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I hardly fancied myself a shallow male specimen. If I let myself go with Eliot, I may never regret it the way I regretted the commotion ofher.
But it wouldn’t undo what I felt.
His crestfallen face was my doing. The kiss had been a selfish comfort and the very opposite of what I’d intended. I debated how to reply, how to apologize, how to discourage Eliot without breaking him again.
The fireplace bloomed with heat and light, none of which penetrated me. I opened my mouth just as someone’s fist rapped on the door.
The noise chopped through the room, brisk to the count of three—willful, tenacious, and tempting. Whichever fool responded was doomed to great and terrible things.
Only one person made noise like that. Only one princess came to mind.
Everlasting fuck. Fate had spectacular timing.
Eliot gave a start. A livid noise sliced through my lips as I bent over in my chair and clasped the back of my neck, my elbows propping on my knees. Hunched over, I glowered at the floor, for I’d had plenty of great and terrible things to last me.
Every blow against the door brought unwanted memories of her to the surface. Each one manifested the princess’s face as she had watched me leave the bell tower, as she’d watched me kneel in subordination to the Royals and make amends for something I hadn’t felt the least bit sorry about.
The princess could go on knocking until her lovely fingers fell off. She didn’t really want me to receive her. Not if she knew I had company.
In my periphery, Eliot thrust a hand through his hair, as though to tame it. He swiveled in his chair to inspect the door, then wheeled back. “Someone’s calling for you. It sounds urgent.”
“Ignore her,” I muttered, my retinas burning into the rug.
If it surprised the minstrel that I knew who it was, I didn’t sense it. Though, he was right. The pounding of her fist did sound urgent.
I lifted my head, listening as the knocks lost control and segued into desperation. Nay,urgenthadn’t sent her here.Tragichad. As much as I wanted the relentless Royal to go away, something grieved her.
She needed me.
In seconds, I was yanking open the door and staring down at Briar. Blue crescents descended beneath her lower lashes, her braided bun had partially unraveled, and her breasts heaved as though she’d been running. The murderous glaze in her pupils, compiled with the flush racing up her throat and oxygen pushing from her lips, rendered me momentarily useless. Hellfire, she looked exquisite when inflamed, not to mention visibly primed to kill someone.
Briar pushed past me and flew into the room, unaware of Eliot. I opened my mouth to warn her. “Your Highness—”
“Where were you?!” She rounded on me. “I thought you were at the hill.”
“I left. Your Highness—”
“Poet.” Briar extended a hand, her palm on a dangerous course toward my chest, or toward that beating nuisance inside my chest. If her hand landed there, it would go through my skin and find what it was searching for. Then she would know it belonged to her.
I recovered from the alluring, infernal sight of this woman and recoiled with a hateful expression. To which she flinched, withdrawing with a pained one.
It wasn’t that I’d forgotten the minstrel’s presence. Her presence was simply bigger.
“Well, well,” I mocked, slouching elegantly against the door jamb. “This is a trifle rash of you, coming here before the sun has set. People might see and think someone actually wants you here.”
Briar winced but stampeded over that. “Poet—”
“I know my name, sweeting. You don’t have to keep saying it.”
“Poet, listen—”
“Frankly,” I sneered, because fuck the charade, “the last time I listened to you lecture me, it didn’t end well. Just tell me what’s wrong and be done. The candles are melting, the hour is passing—”
She grabbed my face. “They have your son.”
32
Poet
