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“Darling, youalwaysmake things more difficult. I’ve grown quite fond of it, actually, and would be terribly disappointed if you stopped now.” My prince leant his head on my shoulder. “Want me to stab her?”
“Astrid? You’re going to stab the queen of Mazekhstam, are you? Incur the wrath of an entire country and end up in some gruesome torture chamber for regicide?”
“For you? Yes,” he murmured. “She should have known better.”
Heaving out a breath, I carefully pried his weight off me, but that just made him pout harder, his bottom lip jutting out and his eyes welling with exaggerated fake tears until I gave in and let him settle his head against me once more.
“Ren. I didn’t leave because of what Astrid said. I left because of what you would have to say.”
“And what would that be, Mathias?”
The prick knew perfectly wellwhat.
“Moy knyaz,” I said in exasperation. “If you agree to marry her, you would unite the two most powerful countries on the continent. You wouldn’t have to worry about Mazekhstam invading Quareh ever again, and my mother wouldn’t dare to so much as say a bad word about you for fear of being wiped off the map. You and your people would finally be safe.”
“Sounds kind of boring,” he griped, twisting around to look up at me. “What else you got?”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “What we have…us, we stand in the way of peace. I know you can see it, Ren. Look at the riot I caused by kissing you in front of my people that day: I risked everything the tournament was trying to achieve. And now again. We’re fighting an unwinnable battle.”
“Aren’t those your favourite kind?” Ren asked with amusement, and then snorted. “Why am I even listening to you? You seriously imagine I’m going to accept Panarina’s offer?”
“You have to,” I whispered.
My lover just gave me a crooked smirk, grabbing my face and tugging it his way so all I could see was him. Unnecessary, for that was allIeversaw.
“Do you still think, after all this time, that I’m going to do what you tell me to?” Ren shook his head vigorously, strands of hair coming loose and falling down around his ears. “Nuh-uh. You’re not getting away that easily, for I plan to torment you for the rest of our lives,mi cielo. Earthlyandheavenly.”
“You said you’d do whatever it took to retake your throne and help your people,” I reminded him, my insides feeling tender and raw.
“So I lied,” Ren murmured back, his thumb stroking across my bottom lip and dragging it down. His eyes followed the movement. “Mat. I don’t wantanythingif I can’t have you. My life has no meaning without you in it. My freedom means nothing without you to enjoy it with. And a crown is worthless without you to rule by my side...and to tell me how stupendous I look in it.”
“It’s certainly an adjective that begins with S,” I said, hearing my voice crack as the weight of what he was doing for me started to sink in, but needing to say something so I wasn’t just sitting there with my jaw open and drooling over this impossibly perfect man. “I’m just not sure it’sstupendous.”
“Sexy, then. Splendid. Superb. Sterling. Super…eminent.”
He kissed me between each word, his tongue darting in to claim mine and then pulling away all too soon. It was sweetness and tenderness, and the exquisite kind of frustration that only Ren could cause with his teasing and fondness for denying me.
I gave doing the right thing one last pathetic attempt before I let the temptation of getting to keep him sweep me away. “This is our only hope for saving Quareh from what Welzes and Navar will do to it.”
“Then we’ll find another,” he said simply.
“Where? How?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.” Ren’s grin was bright, sly, joyful.Beautiful. “You think our relationship is in the way of peace? I say peace is inourway, Nathanael, and I’ll let the whole fucking continent burn before I give you up.”
“You’d really do it?” I asked, getting lost in the depth of those warm brown eyes and his gentle kisses. “You’ll turn Astrid down…for me?”
“Mi corazón,” he murmured, his hands threading through my hair so he could pull me closer. “I already have.”
*
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mathias spluttered out a half-apology when he knocked the rest of the game board to the floor, his hands waving wildly as he tried to stop it falling. He moved with all the grace of a blind and deaf cow. One which was four days dead.
As the pieces scattered across the length and breadth of the room, I wondered how much of it had truly been a drunken accident, and how much was a deliberate attempt to prevent me from beating him in any more rounds of checkers. When my northerner had initially explained the rules of the game to me – unnecessarily, as I’d played it before, but I liked listening to him talk – he’d failed to mention that Icouldn’tprevent his counters from eliminating mine by biting his fingers every time he tried.
He probablyhadadvised that I could only move one piece at a time and that the squares of the opposite colour were out of bounds, but hey, no one got to a score of forty-nil without a little bit of innovative thinking and adamant insistence that he’d said no such thing.
