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“You’re my knight and you will do as I say,” I growled under my breath at him.
Rhoan snarled in response, but he managed to plaster a smile on his face before meeting my parents. All the while, he kept giving me strange sidelong glances. There was a question in his eyes that I couldn’t quite decipher.
It made my heart flutter unexpectedly.
We’d done a lot together, all in the span of one day. He’d watched me explore my ancestral home and its secrets. I’d come face to face with the beast he’d been trying to hide from me this whole time.
“I see where you get your disposition from,” Rhoan said with a smirk as he watched my Pack parents get into their car.
I gave him a questioning look, one that I hoped prodded him hard enough for an honest answer. “What does that mean?”
Though Rhoan rocked back on his heels, away from me, the smile remained on his face. He gave a half-nod towards the car pulling out of the driveway. “They’re tough but kind. I’m glad that they’re the ones who raised you.”
My face warmed with bashful pride as I turned away. Rhoan and I had seen the worst of each other throughout this, though I didn’t think his worst was as bad as he thought. Meeting his beast had been a wonderful experience, one that I savored.
“I didn’t mind getting a peek behind your curtain, either,” I teased, reaching to touch his arm.
Though there was a slight curve to Rhoan’s lips when I spoke, his smile seemed almost sad, and I couldn’t figure out where I’d went wrong. His gaze dropped to my hand on his forearm. For a moment, we lingered there in silence.
Neither of us moved. My heart leapt into my throat. We were getting somewhere…Then Rhoan pulled away.
The fight was over for today. We didn’t need defenses. We didn’t need to hide from one another. And yet…Rhoan took a step away from me. He kept his back to me and his arms crossed over his chest.
I wanted to pull him back. I wanted to shout and scream. Instead, I kept my desire tamped down because there was no use forcing something when I wasn’t going to stick around in the long run, either.
I would have thought that would bring us closer. Yet, Rhoan seemed further away than ever.
When we returned to my apartment that night, I crashed into my bed and welcomed him over. Instead, he threw himself onto the glass-studded couch and let his head fall back. I watched him stare at the ceiling for a long while.
What’d happened? Where had this chasm between us come from? It was like he was trying to distance himself from me to be a better knight when I saw this man as my friend—as potentially more than a friend.
He had something that he wasn’t telling me.
“We should begin making plans to take back your castle,” Rhoan said from the couch. “In the morning, I’ll call our allies over to discuss it. You can…make breakfast or something for them.”
Bastard, I wanted to say.
We bared our souls to each other, and you treat me like…like…like a queen? I didn’t want to be his friend. I wanted to be so much more.
But I had a blot on my arcana now. I wasn’t completely Seelie anymore. Neither was Rhoan. He hadn’t been this whole time. Yet, I wondered if he saw me differently now. Was his hope for a perfect Seelie princess smashed to bits? Was that the part of me he could have loved?
I fought the urge to flip him off and rolled over to face the wall.
“Sure,” I called back to him.
Rhoan
If I allowedmyself to truly fall for Cerri, then my deal for power would turn into a curse.
When I made this deal with the pookah for a beast that would help me defeat my enemies, I thought myself safe from their trickery. As a knight, I’d taken a vow of celibacy. I had no fear of falling in love because I had no plans to get close to any woman.
Now that I had Cerri in my life, I treaded dangerously close to the very thing I thought would never happen. The pookah gave me this beast and the power that came with it, but they warned me that should I fall in love and give my heart to another, then I would become nothing more than a beast.
I needed to help Cerri take back her kingdom.
If I could hold out for that long, if I could keep my love contained until the very end, then I could at least leave her knowing that she was safe.
