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He slowly moved around me, and I held my breath until the crowned prince was standing directly in front of me. I stared up at him and waited for whatever it was he needed to say.
“It isn’t your mark that makes you so exquisite, Adara. There is just something about you that I can’t look away from.”
I swallowed as his words washed over me, and my stomach dipped as his gaze slid to my lips. The man that stood in front of me was so different from the crowned prince he became under his mother’s thumb.
I didn’t know which version of him was real.
I didn’t want to like either one.
“When they had told me I was betrothed to the Starblessed, I hadn’t expected you.” He lifted a piece of my hair in his fingers and watched as it slipped through his hand.
“What did you expect?”
“Someone who I would be bound to in law and blood only. I didn’t imagine that I would want you in the way that I do.”
“You want what my blood is supposed to hold for you.” I straightened my shoulders and tried not to let his words affect me. He was the future king and my future husband, but even as his words made my stomach tighten, I wished it were Evren standing before me.
“No, Adara.” He shook his head gently before his eyes met mine. “I want you. I lie in my room at night thinking of you and you alone. I fantasize about what it will be like to truly touch you, for you to call my name out to the gods.”
“Gavril,” I whispered his name, and it sounded far too intimate.
I wanted to tell him to stop, but I saw the pleasure in his gaze as he watched me. He took a step closer to me, eliminating any bit of space that I had been clinging to, and his chest pressed against mine. My breathing rushed in and out of me, and my breasts pressed against him with each deep pull into my lungs.
“Gods, I wish not to leave an inch of your body undiscovered. It will be for me to worship, and I will worship you, Adara.” He lifted his hand and buried his fingers into my hair at the base of my scalp. “You will want for nothing once you belong to me.”
He pressed his nose against my jaw and inhaled deeply. I turned away from him as I tried to catch my breath, and I hated that I wasn’t pushing him away. I didn’t have a choice, but there was also a part of me that didn’t want to.
I felt desperate to want Gavril in the way I yearned for his brother. If I had, then thoughts of running away would have slipped through my fingers easily. The overwhelming longing to hurt the people who destroyed my family would have been washed away and replaced by my guilt for wanting my enemy.
But I felt neither of those things when he pressed a soft kiss to my neck. His skin against mine only seemed to strengthen my resolve that this wasn’t the life I was meant for. Even if Gavril was handsome and the scent of him alluring. There was a vast difference between the way he was making me feel right now and the way my chest ached with uneasiness.
Gavril may have wanted my flesh and my blood, but he was still the son of the queen. He was still willing to keep me here in a prison while he took what he wanted from me. He had told me so in his own words, and I wasn’t foolish enough to forget that.
“Is that what you want, Starblessed?” His hand tightened in my hair, and I hated that name so damn much.
But I would not allow Gavril to know either of my truths. “Yes.” I nodded and the tug of his hand in my hair brought out the smallest bite of pain. “Of course, that’s what I want.”
He let out a small, deep sigh against my skin, and his hand tightened even more. I could feel the tension radiating off his body as he held me in his hands, and I knew that if I didn’t stop this, he was going to press his mouth against me once more.
He wanted to do more than that, and even though I had so willingly allowed his brother to touch me only a few days before, he was the only one to ever do so. The thought of Gavril doing the same made my stomach drop.
A loud knock on the door had Gavril’s gaze flying up toward the sound, but he didn’t release me from his hold as the door opened.
“Yes, brother?” Gavril gritted through his teeth, and my spine straightened as my gaze connected with Evren in the mirror.
He could clearly see everything that was happening in front of him. The way Gavril’s body was pressed against mine, his hold in my hair, the curve of my neck that appeared so ready for his mouth.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him this wasn’t what it looked like, but it was. Gavril was to be my husband, and the way he was holding me was the exact reminder I needed that I was his as I stared at his brother.
I was his, and the only options I had to change that also meant I would never be Evren’s.
“Father is asking for you.” Evren avoided meeting my gaze, and I let my own fall to the floor as he spoke.
I tried to remind myself of the cruel words he spoke as he left my room with traces of me still on his fingers, but it was no use. My body didn’t care about what he had said. The moment he walked into the room, it sparked to life in a way Gavril could never do.
“What does he want?” His hand tightened again, and this time, I couldn’t stop my wince as pain bit into my scalp.
Evren noticed. Of course, he had. His dark gaze finally met mine in the mirror, and he looked absolutely murderous.
