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I put the pieces back into formation, “I doubt it.”
He chuckled low, standing from the armchair to stretch out his stiff muscles, “Oh, do you?”
“I do.”
“How about a deal then, since you’re so cocky?”
I considered what he could be after but could only think of one thing. Heat pooled between my thighs.
“If I win,” he said, his voice taking on a husky tone that vibrated through the air, settling over my skin like a warm blanket, “If I win, I getyou.”
My lips were suddenly dry. I licked them. Kade growled in response to the gesture. When I didn’t answer right away, he added, “You don’t have to agree, if you don’t want to. I enjoy playing with you whether or not there’s a reward.” He winked.
He really had no idea, did he? How badly I wanted him. If I was being honest, how badly I wantedallmy men. Alaric, the contemplative. Tiernan, the lionheart. Finn, the scholar. And Kade, the flame. They were all pieces to my broken puzzle of a self. Bits of my soul I lost along the road to finding my crown and accepting my duty.
I needed them to feel whole.
“I accept the challenge,” I said to Kade, rising to meet his wide-eyed gleaming stare, “But you have your work cut out for you, Kade.”
A delicious, slow smirk spread over his lips, crinkling the tan skin around his honey-amber eyes. His gaze roved along my frame, taking in my neck, my breasts, the curves of my waist and hips, settling on a spot somewhere just below my navel.
Swallowing, I offered him my hand, but not as his queen, as his equal. As a male does another male when a bargain has been struck. His smile faltered, replaced with an earnest respect. He put his hand in mine and shook it, once, hard, before he pulled me into his warm, solid chest.
“You’re incredible,” he whispered against my hair, “The Night Court is blessed to have someone like you sit upon the throne.”
I was shocked—not only at his words, but at the sincerity with which he said them. As though it was fact, and not to be argued. I hugged him back, burying my face in his warm leather and spice scent.
“Damn,” he said, pulling away, “Someone’s coming.”
I blew the hot air from my lungs, trying to expel the blush from my neck.
“Is this a bad time?” Aisling said, strolling into the parlor, looking back and forth from me to Kade and back again with approval, and a curious tilt of her head.
Kade bit the inside of his cheek, “No, I was just going to get something to eat,” he said to her, turning to me, “I’ll be in the dinning room, holler if you need me.”
Ever the brute, he gave Aisling a long and burning warning look before he strolled, almost too casually, from the room.
“He’s a bit serious, isn’t he?” she said, moving further into the room.
“Not once you get to know him. He’s the opposite, really—well most of the time anyway.”
She nodded, accepting that I would say no more, “Handsome as the gods, though,” she said, more to herself than to me.
“So, tell me,” I started, gesturing to the cushion beside me for her to sit, “Were you able to learn anything from Valin?”
She made a so-so gesture with her hand, “Yes and no.” Sitting next to me, she sighed, “I’m really not sure what to make of it all.”
My lips pursed, “Tell me everything and then maybe we can figure it out.”
So, she did. Aisling told me how Valin asked her to dine with him, not for the first time, she said. But this time she accepted. They dined together on the northern terrace, and he wasn’t even remotely subtle about his intentions towards her. Though, when she offered to retire to his chambers with him for a glass of wine, he became tense, and tried to coerce her into allowing him to enter her chambers instead.
“Which is impossible, considering I take my rest in the palace infirmary with Loris in the healers’ quarters.”
But before they parted ways, she insisted on checking to make sure he was healing properly. All too eager to have her touch him in any way she would, he eventually relented. “I checked again, just to be sure, and well—there isn’t any trace of lingering injury in his mind. Nothing that would account for his loss of memory.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. But even more so than that, when I asked him if he had regained any of his memories and he said he hadn’t—well, I could tell he was lying. Something in his eyes. In how he looked away, just for a second, when he answered,” she paused, “But, I could be wrong—”
