Page 38 of Forbidden Royal Vows
“It’s my wedding ring,” he said in that uncompromising way of his, so at odds with the Caius he showed everyone else in public. But she had no doubt that this was the real him. She knew this version of him. This was the Caius she knew in bed. “But I suspect you know that. I wear it next to my heart. Isn’t that a laugh? While I have seen no evidence to suggest that you possess a heart, I still think it might matter if I keep the ring you gave me warm with mine.”
She was surprised she didn’t topple over, that blow hit her so hard. “That isn’t fair.”
“I didn’t realize that fairness was a part of this.” He shook his head. “I rather thought this was an extended torture session. I will admit that I had aspirations for more in the beginning, but that will never happen, will it? You decided who we were to each other long ago. And heaven forfend the great Queen of Las Sosegadas change her mind once it’s been made up.”
Mila found herself on her feet, her whole body shaking as if she’d just run up the side of the high peak that towered above them. “That is quite a characterization. Insulting, but I assume that’s the point. We’ve had this whole month, Caius. That’s something I never thought would be possible. Why can’t we take it for what it was?”
“I study the laws of your kingdom,” he told her, that glittering thing still in his gaze. It made her shake even more. “It’s become something of an obsession of mine. Did you know that the legal spouse of the heir apparent ascends right along with the crown prince or princess on the very day of ascension? A coronation is just icing on the cake.”
When she only stared back at him wordlessly, the corner of his mouth twisted into that famous smirk of his. She hadn’t seen it in weeks. She hadn’t missed it.
“All this time I have already been your king,” he said, and his voice was mocking now, with that bright fire in his gaze. Once again, she almost wished he would simply let her burn. “Some countries demote a man when he’s married to the sovereign. But not here. This country has always understood who is in charge, as do I.” He even sketched a sardonic bow. “Your Majesty.”
Not My Majesty, she noted. As she was meant to.
And they both knew it was a demotion.
Her throat hurt as if someone really had choked her, but she made herself speak. “So we will end as we began, then? With more threats?”
“I don’t want to threaten you,” he threw back at her. “But I don’t know what to do with the fact that I’ve been walking around with a wedding ring all these years. I don’t know where to put that, Mila. At least before I came here I could pretend to myself that it mattered. That those months mattered, even if nothing came of them. That maybe you were out here living on that memory the same as I was, but you weren’t. You won’t.”
He walked toward her then and for an exhilarating, much-too-telling moment, she thought he would sweep her up into his arms—
But he didn’t.
Caius passed her instead and started for the trail back down to the house.
“I never forgot you,” Mila said then, foolishly. Recklessly. And when she turned around, she could see that he’d gone still. He’d stopped right there where the trees were about to swallow him whole, though he didn’t turn back. “And I still have the ring. I could never throw it away. I keep it on a chain myself and hide it away in a safe space, but I always know where it is.” She wanted to stop there, but there was something inside of her that couldn’t. That wouldn’t. Maybe that was why she felt as if she was choking—maybe it was happening from the inside out. “I always know where you are, Caius.”
She saw something go through him, like another gust of wind, though the branches of the trees around him did not move at all. And he looked back over his shoulder, his eyes brilliant there against the backdrop of evergreens.
“I would like to tell you that I would find it an insult if you thought you could call me up once a year to play house with you, Your Majesty.” And her title was even sharper and more damaging this time. “But I think we both know that’s not true. All you need to do is call and I’ll come running. Like the little lapdog I suppose I’ve been to you all along.”
He stared at her for another long moment, then he turned and disappeared down the trail. And Mila wanted to run after him, but her knees stopped working. They gave out completely.
She sank down heavily on that bench again, looking out at the kingdom. It was beautiful. Truly it was, but how had she never noticed how distant the kingdom seemed from here?
Because that was the point of all of this, she understood as she sat there, feeling far worse than simply vulnerable now. Thrones and crowns, rituals and schedules. The demands of aristocracy. The expectations of royalty.
All of it was to create that distance. And to keep that distance, day after day, year after year.
And this time when she cried, her tears turned her cheeks ice cold.
Her body followed, as if he’d never warmed her at all.
She couldn’t stand it, so Mila got up and headed down that path herself, but she should have known before she got there that it was too late.
Because Caius was gone.
He’d taken her keys and left them in the door to the tunnels. She stood down there in the dim light, using the thick walls to prop herself up, for a long, long time.
It seemed to take a lifetime to climb back up that spiral stair. To wind around and around without him. To make her way through the cellars and back up into the kitchen that seemed to echo all around her without him.
Everything was too big, too empty. Nothing fit.
Mila decided that she couldn’t face staying here for the last little bit of time she had left without him. The remaining time stretched out before her like a prison sentence. What would she do? Just float like a ghost through this house, missing him with every step?
The very idea felt like torture.