"She's said it herself. Me admitting to loving her will not fix this. We're not going to get married. So we either remain apart, and I never tell her how I feel, or we remain apart knowing that we love each other. Which is worse?"
Renna grins and waves at me before frowning, spotting the tension in my conversation with Lynna. “Are you alright?” She mouths, with a thumbs up.
I nod briefly. She taps Anna's shoulder who taps Stellan's, who lowers them both down. Renna slips through the crowd, over to me and Lynna who are watching like the parents of these big children. She bounds up to me, her gaze fixed on mine.
"Hello," she whispers, looking up at me. I smile back down at her. My huntress isdrunk.
"Hello, trouble."
"You looked sad," she says, her bottom lip poking out.
"No, beautiful. Not sad," I murmur, dropping a gentle kiss on said lip. "But I might be over my fun limit for one day."
"That's okay, I'll come back with you! Unless you want to stay in my tent here?"
"I have a meeting at five in the morning, so I'll go back. You stay and have fun."
"No, I want to come home to the palace with you."
Holy fuck. She may be extremely inebriated, but hearing her call my home'home'has made me feel genuinely...happy. It's a feeling I'm getting used to, but it comes more and more often with her around. She waves goodbye to her friends and laces her fingers with mine, sparks warming my hands. This'll be all over the newspapers tomorrow but I don't care.
I carry her up the steps into the palace, fearing for her safety, and plonk her down on my colossal bed. "Wow, your room is so nice!" She observes, looking up at the high vaulted ceilings, green vines of leaves climbing above us.
"I think you might've seen it a couple of times before, angel," I remind her, pulling off her top, boots, and leggings. I shrug my own shirt off and wrap it around her shoulders. "Don't sleep on me yet."
"I'm not sleepy," she argues, looking outraged, and also decidedly sleepy.
I smile, wiping the makeup off her eyes. "Did you like my makeup?"
"It was very pretty, Rennalya," I reply, fighting a losing battle with getting her to stay still. “Look up,” I say, wiping beneath her eyes.
She giggles, kissing me hard before flopping back on the bed horizontally and falling straight to sleep. She’s hopeless. I laugh, turning her the other way and lying beside her. I take a deep breath, my finger tracing her beautiful jawline, her long lashes casting shadows on her face in the moonlight. I love to watch her sleep.
"I'm so hopelessly in love with you, Rennalya, that I'm afraid of what it'll do to me," I confess, into the silent night.
Chapter31
Retribution (Renna)
"You're back!" I cheer, as Rexxan returns late in the day, interrupting me from the most boring work of my month; looking at the incoming payments and outgoing spending of my army. I have achieved nothing today, except eating seven slices of toast to cure my hangover.
The atmosphere gets heavier and the temperature hotter whenever Rexxan enters a room. I know when he's near me without seeing him. I know the drum of his boots against the ground, the pattern of the slow breaths through his lips. He just carries that sort of presence.
Heavy steps thud over to me without a word, a huge hand snatching the page from mine and scanning it. Fresh scratches rake across his cheek and chest. His hair is in its usual bun, messy tendrils flopping in front of his face. Call me pathetic, but this man makes me weak at the knees.
Brick-orange eyes gaze back at me as his body looms over mine, overwhelming and overpowering as he looks down at me like he is starving and I am the last scrap of food.
"Um...are you gonna...say anything?" I ask, letting my eyes drift over his huge arms, down over his hips and muscular legs. He just stands there, silently letting me self-combust with a small smile on his face. I shift in my chair.
"Finished eye-fucking me?" He says, eventually.
"Not really, no," I reply, because frankly, I'm not. He grabs me roughly, lifting me up off the chair and into his arms.
"Do you want to play downstairs?" He asks, his voice deep and throaty as his thumb runs over my bottom lip.
"Yes." Zero hesitation.Gods, Renna, at least try and keep a little of your pride.
"Good. Go down there, I'll wash and come down."
