Page 95 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
“No, but I sleep in the middle of it,” I countered carefully.
She shook her head, eyes glowing with ire and skepticism rolled into one. “No, you don’t.”
I let out an irritable breath. Leave it to her to argue with me about how I slept in my own storms-damned bed when she wasn’t around.
“Yes, I do.” The frustration bled into my tone, my voice louder than usual.
“I think I would remember—” she started to fire back.
“I do since you left.” The words escaped me before I could stop them, tumbling from my lips on a wave of exasperation.
The ensuing silence was somehow louder than the argument had been. She blinked several times, her chest rising and falling more rapidly than it had before.
It was rare—so rare that I spoke without thinking. A combination of my Socairan upbringing and the precarious situation with my father and stepmother had branded the need for forethought into my very existence.
Only my lemmikki had ever forced me to scramble for balance on the precipice of my hard-won control.
Her mouth opened and closed, but all she managed to say was, “Oh.”
I had no response to that, nothing at all that wouldn’t give up even more than I already had, considering I had all but told the woman who didn’t want to actually be married to me that I slept even less when she was away.
The silence stretched on uncomfortably, wrapping around the reluctant confessions we had both left scattered on the ground around us.
To the surprise of no one, Rowan was the one to break it.
“Well then, I suppose we’ll both be making...sacrifices for our people.” She stumbled over the word sacrifices like she wanted to say something else.
My lips curved up in spite of myself. Though I had offered more than once for her to abstain from our wedding night, she hadn’t appeared to be remotely tempted, nor did I believe for a moment it would feel like a sacrifice to her.
It sure as storms wouldn’t feel that way to me.
“Ah. Indeed,” I indulged her.
She swept her gaze over my features, lingering on my lips long enough to shift the air in the room once more.
All at once, she leapt to her feet, clearing her throat again.
“I should get to bed,” she said abruptly. Her gaze flitted to my bed, her cheeks flushing as she added, “My bed. Alone.”
Well, if I had doubted where her mind had run off to before…
My amusement morphed into a full-fledged smirk, satisfaction flooding my veins. Her fists clenched at her side and she shook her head.
“Goodnight,” she gritted out, spinning on her heels and practically running out of the room.
Which was probably for the best, considering the current state of my self-control and the singularly alluring princess that managed to unravel it without fail.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The morning brought with it the final council meeting before our wedding, aside from the signing of the documents which would take place the day prior. That would give me time to hear back from Taras regarding the terms, since I had been rather too distracted to post the letter after Rowan’s unexpected arrival the night before.
The birds were faster in the easy spring weather, so I should have his response by tomorrow evening or the day after.
We debated the finer points of the traditional marriage vows, which I should have known Rowan would have feelings about.
“We can safely remove the word obey,” she said, meeting my eyes for the first time since she entered this morning.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who struggled to separate myself from last night’s conversation…and all of its implications.