“Oh, I know that too well.” He slid up close to me and wrapped an arm around my waist. I leaned into him on instinct. This is what I missed. I’d never felt close to anyone the way I did with him. He was comfortable.
“I actually came here to talk to you about the ball,” I blurted out. My eyes slid up to his, but there was something in them I couldn’t place. Something was wrong. Maybe it was my own insecurities conjuring the emotion, but he seemed surprised I was asking.
“The ball?” he asked curiously.
“Yes, well… You’ve always been my escort before, and I don’t see any reason you can’t be this time either,” I said, trying not to show my desperation. I shrugged. The silence stretched between us tightly. Any moment, it would snap. I swore I could count the seconds as they ticked by.
“Oh, Eva… I wanted to tell you earlier, but it, uh… must have slipped my mind.” He cleared his throat and my heart dropped. “My father actually assigned me to escort someone in the procession.”
The room was suddenly suffocating. I couldn’t breathe as I tried to process what he just said. His statement shouldn’t hurt like this, but it did. I felt rejected, even though I knew I had no right. Damien wasn’t mine, nor would he ever be. It didn’t change the fact that I felt like a fool. A silly little fool.
“Of course!” I pushed away from him, scrambling at any remnants of my pride that was left. “It’s no problem, no problem at all. I completely understand.” I rushed to stand up. I needed to get out of this room, to clear my head and get far,faraway from him.
“Eva…” he started, but I shook my head. He stopped, threading a hand through his hair.
“Training tomorrow?” I asked weakly.
He nodded. “Training tomorrow. I’ll see you then.”
I turned and walked out of the door as quickly as I could. His bedroom was a mere memory by the time I was halfway down the corridor when my feet picked up their pace. As if I could outrun Damien and leave my insecurities behind.
7
DAMIEN
Stupid, I thought to myself.Utterly stupid.
I watched as Eva practically tripped over herself to get out of this room, to get away from me, and it broke my heart.
I don’t know when things became so damn difficult between us.
We’d grown up together. My father was Helia’s leading general and was in charge of protecting her parents. It’d been nice to have someone who understood the pressures of being in the public eye, even though her presence far outweighed my own.
Every single day was a new adventure to us, whether we were racing about the council room or outside near the river. My mother teased me, saying that she and I would have made a beautiful couple, but at that point in my life… Girls were the last thing on my mind. Plus, she was my friend. I didn’t think of her in that way. As she got older, though… I’d have been blind and stupid not to notice how beautiful she was becoming, but she was a princess, and I was a soldier. Those two occupations didn’t stand a chance together.
My attraction to her only grew when she began training with Luka and me. Not only was she witty and beautiful, but fuck… She could knock us on our asses in the blink of an eye. It was the hottest thing I’d ever witnessed. I’d never seen a woman that was so strong, physically and mentally. This creature was so sure of herself, almost to the point of cockiness. But it wasn’t. That female was the definition of confidence. No one could say otherwise.
And by the gods, she was lethal with her elemental powers coming out in full force as she got older. She never used them on us, or I should say she never used them onme. Luka was always a target. Especially when he was getting on her nerves, which he did a lot because he was always jealous that we were spending so much time together. But in our training, she said if she used her powers, then it wouldn’t be right, and she wanted to beat me fair and square. It was the way we were supposed to fight.
Fae were violent and hard-wired to take a win any way they could get it, but not Eva. Maybe she thought she had something to prove because she was a female, or maybe because she was Helia’s heir, but either way… She fought with more integrity than anyone I knew.
We were fairly matched as far as our skills were concerned when you didn’t consider the fact that she was a damn elemental. But my father had me in training longer than she had been because of who he was, and I had a feeling that if the roles were reversed, she could beat me as easily as breathing. Which, again, was a thought that made me rock hard.
That was how I ended up trying to kiss her for the first time. We were the last two in the training ring, and she had knocked every single sentry we threw at her on the ground. Not a single individual could take her down until I stepped into the ring with her. Sweat beaded along her forehead, her shirt sticking to her body. I could see every line of muscle underneath, and I drank in every inch of her. Thank fuck no one else was around because I had been so distracted with eye-fucking her, she swept her legs underneath me and I fell flat on my back within seconds. She had taunted me, crouching over me, and telling me I had been distracted by pretty little things like herself. The gods knew she was right. I was fucking mesmerized by her. I leaned in to kiss her and she slapped me across the face, hard, while laughing her head off.
After that, it became my life’s mission to kiss her. I loved the chase, and she put up a damn good fight, but it gradually started evolving into something more… Something tangible. The stolen kisses came to be easier, and I could sense her guard coming down when she was around me. We spent every moment together, and I basked in her presence like she was the air I needed to breathe. That was when I thought the mating bond was going to snap into place. I waited. And waited. Oh, and I was still waiting. I’ve spent over 300 years pining for Eva, and I’d spend 300 more if I had to. Just to make her mine.
I slumped onto the bench that I had been sitting on and took in a breath. Her presence still lingered in the air and danced along my skin like a calling card. Fuck, she was addicting. Everything about her made me want her even more.
And why was the fact that she played hard to get so intriguing? If she was anyone else, then I would’ve given up long ago, but she isn’t just anyone. Dammit, I thought I loved her.
No, that was a lie.
I knew I loved her. But she didn’t love me, not how I needed her to, at least.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the hurt dancing in her eyes when I told her no. Shit. I should have told her I’d love nothing more than to be her escort to the ball; that I’d escort her to every ball or function for the rest of our lives. But maybe that last bit was too much. Especially considering that we were just friends. Gods, I hated that term when related back to us.
“Well, that was unexpected.” I turned my head to see Luka lingering in the doorway.
