Lucian.
“You were a boy,” I say, my heart feeling like it’s about to crack. “You were just a boy.”
“I was never really a boy. I was always meant to be a king. And when you are meant to be a king you have to be something different. You have to be something mythic. Something strong. I failed at that. It is my fault my parents are dead.”
“No, it isn’t,” I say. “Any parent would rescue their child. Any good parent. It doesn’t matter if you cried or not. Begged or not, they would’ve come for you.”
“Regardless, it has never been a desire of mine to be reduced to that state ever again. That lack of control. That sniveling… No. I have fashioned for myself a reputation for being strong. As for the planes? That’s how many of the rebels were sneaked into the country. So many of them came from outside. And so, I have shut down flights to the country. You have to come through the port. Because I…”
It’s trauma. I can see it. But I know that he won’t characterize it that way. This iron fist that he’s cultivated is something that he needs to make himself feel safe.
To make the country feel safe.
But he was taken out of this palace as a young boy, and he has to continue to live here. To rule here. The scars that came from what happened are on his skin. Every day. A reminder of everything he’s been through. Maybe they have gotten better over time. Maybe it has gotten less painful. But it isn’t gone.
He would rather be the dragon than ever be that boy again. And I understand that. I also ache for him. Because he’s a man alone. A man kept so solitary. By his own rules and his position, by the pain that he’s experienced. By the walls that he’s built to protect himself.
But then he’s also…this. Whatever he is to me. I’m not sure why he’s so gentle with me, though even that is a bit of a contradiction. Because I’m his prisoner. But he’s given his prisoner an awful lot of blankets.
I’m his prisoner that he reads to.
That he kisses as if I am special. Yes, it would be easy for me to think of it as him using me. Using my body for his own pleasure, but he doesn’t. He shares pleasure with me. It doesn’t feel like that. It doesn’t feel like I am an object. He makes me feel beautiful.
He makes me feel desired.
I want to ask him more. About his marriages. About what actually happened. But I can feel the walls around him. For a moment there, he opened the gate to me. He let me ask questions, but I can feel that they will close the moment he feels like I’m pushing him too much. I can’t take advantage and ask everything all at once.
“What a terrible thing to lose your parents,” I say. “My mother is one of the most important people in my life. If I would’ve lost her when I was twelve I think it would’ve changed me too.”
“What happened to your father?”
I shake my head. “I’ve never known him. One of the men that my mother fell in love with over the years. But like most of them, he didn’t stay. She’s a romantic, though. She always believes that this one will be the one. I admire that in her. I know that some people resent their mothers for having a lot of relationships. I don’t. She does a good job keeping it separate from her children. She always did. But she hopes. Time and time again. I’ve never been like that.”
“And your sister?”
I shake my head. “Eve is a romantic. I told you, that’s why I’m here. She’s in love with Marcus, she wants to marry him. The idea of marrying you instead… It broke her.”
“What about you?” His eyes are fierce.
“I didn’t ever want to fall in love.” I look away from him. “So I figured I wasn’t going to lose anything by marrying a stranger.”
“You wanted to go to school.”
I nod. “Yes. But I weighed the consequences. I had some hope that perhaps I could still… But they were silly hopes. I made my decision.”
He makes that growling sound in his throat again. “Yes. You did. At twenty-two.”
“And you were king at thirteen.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Neither did I.”
“Meaning?”
I shake my head. “My sister’s unhappiness was unbearable to me. And as long as I could do something about it, I was going to.”
“Why?” He is completely baffled by this. And I wish that I had a better way to articulate it to him. Because I don’t feel like what I did was entirely selfless. Particularly not now as I lie there with him. But I don’t want to open up my chest and share the vulnerable feelings that have been growing inside of me for the past week. I don’t want to start talking about things that I haven’t even begun to make sense of.
