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He would destroy anyone who hurt me, but would he do the same when it came to his brother?
“You should never be afraid of telling me the truth of what is bothering you.” He lifted his hand and pushed a stray strand of my hair out of my face, and the urge to lean forward and kiss him was overwhelming. He had just had his head buried between my legs, but it wasn’t enough.
If anything, it only made me crave him more.
“Evren,” I whispered his name as I turned my face into his hand, and that was when I remembered where we were. Faces I didn’t know were staring back at me, but I easily recognized the look they were giving me as they looked back and forth between their bastard prince and me.
They could see everything I had been trying to hide.
“The queen is watching us.” Evren pulled his hand away from my face before putting the slightest distance between us. To everyone else, it would appear as nothing, but to me, it felt like he was a thousand miles away. “I will find you after.”
He slowly bent into a bow as the last notes of the song rang out through the room, and I couldn’t look away from him as he rose before walking away from me. He left me standing alone in the middle of the dance floor, but everyone was still watching me.
When I turned back to face the queen, Evren was right. She stared at me with a cold, shrewd stare, and I could barely look away from her. Not as Gavril came back into my view with a charming smile on his face or when he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me back into a dance.
The queen watched me through it all, and I knew that she was dissecting the way I held on to Gavril versus Evren. But even knowing, I wouldn’t be able to convince her.
“I’d like to show you something.”
I looked away from the queen long enough to look up at my betrothed, and his smile was tight as he watched me.
“Okay.” I nodded even though I didn’t want to go anywhere but back to my room. I wanted to find Evren and disappear in his darkness for just a few more moments.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
Gavril took my hand in his, and he laid a gentle kiss against my knuckles before he pulled me toward him. I followed behind him as we left the ballroom, and every eye was on us. This was what I needed them to see. I needed them to feel how in love I was with their crowned prince.
I needed them to believe something that would never be the truth.
Gavril pulled me into the hall, and I finally took a deep breath as I walked to keep up with him. He took me down the hall where I knew Evren’s room was, and he kept going even after we passed his door.
He didn’t say a word as we walked, he just pulled me along after him, and the farther we got from the ballroom, the harder my heart raced in my chest.
“Where are we going, Gavril?” I could hear the fear in my voice, and so could he. His hand tightened its hold on me as if he feared I was going to run.
“To my rooms.” He glanced back at me for only a moment, but he didn’t stop even as fear crawled up my chest and threatened to bubble over into a scream.
There was nothing for me in Gavril’s room. Nothing that I didn’t fear.
He stopped in front of a large set of double doors, and I glanced at the two guards that stood outside them. I pleaded with them with my eyes to do something, anything, but neither of them held my gaze for long.
They simply nodded toward their future king as he pushed through the doorway and pulled me behind him.
His room was massive and lit up with dozens of candles and lanterns throughout the space. A fire roared in the far corner and a bead of sweat dripped down the long expanse of my exposed back within seconds of entering the room.
Two more guards stood in the room near Gavril’s bed, and when I noticed them, I stalled and jerked my hand from Gavril’s.
“What are we doing?” I backed up until my back hit the doors with a loud thump, and Gavril turned to me with so much mistrust in his eyes.
“How did you get that new mark, Adara?” His gaze slid down to my leg, and I quickly tried to cover it with the sides of my dress.
“I don’t know. I told your mother—”
“The queen doesn’t trust you,” he cut me off before I could finish. “She doesn’t believe a word that slips past your lips.”
“And you?”
He shook his head, and I knew that Gavril didn’t have the opportunity to form his own thoughts. Whatever he believed of me was fueled by his mother.
