Page 174 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

I gave her a look to expound, and she did, gesturing for emphasis as she described several layers of sickly-sweet horror.

She laughed at my expression. “Yes. You would probably hate it nearly as much as I hated the meat goo.”

I might not have realized she was referring tokholodetsif not for the open revulsion in her tone.

“I confess, there was a moment I thought you might actually vomit at the table,” I told her, wincing openly at the memory.

What happened at the Council of Lords would have paled in comparison to how the lords would have despised her if she had gagged on the food that even the nobility rarely got to enjoy.

“There were several moments I thought so, as well,” she admitted, hardly taking a breath before she launched into another question. Though, this one was in an entirely different vein.

“Were you really going to marry someone else in Lochlann if I had said no?”

I blinked in surprise. If she had been anyone else, I would have suspected she was maneuvering toward that question to begin with, but she looked nearly as surprised by it as I was.

“That was quite the escalation from food,” I commented, in part to buy myself a moment to consider it.

She shrugged, meeting my eyes in a familiar challenge. How long had she been wondering about this?

Was this one of the many shadows that crossed her eyes when she said she had anger to work through?

At least this was an easy question to answer. No matter how much I had tried to convince myself I would have married someone else to spite her or for the good of my clan, I never would have settled for anyone who wasn’t her.

And if I had been forced to marry at my father’s whims, I sure as storms wouldn’t have risked a Lochlannian bride who would only have ever been a pale reminder of the one I wanted.

“No, Lemmikki,” I told her in no uncertain terms. “I just wanted to see how you reacted when you thought that was a possibility.” I hesitated only a moment before giving her the rest of the truth. “If I’m being very, very honest, I wantedyouto see how you reacted.”

Her mouth formed a small, offended O, like she had somehow failed to notice the downright rabid nature of her jealousy. Then she sucked in a breath to speak again, but this time, I cut her off.

“No, it’s my turn.”

She made a theatrical show of closing her lips, waving at me to continue. Her eyes sparked with satisfaction, though. She was happy I wanted to ask anything, which said a lot for the toll the threats of war and tyranny had taken on us.

I was always curious about her, even when I shouldn’t have been. I had an endless need to know how her mind worked. But we had been forged on the battlefield, prying our answers from one another with a painful precision.

This easy back and forth was entirely foreign to me. Still, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to find out something more, even if it was a question I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to.

I thought about the weeks after I claimed my blood debt. The sideways glances and blushing cheeks and the way she had burrowed her way into my soul. I had been so sure that she hated me until somewhere along the line she had begun to rely on me.

And then it was more than that, but I still had no scope or reason for the way she had shifted from needing to marry Korhonan to wanting to marry me.

“How long did it take you to stop hating me, after I took you?” I kept my eyes on her expression while I held my breath, wanting to see every moment of the answer play on her incredibly readable features.

She didn’t disappoint. Her brow furrowed while she glanced to the side, considering the question. She tilted her head, pulling her lip between her teeth the way she did when she was debating something.

For a brief moment, she even lifted her chin to lie.

Then she shook her head, taking a breath to visibly steel herself.

“I never hated you. Even when I should have.” Her words were quiet, dripping with as much resignation as truth—like even now, the admission cost her something.

Something eased in my chest at the conviction in her features.

All this time I had wondered if part of her still hated me for taking her that day, but she hadn’t been able to hate me any more than I could return that feeling.

Besides, it was strangely comforting, the way she had forced herself to give me that truth. Because like me, she understood the constant need to stand her ground in a battle that had ended before it ever really began.

When the midnight spires of the Obsidian Palace came into view, Rowan let out a small, surprised gasp, one I was nearly tempted to echo.