AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Malyr laughed.
What the fuck was going on here?
The longer I watched them, the heavier my breaths became. Since when did Malyr spend time with Galantia outside of tormenting or fucking her? What had happened between them during those eight damn days that he stroked his fingers into her hair and to the back of her head without a yank? And why did he lower his face to hers, closing his eyes as if he was about to—
Oh, shit, he was kissing her.
My lungs caved, refusing another draw of air until the lack of oxygen blurred the sight of how he devoured her mouth. How he rose with her, letting the chair legs groan and the quilt fall as he placed her onto the parchment. How he gathered her shift, shoved his trousers down, spread her thighs for him. All while he kissed her, both moaning so loudly into each other’s mouths, it snapped me out of my trance.
He kissed her.
I stammered in a lungful of air, breathing through that sudden stickiness in my chest that shouldn’t be there. She wasn’t mine… could never be. What claim did I have on her? None. What right did I have to interfere? None.
But I did anyway, stepping into the room, rubbing over that damn tightness in my chest that refused to go away. “Things are awfully cheerful around here this morning.”
Galantia jumped at the sound of my voice, and her hazel eyes found mine. “Sebian!”
“You’re back early,” Malyr said, his tone a little too flat for my taste, but at least he had the decency to put his cock away and brush her shift down. “I did not expect your return for another two days.”
“Clearly not,” was all I said as I looked about the room first, then toward his nest. Discarded cups. Candles melted down to the wick. Platters with fruits and bread. Whitish snail trails all over the black pillows and blankets. Goddess be damned, had they spent eight days in his nest, fucking? “Who was the pathfinder that reported the sighting of Prince Domren outside the walls of the capital? That bastard wasn’t in the north.”
Malyr helped Galantia to slip off the desk, then looked at me with a bored kind of expression I wanted to punch. “His banners.”
“What?”
“The pathfinder spotted…his banners…” he enunciated as if I was fucking slow or something, all while Galantia walked toward me. “Reports never said anything about Domren himself. You know full well that scouts are to remain at a safe distance, making it impossible to confirm or deny his presence within his own banners.”
There was a twitch in my left eye. “Are you saying that I spent eight fucking—”
Galantia wrapped her arms around me, taking me into a hug that was a little too stiff, a little too short. “I’m so glad you came back unharmed.”
Unharmed?It had taken me less than fifteen minutes to realize that Domren wasn’t there before I’d headed back, my arrows utterly useless and my balls frozen solid, thank you very much. And Malyr couldn’t have been bothered to give all that a mention?
I breathed through the anger in my chest.
None of that was her fault, so I lifted my arm to pull Galantia deep into me. Goddess help me, I just wanted to grab her, hide us under the blanket, and spend the morning inside her. But before I managed my fingers on her shoulder, she took a step away, taking with her all that warmth I so desperately needed. Why so distant?
Beneath the fur in my bracers, an after chill buried along my skin, lifting the hairs along my arms as if my ravens wanted to ruffle their feathers, eyes going to Malyr. “Why didn’t you make me aware of all this before I headed north?”
“It’s not like you left me much of an opportunity to bring it up,” he said and walked up to me. “The moment I marked the map, you flew off without another word. Even left Galantia standing and waiting by the stables, as if yoursweetheartwasn’t worth a quick goodbye.” I might have considered that pat he gave on my shoulder as condescending, wasn’t it for how that last part drove shame into my rounding spine. “I will be in my library.”
The moment he disappeared through the set of doors, I looked back at Galantia, seeing the dismay over how I’d left written across her hardened features. “I’m sorry I left without saying a word.”
“I understand, and I’m sorry that it didn’t work out,” she said, trundling up a smile, as lovely as ever but somehow weak around the edges. “You want revenge, saw an opportunity, and took it. They don’t come by nearly as often as the chance of spending a day at the cliffs…”
Well, that summed it up rationally, but did nothing to soften the disappointment on her features. “It’s no excuse to just leave without telling you. I really wanted to take you to the ocean that day, so you could see us fly and tumble.”
“Oh, I did,” she said, the corners of her mouth lifting higher, returning the usual radiance to her smile. “Malyr was kind enough to take me instead. We saw…”
Her words faded into nothing but disjointed noise. Something about a girl. Chainmail. Salt. All I could focus on were the words,Malyrandkind, and how both were used in the same sentence, such a contradiction, it melted my fucking brain away.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” I lifted my hand, which silenced her. “What do you mean, he took you?”
She shrugged, throwing her hands up right along with the motion as if any of this was supposed to make sense. “Malyr found me by the stables where I waited for you. He told me you’d left, then he took me to the cliffs instead.”
That stickiness in my chest turned to tar.
Heavy, viscid, disgusting tar.
