I peek up at him, the Dragon King. His face is grave, but still, I can’t convince myself he looks angry. I suppose there’s only one way to know if he will be.
“I was told that if you lost the throne,” I say, “all your possessions would go with it. Including me.”
There. I’ve said it.
Part of it, at least.
A hand does reach toward me then, but it’s only to smooth away a bit of sand from my neck.
“Do you think I would risk you?” he says, his gaze tracing the path of his fingers along my jaw.
I don’t know how to answer that, and yet I feel the need to say something. Anything, really, to distract myself from the way his touch is disorienting me. “I know your kingdom is in dire need of water.”
His eyes snap to mine. “What does water have to do with it?”
I startle at this.Everything, I almost say.It’s why I’m here.
Yet what I see in the king’s face, what I feel in the warmth, in the near-reverence of his touch, tells a different story, one where he yearns for me, not just my power.
Some part of me aches to cry out, “You don’t have to look at me like that. You don’t have to pretend. I know this isn’t a love match. I know you can have anyone you want.”
Another part—whether weaker or stronger, I don’t know—only wants him to keep looking at me like that, to keep kissing me as he did before, pretend or not.
His fingers reach my mouth, and he lingers there, drawing the pad of his thumb across my lower lip.
“You don’t know what I would do for you,” he says. “What I…”
Here, he stops, and his fingers still. The hand withdraws to his lap, and in a blink, he’s on his feet, pacing like a trapped animal while I stare at him.
“Are you all right?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. He’s busy pushing his hands through his hair and muttering to himself as if arguing with someone else.
I begin to wonder if he struck his head while in the arena.
With a growl, he pivots toward me.
“Wait here,” he says. And without another word, he thunders out, the speed of his departure enough to make the nearby lanterns sputter.
Well, that was an interesting turn of events.
If it weren’t so strange, I’m sure I would fret over what I said wrong. As it is, I ponder whether I should send for a physician. Maybe we both need one. Maybe he’s off to fetch one for his overly emotional betrothed.
I draw my knees to my chest and sit there, chin on knees, and wait.
In less than five minutes, he bursts back into the tent, forcing me to avert my eyes. He left in his robe, he’s still in his robe, and the garment is now hanging on for dear life.
Striding by me, he drops a pack on the floor and disappears behind the paneled dressing screen, reappearing a moment later in dark pants.
Onlydark pants.
“Your shirt,” I say, my mouth utterly betraying me.
The king ignores this and, coming to stand over me, bends to offer me his hand. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
The corner of his mouth tips up. “To the stars, Princess.”
15
