“The ring is mine,” he says with a grunt as he pushes me back, blade to blade.
Another round of strikes, and I drive harder. My strength isn’t what it was last time, and he isn’t besting me as easily as before.
“Why do you have the seal of Blackwood on your finger, Weston?” I yell. I hear a quiet gasp somewhere on the deck, but ignore it.
My fury is bubbling over. All I want to do is wear him down and force him to tell me everything. My motions are out of my control, my body moving out of instinct and rage instead of calculation. My limbs shake, my mind races, and I struggle to put words together.
He steps backward, and I charge after him, swiping again out of anger, but missing as he steps away smoothly again.
“You’re fighting with too much emotion,” he says. “Focus.” Our blades clash and he pushes me backward, allowing him time to recuperate. Leave it to him to still train me, even after attacking him on deck.
“I can’t focus on anything other than how you hid everything from me.” My voice wavers with fury and despair, as I try to fight back the tears I already spilled with Sig, but this time, they are filled with anger. “You let me believe everything Dane said when you knew he was lying. You let me hate everyone. Hate you! And then you hide from me that you’re from my kingdom?”
The words slip, and I can’t take them back.Mykingdom. Not Blackwood, not home. Mine. His expression stays stoic as he watches me, without even a flicker of surprise.
“You wouldn’t have believed me if I told you.”
“Yes I would?—”
“Don’t lie to yourself, princess.” Irritation coats his voice and his eyes narrow. He stalks toward me as he speaks, striking out and pushing me backward, our blades clashing as I block. “You wouldn’t have believed a word I said. You didn’t. You found every reason to believe someone who was manipulating you. Theonly way I could help you was to have you figure it out on your own. To show you all of this and lead you to the truth. Just telling you I wasn’t the monster in his story would have done nothing.”
I glare at him, my chest heaving as his words sink in. He’s right. I didn’t believe anything they told me. I was so convinced it was all mind games, part of a way to control me and turn me against people I cared about, that nothing they said would have changed my mind. It wasn’t until after living with them for months, watching them care about me and trust me, and coming to trust them that I saw they weren’t anything like Dane said.
But he still hasn’t answered my question. He hasn’t acknowledged the crucial piece of information he knew and that he hid it from me.
“You know who I am, don’t you? You and Sig know.”
He lowers his sword and stands up straight, his voice dropping low. “I do, princess.”
My vision blackens around the edges as my anger hones in on him with the admission. Now it’s my turn to stalk toward him. “That’swhy you treat me differently?” My hands collide with his chest as I push him with all my strength. He staggers back slightly, but stays silent. “That’swhy you are such an insufferable asshole?” I push him again. “That’swhy you’re so overbearingly protective?” His face contorts with annoyance on the third push, and he shoots me a look, challenging me to do it again.
“You’ve been here longer than I’ve been alive,” I yell. “I’m not your princess. I should mean nothing to you!”
“That’s enough,” he growls.
“No! It’s not enough! Because you still aren’t answering me!” I reach out one final time, but he swats my wrists away, his sword clattering to the deck.
A growl erupts from his throat and he stoops down, wrapping his arm around my thighs, and throws me over his shoulder. The hilt of the sword is ripped from my fingers before it clatters to the floor alongside his.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Weston? Put me down! Now!” I try to wiggle and roll out of his grasp, but he ignores me, his arm only clamping down harder as he walks toward the steps, taking them quickly down to the first deck.
“I order you to put me down!” I scream as I slam my fists into his back, trying to push away and break out of his grasp. If he wants to treat me like a princess, then I’ll start acting like one.
He stomps down the hallway and I shriek when he tilts me backward as we pass through the doorway, so my head doesn’t hit the wooden beam above. Slamming the door behind us, he crosses the room and I’m flying through the air, dropping right into his chair. Fire flares in his eyes as he grips the arms on either side of me, leaning forward so there’s only a breath between us.
“There. Now you can scream at me all you want. You may be my princess, but this is stillmyship.”
I ignore him. He will not distract me from my anger by pulling rank.
“You’ve told me to trust you, but you’ve hidden everything from me! And now you’re making this about you!”
“It’s not about me. This has always been about you!” he yells and I shift back in the chair.
He stands, scrubbing his hands over his face, and I can see there’s more he isn’t saying. I don’t care what Edmond has taught me about being diplomatic and not letting emotions get involved when you are negotiating. I’m furious with Weston. Furious about everything he’s kept from me, and everything he let me believe.
“How did you figure out I was a princess?”
“I didn’t have to figure it out,” he snaps. “I knew from the moment I saw you who you were.”
