Chapter22
A Job Offer (Rexxan)
Renna sure does put up a good fight. I like that in a woman. No, actually, I like that inher. Slowly obliterating her headboard over the course of two weeks has been the joy of my lifetime.
After refusing to speak to me for four days—the longest fucking four days of my life, by the way—after telling me to ‘go fuck myself with a barbed mace’, she finally lets me into her room when I threaten to punch my way in through the outside window. It’s a chaotic relationship we have, but I’d die for her six times over.
"What is it?"
"You're going to tell me why you're grumpy, my sweet, beautiful, kind, caring lover."
She doesn’t like my compliments. "Cut the bullshit. You know why I'm grumpy."
"Because you saw me walk into Lynna’s halls?”
She gives me a long, slow clap. Shit. I've experienced jealous women a thousand times before, but never from someone I actually care about. Lynna doesn't care what else I get up to. But Renna does, and I don't know how that makes me feel.
"Do you want to know exactly what I did with Lynna in her library last week?”
Her fingers pinch her delicate nose in sheer frustration andholy fuck, I want this woman. And I don’t just mean in the bedroom sense.
Why this calamitous realisation is hitting me now, during our first ‘normal-people’ domestic, is beyond me. She’s yelling at me again, and I decide that for the sake of my balls, I should tune in. “Why do I even bother with you? No! And for future reference, most women won't want to know what you did with your lover!"
“She’s not my fucking lover, not since I met you. Ask me what I did."
"No, because I don't care."
She’s pretty. "Evidently you do, Renna."
"I don't care what you did with her! I care because you punch and threaten to kill any man who even lays his eyes on me! Where is the equality in that? No double standards, Rex, or I’m out of here. And yes, maybe I care a little.”
"When you've cooled off a bit, and when you want to know, ask Lynna what it is we did in her library last week,” I whisper, taking her deceivingly sweet face between my hands and kissing her forehead gently. I don’t want her to find out my weaknesses, but Renna has bared all hers to me. It's fair I start to do the same.
She just flips me her middle finger and storms out, slamming the door.
As much as I enjoy staying here and fucking around with the Shadow Commander, I will always be first and foremost a king, and I have to get back to lead and reassure my people through these uncertain times.
Begrudgingly, I start to prepare for the two-month journey home. I could leave tomorrow, hypothetically, but I’m not going to. I’m staying for some royal dinner event at the end of the week. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. It has nothing to do with the fact that that's four extra days with Renna.
Gods above, I’m even lying to myself.
* * *
She finally comes backto speak to me two full days after our argument, and I loathe that we have wasted so much of our limited time left together. But I like that she takes no shit from me, or anyone else. It makes her the good leader that she is.
The door to my study opens as I work at my desk, signing a contract that secures my kingdom another five years as the supplier of weapons for Espan’s army. She leans against my doorway in a low-cut black dress, dark shadow winging her eyes. My Ten is a sorceress. That hasn’t sunk in yet. She’s not really mine, but we’re not seeing anyone else, so perhaps she is mine?
She can’t be mine.
I half-wonder if she realises how seductive she is, or if it is subconscious. She never wears dresses, but she suits them. "So I spoke to Lynna."
"Good."
"I'm sorry I reacted that way. I should've let you speak. Has she always done that for you?"
"No, Talyn does it, but he's not here."
"I didn't realise they were so bad," she says, softly. She pushes off from the doorframe gracefully and shuts the door. My mind is running to all manner of inappropriate places right now. I want her on this desk. I want her so hard on this desk that it moves to the wall on the other side of the room. I want her screaming my name.
