surrounded by fae who’d all have you for their own in a heartbeat if you gave them permission, and I have no claim over you. So I know I have no right to be jealous, but it doesn’t change that I am.”
“Then, why don’t you make a claim?”
Her words landed like a bomb and blew my reality apart.
FIFTY-NINE
