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“Anything. Tell me about the red ribbon.”
He tensed again. Shallow breaths came from his nose, and I could hear his heartbeat drum overtime.
I rose up to face him and cupped his face in my hands. “Nico, I would never betray you. Your secrets are my secrets. Can you trust me? Even with this knowledge?”
I had no business asking him to trust me when my own was dangling in the wind. His dark eyes searched mine as his hands gripped my waist for dear life.
He cleared his throat more than once. “It’s hard to let go. I’ve been clenching it for so long.”
Tears ran down my face. “I know. But you can release it to me. I promise to keep it for you, keep it with you.”
It took what felt like hours of silence for him to tell me. “I was abandoned as a baby. My mother left me at one of the entrances to this mountain. The family I now call my own raised me, only because my blood was royal, trust me, they tested it, but I never felt any attachment or love toward them. There was always this hollowness—an emptiness that couldn’t be filled by, alcohol, power, or personal conquests.”
My heart sank. Not because of the female conquests but because my mate had a hole inside his soul.
I made it my goal in life to fill that hole the best I could.
“And the ribbon?”
He smiled and it melted everything in me. “My mother left that red ribbon tied around my wrist as a baby. I wanted you to have that from me—for my mate to have a beginning with us. That ribbon is my beginning. I don’t know what happened before that ribbon, only after it. I was hoping that one day you could forgive me my past and make a new beginning with me.”
I embraced him, hugging him as tight as physically possible. “What you did to survive doesn’t need forgiveness from me. I just want to love you—here. Now.”
Chapter Four
Nico and I returned home to the apartment, but he was called out to the elders for, well, I had no idea what for because he rarely told me things that he dealt with in “business.” I didn’t think he did that to keep me from knowing what he was up to, but because he didn’t want to bother me with the details.
I was still not feeling great, still feverish, but that didn’t mean that I needed to be shielded from important matters. I’d walked into this apartment fresh from being one of the servants and never considered that I might have an opinion about matters beyond whether to scrub or sweep a floor. In the time I’d spent here, I’d changed. Beyond the feeling like crud that this fever induced, I’d begun to learn what it was like to be a higher. Or rather, to look beyond what my limited vision had shown me.
Was that part of the problem? The lessers were angry and wanted change, but they, we, didn’t look beyond the moment. Not that I blamed them. I’d never have considered the possibility that I could make changes to anything beyond the scope of my duties.
Right then and there, I decided to ask my mates more about what they did as royals and in any other duties they had. I lived here in luxury, and unlike before, was not contributing in any way. Surely it was better to sweep and clean than do nothing.
I should have asked him…
Sitting in the living room, I looked around at the fine furnishings marred by not a speck of dust. Someone else, a lesser, was responsible for that. They cleaned every day without a word, slipping in and doing work that I could easily handle. I had once suggested to Soren that I could keep the place neat with little effort, but his expression said it all. The mate—even the almost mate of royals did not do housework. If we wanted, we could eat in the hall at the banquet tables or even have someone come up and prepare anything we liked.
But for some reason, cooking was acceptable for us to do, Jude and me. Cleaning was not. I didn’t fully understand the difference, but he said it was his hobby and just a fun thing to do. And I couldn’t lie and say scrubbing a floor was either of those things. I probably would never get used to someone else changing my sheets though.
“Mate?” As if I’d conjured him by thinking of him, Jude came bustling in the door, followed by two lessers carrying baskets piled high with food. “I’m glad you’re home. I thought you might still be with Nico.”
“No. He had to go.”
As did the lessers who set down their burdens on the kitchen island before heading for the door.
“Thank you,” I called after them.
They both hunched their shoulders, but neither responded. I’d been getting some less-than subtle hints that I had to “choose a side,” lately. But how could I turn my back on where I came from or on the men who I’d grown to care so much about?
When I turned toward Jude once again, he was unpacking the baskets and humming to himself. A little smile turned up the corners of his mouth, and I couldn’t bring myself to be upset or confused or anything negative right now. We might be having trouble coming together in certain ways, but he’d become my best friend, and cooking together was…our hobby. My smile matched his. I could feel my cheeks stretching with it.
“So, what’s for dinner?” We didn’t always make our meals, in fact, most of our sessions were late-night guilty pleasure-type things like cookies or other goodies. But at this time of day, and with all the produce appearing, looked like supper.
“I was passing the kitchen, and they’d gotten in all these amazing vegetables. Look!” He held up an eggplant as if it was a golden vase, a true addition to his personal hoard. “And Walla Walla onions, and potatoes and…” As he piled them in different heaps, he described what he wanted to do with them. We weren’t vegetarians…I didn’t know any dragons who were. But we did enjoy all sorts of fruits and vegetables, and these were gorgeous, end-of-harvest treats. “What do you think, Freya? Ready to cook?”
“I am but there are so many. We can’t eat them all in one day.”
“No.” He chuckled. “I suppose not, so let’s just go with a ratatouille served over some jasmine rice and then maybe a cobbler?”
