Page 40 of Obsidian Throne

Evander’s eyes widened, but he didn’t respond.

“Anyway--” I cleared my throat. “The point is that I do trust you. I always have. Today was just…”

“Not entirely your fault,” he cut in. “I should have prepared you better, especially for that.”

That had been, frankly, more than I expected him to give.

“Well, in fairness, you did expect me to have, what was it you said, basic common sense?” I gave him a small smirk.

“Another error on my part,” he said sardonically, his own lips tilting up. “And Lemmikki?” He waited until I met his eyes again to go on.

“Make no mistake about it, itwasa punishment keeping you around.” I went still, and he leaned forward, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. “It was a punishment when I knew you could never really be mine.”

I rearranged my memories of that day with his words in mind, realizing that they soothed some of the old wounds I hardly let myself acknowledge.

“Another error on your part,” I said quietly, purposefully leaning closer to him.

His gaze dropped to my neck, then roamed lower, to my corset laces. I set my drink down, preparing to cross the small distance to him.

Before I could make the move to climb into his lap, his hands darted out to my waist, and he pulled me on top of him. Using his teeth, he tugged at my laces until they came completely undone.

A soft groan escaped his lips as he pressed them against the newly exposed skin. The warmth of his mouth contrasted with the cool air of the room, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

I wondered if I would ever get used to his reaction to me, or mine to him, for that matter. It didn’t seem likely.

Especially not when he slid his tongue up to my neck, taking time to trace the outline of the mark he had left earlier, before continuing up to the delicate skin of my ear. There was ownership in everything he did, but I couldn’t even blame him, not when I felt it, too.

I expected him to move us to the bed. Instead, all he did was lift me up with one strong arm while he used the other to rid us of any fabric that was between us.

Being over him on this chair put my face level with his for a change, if not a little higher. Evander seemed to be singularly enjoying this fact, taking advantage of his easy ability to move his lips between my face and my exposed curves.

Wrapping his free hand in my hair, he tugged my head backward to give himself better access, and I had a split second to reflect that fighting wasn’t so bad if this was how we made up.

Then he shifted me closer to him, and I lost my ability to think at all.

To breathe.

To speak.

All I knew was that we had come a long way, because it wouldn’t have mattered if we knocked his glass from the table next to us. If the whole stars-damned bottle fell over. If it shattered into a thousand pieces as I was sure to do at any moment.

There really wasn’t anything I would have let stop me from being with Evander now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ROWAN

The next few days were back to whatever semblance of normal we had created.

As Mila predicted, Lady Katerina did gradually warm up to me. And I had the immense relief that no morewarningshad been required from Evander, at least so far.

More ladies of the court were ordering dresses like mine and Mila’s, so I stood out less and less as beingother, although my hair would always mark me as Lochlannian.

Every morning, I sparred with the men and they, too, became accustomed to me. Ava and Aleksander were conspicuously absent, but I learned from Mila and the whispers around court that there was nothing unusual about that.

Still, it gave me an ominous feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Sure enough, I was lying in bed with Boris, nursing a particularly bad set of moontime pains when Evander came in wearing an expression a shade too neutral to be a good thing.