Page 37 of Forbidden Royal Vows

But she let the mountain do the talking for her. They hiked up one of the trails that led straight away from the back of the house, winding in and out of the woods and then out at last to what Mila believed was the most beautiful view of the kingdom in existence.

It never failed to soothe her. Even now, she could feel it sink into her, the sight of the lakes far below. The green hills. The villages dotted in the far reaches of the valley and then, far off where she couldn’t quite see it, the palace she knew waited on the other side.

“It looks so beautiful from up here.” They stopped at the bench one of her ancestors had installed a long time ago, because she wasn’t the only one who loved this view. “It’s beautiful down there, too, but from up here it’s like a sparkling little jewel of a country, isn’t it?”

Beside her, Caius said nothing.

And she was...less soothed. A bit raw, in fact.

That vulnerability did not seem to be going away.

Instead, it seemed to wind its way deeper and deeper inside of her, like a grief all its own. It made her wish that she was someone else. Anyone else.

It made her wonder, for the first time in all her life, why she was so certain she couldn’t be—

But it was nearly October. This high up they were well into the fall already, and gearing up for the long winter ahead. There was a hard, crunchy frost on the ground, and it had already snowed while they’d been here. This high up, the air was bright and crisp, no matter how cold. The mountains ringing the valley were capped and white and more than ready for the colder weather that wasn’t hiding its approach any longer.

Yet all she could think about was the man beside her, whose eyes glowed with more and more secrets by the day.

While she felt splayed wide open.

And it was something much deeper than an ache.

She thought back to that first night in the house. When she had let him in through the tunnels and he taken her right there on that couch. How when he’d stood up to get rid of his clothes he’d tugged something over his neck, then tucked it away before she could see what it was.

That was what she’d told herself anyway. That she hadn’t seen it.

And she couldn’t tell, out here in this confronting cold, if it was true that she hadn’t laid eyes on it at all and had merely filled in the blanks in her own imagination, or if she really had glimpsed it.

She wasn’t sure which one should worry her more, since both seemed tender. Both hurt her, if in different ways.

“You normally wear a chain around your neck, don’t you?” she asked.

He let out a sound then. Too low, too ripe with the very shadows she was pretending she didn’t see. “Be careful where you tread, Mila. You might find something you can’t ignore. And then what will you do?”

She could already feel the different parts of herself fighting for supremacy inside her. It was easy to be the Queen in the palace. Just as it was easy to be just Mila here. But this close to leaving the September House, both of them were inside her, pushing and pulling.

It was the Queen who sat straighter, lifting her chin. But it was the Mila who had been here this whole month who gazed at him, sure that all that vulnerability was splashed across her face.

“If it was a chain,” she said quietly, so very quietly she almost wondered if the wind might steal her words away, “I think I know what normally hangs on it.”

He stood up then, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of the coat he wore. Like everything else that was his, it had been made by the finest craftsman and tailored to make him look even more effortlessly heroic than he normally did. Maybe it was simply that he stood at the edge of a cliff, his eyes out on the beautiful valley so far below while the cold wind moved through his hair. Maybe it was the distance she could see in his gaze, even though she didn’t feel that distance between them, not entirely. Not when her body was still warm from his.

Not yet, something in her warned. But you will.

“How do you think I should answer that, Mila?” he asked in a growl, when the misery inside of her seemed to be at a boiling point. “Should I wrap it up into some kind of charming anecdote that we could tell at a boring dinner party? Is that really how you think this should go?”

She felt a kind of panic, then. It was the only way she could describe the sensation that washed over her. It was the only explanation for the way she opened her mouth to speak, but then couldn’t find the words.

As if her own hand was clenched tight on her own throat.

He turned back to her then and his eyes were glittering, as bright as the jewel of her country behind him. Brighter, somehow. Because her kingdom was something Mila gazed upon. But Caius’s eyes tore into her.

Because he was the only person alive who saw every part of her. Who knew every bit of her.

And she was going to have to give him up.

Again.

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