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Right before we reached the tree stump that marked the end of this round and the beginning of a new one, I pressed my calves tightly against Liual’s sides, blocking my own motion. Bouncing followed, leaving me no other choice but to grab the pommel with one hand before I hushed Liual into a walk from which he meandered into a halt. A dead quiet halt, aside from the occasional flutters of arriving and departing ravens above us in the clear blue sky.
Until Malyr’s long, exaggerated exhale almost resembled a groan in my ear. “Little dove… why did this look as though you failed on purpose?”
I glanced over my shoulder at him, finding his smoldering gaze going straight to my lips. “Maybe you need to rethink your punishments and stop making them sound like rewards.”
His lips curled up at the corners as his gaze lifted to lock with mine, something almost ardent coming over his eyes. The longer he stared at me, the more his look turned pained for reasons I couldn’t fathom, his chilled palm settling against my cheek.
“You were not supposed to be quite so perfect, little dove,” he rasped, letting plumes of his breath rise between us as his eyes slipped to my lips once more. “Not only enjoying the pain but seeking it out, making me wonder if…”
“If?”
His jaws first hardened, then shifted, lips parting and closing several times as if, for once, the Raven prince wasn’t certain what to say. He kissed me instead, deep and drinking, sending such flutters into my chest I could barely draw in air.
“I can’t help but wonder if I am about to make a grave mistake,” he whispered between one kiss and the next. “Because the more you enjoy the things I do to you, the less I want to inflict them. And that is a problem.” His mouth disappeared, immediately replaced by the cold lick of shadows and the sound of wingbeats, only for Malyr to reshape standing beside Liual. “Get down and wait in the stables for me, preferably draped over something at a convenient height for me with your skirts gathered up by the hip. If you thought I would let this one—”
“My prince…”
Malyr’s attention drifted to Cici, who suddenly stood several feet away from us in the snow, the train of her green velvet dress a radiant speck of color in the white vastness. “What is it?”
Cici’s eyes settled on me and tightened strangely, though it might as well have been caused by the reflection of the sun on the snow, but only for a brief moment before they found Malyr’s again. “May I have a word with you?”
“Now?”
“It is rather urgent, I am afraid, as it pertains to the… grains currently being carted to Tidestone.” When Malyr merely groaned, she added, “As well as Sebian, who was spotted flying south.”
Malyr’s body turned unnaturally stiff then, but only until he turned toward me, looked up, and gave a pat on my knee. “Take him by the reins, lead him back to the stables, and hand him to Olivar. Wait there for me.”
He turned away, stomping through the snow toward Cici. Their shoulders aligned as they walked toward the archways that lined the gardens together, words hushing between them that I couldn’t hear. What about the grains? And what did Sebian have to do with it?
I dismounted, letting myself sink to the ground in the same way my heart sank in my chest at the memory of how Sebian and I had argued three days ago. How his face had drained of all color when I’d told him to stop fussing over me, his eyes glancing around as if, for just a moment, he hadn’t known what to do with himself. All because I’d snapped at his deep-rooted need to care and protect where he’d once failed, which now, shamed me deeply. After all, how could I expect tender, caring Sebian to understand that there was love in pain?
Was it the love I had dreamed of, full of gentle caresses and words of affection? No. But it was real, tangible in a way that nothing else had ever been. There was a love in Malyr’s punishments, a sincerity in his cruelty that stripped me bare and made me feel more seen, more understood than ever before. But the worst, most confusing part of all this?
How Sebian had disappeared after, leaving me to spend the night on Malyr’s chest, but… somehow missing the weight and warmth of Sebian’s calf on my toes. The familiarity of his even breathing rushing in and out of his lungs, those tingling fingertips in my hair, that scent of soil and pine needles I loved so much. Gods, I’d wanted him to kiss me so badly that day…
As I wanted to fix this between us, but how, if he kept disappearing?
I grabbed the reins and led Liual back toward the stables, internally shaking my head at myself. Perhaps it was my inexperience in such matters, but love turned out to be a complicated business. Especially when one’s heart and body longed for two men, both equally complicated. How did that make any sense? How was that even possible?
At the stables, Olivar was quick to take the reins from me. “I’ll untack Prince Malyr’s gelding for you. I already have a nice bucket of oats waiting for him.”
When Olivar led the gelding away to the stalls farther back, I turned to the brown horse right beside me, Sebian’s gelding. His coat was a mud-crusted mess, his tousled forelock in dire need of a brush, and his head hanging low as he dozed through the commotion. They suited each other perfectly.
An uncomfortable twinge tugged beneath my breastbone. I rubbed at it through the thick fur that lined my dress as I turned toward the gardens, just in time to catch a glimpse of how Cici ran her hand down along Malyr’s arm in a way much too familiar.
He didn’t react to it.
Didn’t reciprocate.
My tongue pressed against my gums, anyway, causing a humming sound somewhere in my ears that quickly took on the resonance of Sebian’s words.
Do you know Cici came out of his chambers the morning I left? She looked a tad… disheveled.
The force of jealousy that rushed into my heart set my chest aflame, each cold inhale I pulled down into my lungs agonizing. I forced my gaze away from them. Malyr hadn’t reciprocated, hadn’t shown a single inclination that he had wanted her touch on him. And why would he? In less than a fortnight, we would be married. Was that a guarantee of a husband’s loyalty? Hardly, but the fact that he spent parts of his day, and every single night, with me logically left no time for others.
“That red-haired one hates me, probably because I’m living in her castle.”
The sudden baritone thrumming the air beside me sent a jolt of straightness through my spine as I turned my head toward the stranger beside me. Short black hair, a dark dusting of stubble on his cheeks and chin. Faint remnants of a fading bruise dotting the area between the inner corner of his eye and the bridge of his nose.
