Page 41 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
“When have I ever lied to you, Lemmikki?” My voice was quiet, but it shattered the silence between us all the same.
Not the tension, though. That flooded the room, invading the space like poison slowly seeping into our souls.
She shook her head, exhaling. “When have you ever really told me the truth?”
Her jade gaze latched onto mine, something between a demand and a plea in them. For honesty? A confession? I wasn’t sure.
“What is it you want to know?” I asked her outright.
She took several shallow breaths, eyes more tumultuous than the storms she always seemed to feel coming.
Her lips parted, and my heartbeat stilled to a slow, interminable thump, anticipating the honesty she might demand from me with a foreign combination of curiosity and dread.
Then she swallowed, and I watched the moment she decided to retreat, her gestures closing off once more.
“I want to know, if this isn’t just about getting back at Iiro, how is it that you didn’t find the time to mention that you were interested in a marriage alliance in the months I was in – Bear.” She lifted her chin in challenge, as though daring me to acknowledge that she was about to end that sentence on a different note.
While you were where, lemmikki?
I raised an eyebrow, regaining my own footing. This, at least, was an easier question to answer, though I didn’t feel the relief I should have about that.
Instead, a surge of annoyance washed over me.
“While you were betrothed to Korhonan, you mean?” I didn’t bother hiding the sarcasm in my voice. “Or after that, when you were recovering from a flogging that nearly killed you?”
She clenched her jaw. “Let’s go with after that.”
“I’m not actually in the habit of proposing to my prisoners.” I pointed out what should have been obvious.
“No,” she fired back. “Just kissing them.”
I blinked, trying to process the reddening of her cheeks, trying not to let it take me back to the way she had looked in that room at the cabin.
And now she wanted to be angry with me for something she had started? No, I shouldn’t have kissed her while she was my captive. I shouldn’t have kissed her at all.
But I sure as hell hadn’t been in that alone.
“A mistake I have already acknowledged,” I growled.
If anything, that only seemed to ignite her anger.
“Well, I suppose your people can be grateful that’s a horror you’re willing to revisit, if only for a night,” she spat.
A smirk came to my lips before I could stop myself, not that I would have tried especially hard. If she had any concept of how often my mind had betrayed me by playing out that particular…horror.
The sounds she would make and the way that flush would travel all the way down her skin…
“Two nights, actually,” I corrected her. “I’m assuming you would want a wedding in Lochlann, and we would need another one in Socair.”
“Then it’s fortunate you’ll be spared both of them,” she said with a huff, turning to leave with all the warning she had given before she came.
I might have believed her, that there was no chance at all, but the way her eyes had raked over every inch of my exposed torso when she came in told a different story. I might not havethought our wedding night would be a horror show, but I was fairly confident she didn’t think so either.
And she was here, for the second night in a row.
“The week’s not over yet, Lemmikki,” I called after her.
She shut the passageway door just a little harder than she had when she came in.