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For some reason, I couldn’t get it.
4
DEX
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I couldn’t say I hadn’twantedit to happen. I’d wanted Nylah for a long time. I just hadn’t acted on it. We worked together, for all intents and purposes. We were together in this, serving the king, the throne, the country.
Nylah had always been attractive. She was beautiful inside and out. I’d known her my whole life, and I knew there was nothing in her that wasn’t pure and good.
We shouldn’t have slept together, but now that we had, I wanted more. I wanted it all.
“Again!” I shouted when the warriors in front of me finished a training circuit I’d set up for them. These warriors were half of the king’s elite guard. The other half were on duty, and I trained the two groups separately so that Ren would be safe at all times.
Now that peace reigned between Jasfin and Palgia, and there was no one who wanted to overthrow the throne, it wasn’t necessary to have so many guards on duty, looking after Ren, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
Conjurites had crept into this palace before. Zander—a Conjurite warrior and the then future queen Lucia’s lover—had killed King Arnott. Lucia, a Fae of noble blood and also a Conjurite, had wriggled her way into the position of future queen. She’d hidden her true nature so well, no one had known until it was almost too late.
Thanks to Ellie, she’d overplayed her hand, and the future of Jasfin and Ren’s happiness had been saved, though not without difficulty. I knew it wasn’t my fault that Conjurites had managed to get in—they’d acted with a plan, and it had been an inside job—but I wasn’t going to allow something like that to happen ever again. The guards were on duty, and they made sure this palace was the fortress it should have been from the start.
The rain poured down in a steady sheet, making the world around us hazy. I glanced toward the palace. I couldn’t see the cathedral windows from here—it was on the other side of the palace—but my mind drifted to Nylah all the time.
What was she thinking now that we’d slept together? What did she feel? We hadn’t talked about what had happened between us, what it all had meant.
Had it been just one night? If that was what she wanted, I would respect that, but to me, it was more.
A lot more.
It was as if sleeping together had cracked something open, showing me something I hadn’t realized was there.
I wanted to be with her.
When the warriors completed the circuit for the fourth time, they breathed hard, but they didn’t look like they were winded and dying. They were fighting-fit, and I could throw any training at them, and they would do it with ease.
“Good job,” I said. “You can shower up and rest.”
They nodded and shook hands with each other. They weren’t just fellow guards, warriors who’d fought side by side. After all these years, we’d all become like brothers.
I wanted my new recruits to be like that. I wanted them to see what it was like. I would let them watch one of the training sessions sometime soon, but that wouldn’t forge a brotherhood. The only thing that created a bond like that was growing together, fighting together, going through hell and back together.
It was a lot like what Nylah and I had. Our bond was strong because of the years we’d spent together, not just getting to know each other, but fighting for freedom, for the throne.
Nylah and I had been to hell and back together, and we’d made it through.
I couldn’t think of a more perfect person to have by my side. We knew each other better than we knew ourselves.
After the warriors returned to their quarters, I walked through the palace. I considered going to Nylah to talk about what had happened, but I didn’t know what to say. How could I put to words what I felt for her?
I didn’t have a lot of people to talk to. Nylah was usually the one I confided in, and now, I wanted to talkabouther. It was a strange predicament to be in.
Lars and Freeman were both in charge of the warriors like I was, answering to me, and we’d grown closer during the civil war and the Palgian war. They weren’t Fae I felt I could talk to about women. They talked about women as conquests and their numbers as victories on a battlefield.
Nylah was more than that, and she deserved respect. I wouldn’t let them talk about her like she’d been a prize, and now that I’d had her, I would move on to the next. They wouldn’t understand.
The only other male I could confide in was Ren. The warriors were like brothers, but I didn’t make small talk with them. It wasn’t right. I needed them to see me as their general, a man without a kink in his armor, a man who didn’t for one second falter, not even for a woman.
I knocked on Ren’s office door when I reached it and waited for the call to enter.
