In time, Amarande’s mouth landed on his and it was a relief when he finally moved—to kiss her in return.
The princess was as gentle as she could force herself to be, though she wanted to squeeze him between her body and the rock, until her skin matched his and there would be no way they could ever be torn apart again.
Amarande held back from flattening herself into him, being as tender as her feelings would allow, and after a time pulled herself away so they could both breathe. When the princess opened her heavy eyes, Luca was smiling, dimples flashing.
“I told them you’d save me.”
And then Amarande kissed him again. Harder this time—she couldn’t help it. He laughed low against her lips and put his hands in her hair, smoothing it off her face.
When they parted, she watched his eyes like she always did in their meadow.
“Did they believe you?”
“They laughed.”
“They aren’t laughing now.”
Luca conceded that but didn’t shake his head this time. “They aren’t, but we should go—they’ll be coming.”
He was right. Those bandits had kidnapped him with the promise of payment, and though they’d completed his acquisition, that was likely not all they had to do to be paid. Still, Amarande was slow to move, navigating the idea that she’d lost him and then managed to recover him. That her training was a success—she’d set out to save him and she had.
And more: He had known she would.
Luca stood first and untethered Mira, who was more than happy to finally have his attention, greeting him with an enthused snort. Amarande dawdled, eyes pinned to the muscled curve of his back. The kisses hadn’t been a relief so much as they’d increased the want within her.
But he was hers now, and there would be no more kisses if they were captured again. And so she stood and readjusted the sword at her back, the knife in her boot, the pouch of diamonds hidden in the folds of her dress. Luca took the dagger they’d found in the saddlebag and dropped it in one boot.
“Where were they taking you?”
“They’re pirates—they claimed to have a ship. They didn’t say where, though we were headed in the general direction of the Port of Torrent. If that’s true, we were crossing the length of this place to get to it. From there, I’m not sure where they intended to go. Their plan didn’t make much sense.”
Amarande chewed on the possibility that those three could’ve survived the trek across the Torrent to steal away Luca in a way that fit the timeline of the past week. Or maybe they’d actually left the ship at the Port of Pyrenee in the Divide, or even at Ardenia’s harbor, and weren’t actually headed to the ship with him, after all. Or they might not actually have a ship to begin with and everything they told him was a lie. She was puzzling out those threads when the sound of Luca’s laughter hit the princess’s ears, a strange surprise.
“You’re wearing a ball gown.” He said it like he’d just nownoticed it. And maybe it hadn’t registered until they were at a distance in the full light.
“Easy to track and ridiculous to boot, I know.” Amarande grinned, knowing full well that, minus the sword at her back, she looked every inch the Runaway Queen her mother was supposed to be. But she didn’t mention that and she knew Luca wouldn’t either. “There wasn’t time to change.”
Luca’s lips quirked up. “When did you leave?”
“About ten minutes was all I could survive of dinner with Renard. Left the dining hall and went straight for the stable.”
Luca didn’t press. He didn’t ask why she was having dinner with Renard, though he knew the rhythm of the Itspi well enough to understand the Royal Council would have demanded penance for her display at the funeral. More, Amarande knewheknew why she’d abandoned dinner to come to him. It was exactly why she’d rescued him. And how he’d known she would.
He brought Mira forward and grabbed the princess’s hand. Folded her fingers into his.
Together they walked like that, drawing themselves to the other side of the little trickling stream, where there was room to walk without a cliff bumping against a shoulder. Leaving the little nest of land that had sheltered them for just long enough. At the mouth of the main stretch, where the scrub faded into wide rivers of sand running alongside the spindly branched forest to the north, Luca stopped. Unless they wanted to lose time in the trees, there truly was nowhere to hide, only a direction to pick. At that moment they were heading west.
Toward the supposed pirate ship and away from Ardenia.
Luca’s attention lingered over his shoulder—east and home. “Are we circumventing the forest? Is that what you’re thinking? Looping around and back?” He asked it like he hadn’t realized their direction until just now, too. Maybe it was like her ball gown—so obvious he’d missed it in his elation. “I’m assumingKing Sendoa taught you a strategy for this situation—how do we circle back toward Ardenia without running straight into Dunixi, Urtzi, and Ula?”
That stopped Amarande cold, a sudden and fierce anger rising in her gut, quick as a surprise. The fight was back, flooding every muscle with tense, swift rage. She dropped his hand so she wouldn’t crush his fingers.
“First thing: We don’t talk about the enemy like we’re trying to avoid them at the market.”
Luca raised a brow. He wasn’t ever invited to the war rooms. He didn’t know the first thing about commanding an army. Or surviving one.
“Their names,” she said, arms flinging out. “If Father taught me anything, it’s that it’s much easier to call someone your enemy if you don’t refer to them by name.”
