A Kingdom of Blood and Betrayal (Stars and Shadows #2)(11)

A smile tipped on Evren’s lips, but his normal cockiness wasn’t there. Instead, it was replaced with a ghost of who he was as sadness filled his eyes.

“I don’t have a choice, princess. Neither of us do. This is bigger than either of us.”

His gaze snapped down to where my magic was growing. It crept closer and closer to him with every breath I took, and I couldn’t stop it. It was searching for him, begging him for things I wouldn’t dare speak out loud.

“Of course, we have a choice.” My voice was much softer than I meant it to be. It lacked conviction, lacked the anger I protected myself with.

He reached out his fingers, meeting my magic and toying with it in a gentle caress that had my breath catching in my throat and my knees threatening to buckle.

“If I had a choice, I would never go back. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have brought you here. I would have run.” He stepped closer to me, my magic wrapping around him and pulling him closer still. “I would have taken you anywhere in this world where it could have just been the two of us.”

“Why didn’t you?” My voice was weak and full of longing for us to be anything other than what we were. The memory of what I thought we were had become a weapon, and it pierced through me effortlessly.

“Because you would have paid the price for my selfishness. You, along with all of my people, would have suffered so that I could make sure my hands never ached to touch your skin.” He reached forward and his fingers, still wrapped in my own magic, grazed against my cheek. “Everyone would have paid the price for a selfish prince who wanted nothing more than to disappear in his mate.” He stopped and his dark gaze searched my face. “And there is nothing in the world I want more, princess, than to disappear in you.”

I stared up at him, breathless, because even though the taste of his betrayal was fresh on my tongue, I couldn’t stop the next words that passed my lips with no thoughts of the consequences. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.” He nodded before pressing his forehead to my own. His hand snaked to the back of my head, and he tangled his fingers in my hair as he held me against him. “But I will come back. I will always come back for you, princess.”

His words crashed into my chest, but they left nothing but a deep ache. Fear, pure and unrelenting, settled deep inside me, and refused to leave.

He was my mate, but I shouldn’t have cared this much. He had used me, betrayed me, and I should have been more than willing to let him go off and get himself killed. But I wasn’t. His betrayal blared in front of me, but I had learned none of the lessons it was damned to teach me.

I closed my eyes and tried like hell to pull my magic back into me. “Come,” I commanded it over and over in my mind. I could feel its hesitation, its own fear of letting him go, but if I was going to survive this kingdom, I needed to hold on to my anger like the lifeline it was.

I could handle it, mold it into exactly what I needed it to be, but fear I could not. My fear would damn me, but my anger would be my savior.

I pushed against Evren’s chest, forcing his body away from mine, and I blinked my eyes open with my new resolve.

Don’t let him in.

Evren’s gaze searched my own, and he opened his mouth but I beat him to it before he could utter a word.

“Go.” I nodded to the door.

“I’m not leaving for a few days, Adara.”

“Go,” I said again, and this time I hoped he heard how hollow I was trying to force myself to be. “I wish to be alone.”

“Princess, I know you’re angry, but…”

“Go!” My power surged inside me, stopping in its tracks where I was still trying to pull it away from him. It was hovering, waiting, like it had finally recognized the command of its master.

“Don’t do this, Adara.” I could see the spark back in Evren’s gaze, his anger returning full force with the taste of mine. “Don’t push me away because you’re scared.”

“I’m not.” I shook my head and tried to solidify my lie in my own head before I spoke it aloud. “I have spent more than enough time with the man who betrayed me, and I have nothing left to spare you. I simply wish to take a bath and sleep… or is that more than you’ll allow me while in your kingdom? Should I expect you to dress me up and parade me around like your brother did before you?”

I could feel his own power surging, slipping through his fingers as his anger built. He simply stood in place and stared at me as if he were trying to figure out who I was. But he wouldn’t find that answer staring back at him because I didn’t know the truth myself.

I was stuck in a haze of who I once thought I was and who I was destined to be, and I couldn’t find my way out. Everything I thought I knew was a lie. Every certainty that I had clung to, everything that had ever felt real. It had become smoke in my hands, and no matter how hard I gripped, it slid through my fingers.

“I will give you some time.” He bowed his head gently, and I scoffed at the show of honor.

“Lift your head, prince. Unless it’s easier for you to tell your lies when you’re bowing on your knees.”

He jerked his head up until he was looking directly at me, and a dark smirk formed on his lips.

“I will do whatever you want me to on my knees, princess. You want me to breathe all the wicked fucking truths to you against your thighs? I will. You want lies? I’ll worship you with my tongue while I tell you I don’t linger over your curves like a man starved. I’ll lie and say that your soft little moans don’t torture me at night when I try to rest. I’ll whisper a lie against your skin and make sure you know that my desire for you isn’t the most dangerous weapon that anyone can use against me.”