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She obeys me immediately, her head bowed, her arms crossed over her chest.
I cannot help but think back to the first day that she arrived in my room.
She was filthy. Anyone would have been, after having been kept in the cells for days.
But even covered in grime, sweat, and dirt from the fields, she was beautiful.
The servants took her clothes to wash, but maybe they threw them out instead because they never did get returned. So a day or two later, I went into the little town below the palace.
I do not know what prompted me to have clothes made for her. But five days after that, I arrived back to my room with a bag of clothes and underwear, just for Maya.
The only thing is… I haven’t given them to her yet.
Part of me, a large part of me, does not want her to leave the room at all. I want her to myself all the time.
And giving her clothes would allow her a freedom that I cannot bear to give her.
Ten.
You’re no worse than Lasta. You’re no worse than Slyth, or Prince Zalith.
I am in the middle of training my men. I have become completely assimilated into Yadat, and I believe that I have been fully accepted by Kriseri and his men.
I never knew how relieved I would be the day that they stopped secretly thinking that I could be a spy.
But while that burden may be gone, another one has been placed on my shoulders.
“You put it there yourself,” I mutter to myself, and Kryon, who must have heard me, throws me an odd look.
It has been ten days since I realized that I am completely and irrecoverably obsessed with Maya.
The realization dawned on me painfully slowly, and even now I don’t understand how this happened.
As long as you remember that she’s not your mate. She’s just a human. A filthy human.
Thinking those words feels like a betrayal. A betrayal to Maya.
You’re no worse than Lasta, I think again, and a surge of violent anger rushes over me so quickly, so brutally, that I find myself striding angrily out of the training room.
I keep walking until I have left the barracks completely, and I am in the open air.
I start to pace then, as I think about the last few days with Maya.
We started having real, proper conversations about twelve days ago.
I still haven’t given her the clothes that I had made for her, so she has been stuck in my room for days on end. Instead, I hid the clothes at the bottom of the tall, thin storage closet in my room and then locked it.
She’s so bored that she’s looking forward to seeing you. Even though she probably wants nothing to do with you.
My thoughts are bitter as memories of our conversations spring forward in my mind.
“Did you have brothers or sisters?” Maya asked me one evening. Her question was innocent enough, but it made me pause.
“Yes,” I said slowly, eventually. “Why do you ask?”
“I want to know you.” Her voice was frank, her brown eyes bright as cut glass.
I pulled away from her, the movement simply a reflex. But I didn’t miss the hurt that flashed across her face.
