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But even before that, I had no memory of hearing anyone mention whether my mother and father shared a room. There’d always just been the queen’s chambers and the king’s.
And that was its own problem, really. My people wouldn’t accept me having multiple Erenlian lovers as well as a Zeniryan one in the first place. They’d expect me to marry some prince or duke from a politically advantageous nation. And even if I could argue that my men were politically advantageous, it wouldn’t solve anything.
They’d still expect me to pick just one.
I rolled my shoulders with discomfort. I could find ways around that—ways that, by their very definition, would mean courting scandal rather than living out in the open with the men I loved. It would likely take years to change things enough to avoid that, though. Or an edict that would cause all manner of trouble with public opinion.
No, until I could work to shift public sentiment and gradually bring my country around to accepting different ways of loving, this cold, awful emptiness and silence might be my only bedmate for a long time.
A shadow stirred in the corner of the room. I tensed, my gaze snapping to it.
Ruhl rose from the darkness, his green eyes glowing at me.
I froze.
Even a few hours ago, the sudden appearance of the wolf wouldn’t have sent the quiver of trepidation through me that it gave me now. Ruhl had saved my life enough times that I had come to accept he meant me no harm.
But that’d been before I heard Lord Thomas’s description of the people possessed by the Voidborn. How their eyes glowed. How shadows like smoke moved over their skin.
Ruhl couldn’t be like them… could he?
The wolf started to turn toward the wall only to pause, almost as if he’d spotted my tension and it confused him.
“Why are you here?” I asked softly, holding my voice steady by willpower alone. I wanted to believe it was impossible that Ruhl was like the Voidborn. After all, I’d come in contact with him and never felt any draining of my humanity. Quite the opposite. He’d been calming in some strange way.
But… still.
Ruhl’s head cocked curiously. He paced closer.
I didn’t relax a bit.
In a single leap, he jumped up onto the bed, and his landing did nothing to make the mattress move in the slightest. It was like he wasn’t really there. Like I was watching him in a dream, except I could feel the cold air around me and hear the soft footsteps of the guards patrolling the hall, so I doubted I was asleep.
“What are you, Ruhl?” I whispered. “Really?”
The massive wolf paused again as if thinking how to respond. And then he sank down onto his haunches, still watching me with those eerie green eyes.
Carefully, he stretched out one massive paw. Amid the shadows of his form, his claws glimmered like moonlight on black stone. I didn’t dare move as he gently placed the pad of his paw upon my knee.
I gasped.
Images flashed through my mind in a blur of sight and emotion. Fire everywhere, but I wasn’t afraid. Darkness but it only meant home. A longing. A command. A passage away from the comforting fire and darkness into bitter cold and light, and gods, I hated them, yet there was no choice.
But the one I longed for—that we longed for—wasn’t here.
My throat ached with the memory of our anguished howl at that realization. Just as bad, the object of the command was nowhere to be found either. At least, not at first. And now?—
The images and emotions vanished as Ruhl suddenly drew back and disappeared into darkness that flowed away like smoke in a breeze, vanishing into the shadows beside the bed.
I stared after him. Gods, his sorrow made my throat tight and tears burn my eyes. His longing, the loss when it wasn’t fulfilled… all of it was agonizing.
Worry filtered through my connection to Ozias. He’d felt this too through me, and quickly, I tried to focus on reassuring him. It was strange to do this when we weren’t actually physically together. It felt like wishing. Like just hoping he’d feel something that existed only in my body and mind, except it worked and his wary acceptance spread through me a moment later.
If I “said” I was okay, he believed it. For now.
Shakily, I hugged my arms to my middle, searching the shadows. “Ruhl?”
Nothing.
