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“I want you,” he murmured against her mouth, “but I think… we shouldn’t…”
And she understood. With a nod, she turned over, settling her back against his chest.
“It feels like a waste to sleep,” he murmured against her hair, his fingertips lightly tracing down the curve of her arm. “Night is the only time I’m alone in my head, but I’m so fucking tired.”
“You’re with me,” she said, running her hand along his arm. She kissed his dry knuckles. “You’re yourself. Sleep, Bastian.”
He shifted behind her, his breath fluttering her hair. “The worst part is that there are parts of us that are the same,” he said, with the slow, viscous quality of words formed half in sleep. “We both want this.” His arm tightened slightly around her. “We both love you.”
A wet sting pricked at the corners of her eyes. “Sleep, Bastian,” Lore repeated.
He did, slowly, his breath evening, the weight of his arm across her middle growing heavier. But Lore stared into the shadows of an unfamiliar room, her mind quiet of both her own thoughts and a dead goddess, and sleep didn’t come easy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The best attack isn’t necessarily unexpected. It’s one that your target refuses to expect.
—General Omari Ventus, First Kirythean Naval Division
Lore wasn’t sure what to expect in the morning, but by the time she peeled her eyes open, Bastian was gone. The fact filled her with something very akin to panic.
The sun blazed bright, which meant his head was full of Apollius. Apollius, who might have heard all of their conversation the night before, dormant as He was in the back of Bastian’s mind. What would He make of it, if He had? What would He do?
She dressed as quickly as she could, barely marking the gown she pulled out of the trunk—long-sleeved and shimmering golden, far too fine for a day-dress—and ran her fingers through her hair as she opened the door, rushed down the stairs Bellegarde had led them up the night before. He hadn’t shown them the breakfast room, but surely it was on the first floor somewhere. Next staircase, the horseshoe one; she all but slid down the banister in her haste, keeping her eyes resolutely forward as she passed the statues of Apollius with the holes in Their chests.
Some innate knowledge of how houses should be constructed led her down a small corridor behind the stairs, then she caught the scent of coffee. Lore followed it to a door leaking light from its edges and the soft sounds of stilted conversation. She pushed it open without pausing to catch her breath.
A small room, somehow still dreary despite the large windows. A table at their apex, with four chairs that looked like they’d been brought in from other parts of the manor. Bellegarde sat in one, an odd look on his face, like he wasn’t sure what to make of his circumstances. In another, Bastian. Alie was nowhere to be seen.
Bastian gave her a wide, sunny smile, like he’d soaked up all the light that should be coming through the windows. “You’re up early, beloved.”
Lore plastered on a false smile and sat in one of the mismatched chairs. There was a small plate of stale pastries in the table’s center; she helped herself to one.
“Apologies,” Bellegarde said, turning to speak to Lore though his eyes remained on Bastian. “Our stores are low.”
Lore shrugged. It tasted fine to her. And Bellegarde clearly didn’t care—he studied his King like a code he was close to cracking, the curiosity and puzzlement on his face slowly breaking into awe.
Shit.
“Your Majesty,” Bellegarde said, sounding much more obsequious than he had the night before, “as you know, there are things we should discuss, and I think today is a fine time—”
“I want a tour,” Lore interrupted.
Bellegarde looked like he would happily strangle her, but Bastian slowly lowered his coffee mug, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t expect you to be so eager to see Courdigne.”
She shrugged. “Seeing fine houses is still a novelty to me.”
Across the table, Bellegarde sneered.
Last night, Bastian had said that Apollius picked through his memories as the sun rose, getting an idea of what happened the night before. And he’d said they both loved Lore—a fact she wanted to savor, having finally heard it from Bastian’s mouth. But pragmatism had to win out at the moment, and she had to think of that confession as something she could use.
Maybe Apollius had been distracted by Lore in Bastian’s bed. Distracted enough not to look too closely at the other memories, the shapes of conversation kept intentionally vague.
Still, she expected Him to see through this as an obvious ploy, clearly a ruse to keep Him from speaking to Bellegarde during sunlight hours. Especially with that look in Bastian’s eyes, studying her in a decidedly un-Bastian-like fashion.
It wasn’t love she saw in that look. It was ownership.
Her plan was hasty and unrealistic, but it was all she had. Hopefully, Lore could make herself annoying enough that Bastian and Bellegarde wouldn’t get a chance to talk. At least not about anything that mattered.
