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If Lara was here with Nana’s blessing, it meant his grandmother was confident in his wife’s health. “Nana will never change.”
Coming back around the table, he took two quick steps then reached down to scoop Lara into his arms.
She gasped out a laugh. “Aren!”
He kissed her throat, inhaling the scent of lilacs, tasting the salt of her skin. Sitting in his chair with her on his lap, he pulled up the skirt of her dress until her injured thigh was revealed, the wound no longer bandaged. “Looks good,” he said, trailing a gentle finger over the thick scar. “I should probably have a look at the other, just to be sure.”
He caught at the straps of her dress, but she swatted him away. “How can you be thinking about sex after that meeting?”
“Because…” He kissed her, his cock hardening as her lips parted. Her tongue tasted like wine. “I’m finally alone with my beautiful, brilliant, and fierce queen, and that leaves no room for any other thoughts.”
Lara snorted, then caught his hand, which he was using to stroke higher and higher on her thigh. “Would you please redeploy some of the blood in your crotch back to your brain so that we might have anintelligentconversation.”
A half dozen quips rose to his lips, but there was an edge to his wife’s voice that told him she was in no mood for games. So instead he lowered her skirts and met her gaze, waiting to see what she’d say.
“I’m sorry,” were her first words, and he opened his own mouth to say thatshehad nothing to apologize for, but Lara pressed a slender index finger to his lips. “I handled every aspect of this meeting poorly. I thought I’d be prepared, but I wasn’t.”
“Why should you have been? Ahnna should’ve been civil, but instead she went for blood.” Exhaling slowly, he shook his head. “Your presence might have motivated certain conversations to occur sooner than they otherwise would have, but they were inevitable. Ahnna is many things, but impulsive isn’t one of them. Her words, her resignation, none of that was something she decided on in the moment.”
“I hate that I’ve come between you two. Hate that the individual who was once your greatest ally is now…” Lara shook her head. “I’m not sure what she is.”
Leaving, and soon to be Harendell’s problem,was the answer he wanted to give, but Aren bit down on the words. For one, he didn’t entirely mean them, and two, as the future queen of Harendell, his sister would continue to have influence in Ithicana. “It’s for the best, Lara. She’s right that Southwatch’s vote should be made by someone who is to remain in Ithicana as an advocate for the island’s interests. As to her feelings about you…” He hesitated, then said, “Ahnna knows that it was Silas who invaded Ithicana, that it was his armies who committed atrocities on his orders, but there is little satisfaction to be had in blaming the dead. Likewise with blaming those who are nothing more than names and sketches on paper. Whereas you are here and an easy target for all the anger and guilt and grief in her heart.”
Tears turned Lara’s eyes liquid, though she blinked them away. “Iamto blame. If I’d told you everything, if I’d told you about thatfuckingletter, none of this would have happened.”
There’d been a time when he’d thought the same, but now… “Even if you had, do you really think it would have stopped Silas from attacking? The bridge was his obsession, one he sacrificed more than fifteen years of his life to achieving. Do you really think he’d have given up? Or would he just have found another way?”
“I…” A tear trickled down her cheek, but she didn’t seem to notice. “He wouldn’t have let it go. He’d have died before letting it go.” She drew in a sharp breath, as though she weren’t getting enough air into her lungs. “He did die rather than let it go.”
Died on the end of her blade. God help him, but Aren wished he’d been able to see that moment. Clearing his throat, he said, “I love my sister, but she is intense and proud and unforgiving. Please don’t paint all of Ithicana with the brush she has handed you, especially not when all the rest of the commanders swore to you as queen.”
“I don’t paint them all with the same brush. I know there are people who see things in different ways.”
The words came out too quickly, and Aren knew that the concession was an attempt to ease his mind while hers still stewed, convinced she was reviled and hated by all, when that was most definitely not the case. As he watched, her eyes flicked to Keris’s portrait where it still sat on the table. “Donotblame yourself for what he did.”
“I don’t.” Her face hardened. “I blamehim.”
Reaching over, Aren grasped the paper and crumbled it into a ball, tossing it across the room. “He’ll get himself killed with that smartass mouth of his, of that, I have little doubt.”
Lara didn’t answer, only toyed with the front of his shirt, her eyes distant. Thoughtful and brooding and beautiful, and God help him, he loved her. Loved every part of her, mind, body, and soul. “Do you want us to stay, Lara? Because I meant what I said to the council: where you go, I go. If you want us to make a life somewhere else, a place where Ithicana is naught but a name on a map, we’ll leave.”
Her eyes shot to his. “No! I don’t want to leave.” She frowned. “Do you want to leave?”
Part of him did. Part of him wanted to take her and walk away from the burden that was rule. Perhaps if he were more of a narcissist, the power that came with the crown would be enough reward to outweigh the toil, but he wasn’t. And these days, it felt like being king was a constantgive give givewith nothing to refill the well. “My life is with you, and if we can’t be happy here together, then I want us to leave.” He hesitated, then asked, “Why do you want to stay?”
She was still, barely seeming to breathe. “I…” She shook her head, a flush rising to her cheeks. “I just do.”
It was no answer but experience had taught him that pushing her in moments like these would only cause her to put up walls. Nor was it the time to press on Mara’s proposition, though that was a conversation that needed to be had. Not because it changed anything but because he’d sworn there’d be no more secrets between them. “I love you, Lara. There is no life for me without you in it.”
In a rapid motion, she moved, twisting in his lap so that her knees were to either side of him.
Her hands slipped around his neck, one tangling in his hair. “You know that I feel the same way, don’t you? How much I love you?”
“I know it.” He pulled her closer, the apex of her thighs pressing against his stomach and her breasts brushing his chest. Capturing her lips with his, he kissed her softly, then with more urgency. Her tongue was in his mouth, her hands in his hair, and he wanted to tear the clothes from her body. Wanted to lay her on the table and claim her. Make her scream his name, the guards standing outside the doors be damned.
“How much activity are you allowed?” he asked, kissing his way down her throat.
“Why?” Her voice was breathy. “Do you want to go for a walk? Perhaps climb to the summit and admire the view?”
