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“Watch the door,” Kadou choked out. “Just . . . I need . . .”
“All right, all right,” Tadek said soothingly, glancing back at Evemer. “Can I fetch you anything? It’ll take a while since I can’t run right now, but—”
“Just watch the door,” Evemer said. How could he sound so steady? “Don’t let anyone in.”
“Done,” Tadek said, and vanished.
“My lord,” Evemer said. Kadou hated that title from him now. “You’re not having an attack. You’re just upset.”
“So are you,” Kadou bit out. Evemer did not reply.
Kadou put his hands over his face and paced once around the fountain. The sun glittering off the water was almost the same as the touch-taste of gold, and the splashing was noisy enough that it would keep them from being overheard even by Tadek at the door, as long as they whispered.
Kadou leaned heavily against one of the mossy walls, crossing his arms. “I won’t do it,” he said.
“Highness?”
No, that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all. Kadou stormed forward, grabbed him by his sword belt and collar and hauled him close, kissed him once, hard, before breaking off. “I’m not marrying him. I’m not. I won’t do it.”
“All right,” Evemer whispered. He looked rather pale. “She’ll find you someone else—”
“No,” Kadou said savagely. “I won’t have anyone else.”
Evemer trembled in his arms. “You have to. You—”
“I wantyou. I only want you. I could have found time to go to the temple,” he said. “YouknowI could have, even if it took waiting up half the night to finish it. You live six inches away from me at all times. You know I’ve only been putting it off.”
Evemer pulled away. “Don’t. Don’t. Kadou, you can’t, I’m just—”
“You’re not,” he snarled, letting go of Evemer’s clothes. “You want to know whatjustyou are? You’rejustthe person who sees right through me, who tells me when I’m wrong, who said no to me, who was with me through every moment of the worst months of my life. You’re—”Say it, just say it,he thought furiously.Offer properly. Hold out your hand to him.“You’rejustthe person I’m in love with, and the one I want to be married to. If—if you’ll have me.”
“Your reputation,” Evemer whispered helplessly.
“I’d rather be Kadou andyoursthan a prince and anything else. Zeliha can—can exile me if she’s not happy with it, I don’t care, as long as she sends you with me.” He stopped, reined himself in, pulled away a little. “But . . . Your career? Would you rather—”
“Don’t,” Evemer said. His voice rasped, cracked. “Don’t talk about that like it’s something that matters.”
Kadou breathed out, slowly. “I need you to tell me what you want. Bold and brazen. Everything. I have to know everything.”
Evemer stood there, not even a foot away from him, his hands clenching at his sides. “I want to stand beside you,” he said at last. “However—however that looks, whatever I get, even if it’s scraps or I have to let someone else—”
“Don’t lie.Allof it, Evemer,” he said.
“OfcourseI knew you weren’t too busy to go to the temple,” Evemer said sharply. “I haven’t brought it up again, did you notice? We could have made plans to go today, but I thought—even a few more days, even just—”
“I saideverything. If you sayjustagain—”
He saw the moment Evemer’s control snapped, and he only had time for a single heartbeat of ferocious, joyous triumph thudding in his chest before Evemer came surging forward. He reached out to grab the front of Evemer’s clothes and yank him close at the same moment that Evemer shoved him back against the wall and kissed him like a man flinging himself off a cliff. “I’m yours,” he said roughly into Kadou’s mouth. “My hands, my heart, my breath—yours. Every part of me. That’s everything, that’s all of it. I want you to have it;take it.”
“If you give it to me, I’m keeping it. Keeping you.” In response, Evemer made that god-forsaken wanting sound and yanked Kadou’s collar aside, biting his neck as Kadou gasped and clawed at his shoulders. “I’m not letting go,” Kadou panted. “I won’t be able to.”
“Fine,” Evemer said, muffled against his skin.
“Fine.” Kadou gripped Evemer’s hair and pulled him back up into another kiss. This was slower, though no less heated, the world narrowing to just the two of them in this shadowed grassy alcove of the garden with no sound but their breath and the bubble of the fountain. Kadou shivered all over with a thrill of elation.
Evemer broke the kiss and stared at Kadou, rumpled and looking vaguely astonished, as if he were just now realizing what he’d done, what he’d asked for, what he’d gotten. “All right,” he breathed. He trembled all over and stepped back. “All right. We’ll need a plan.”
Kadou blinked. “Um—hold on, now, wait—”
