Page 32 of Heir to His Court

I rubbed a hand on my face and turned to Numair, who shut the door and approached. I’d been trying to rest for hours now, my sleep broken, haunted by Darkan’s silence. It was dawn in a few hours. Sinking into memory was not sleep. It was not rest.

“What do you mean?” I asked, stalling.

Renaud’s scent was in the air, Raniel’s brief taste on my lips. This time, the forest was cut through with brine and sunshine. Maybe I’d done this, extracted Avallonne’s scents from my own dreams and made the perfume something tangible.

He leveled me with a look. “The Prince brought you home last night but refused to tell us what happened.” His cheeks flushed with anger, his hazel eyes brightening. “He forbade us entry to your room. The lock just lifted a moment ago.”

I sighed. Of course.

Numair grabbed my shoulder, his grip a little too grippy for the comfort he normally offered. I studied the worried, territorial look in his eyes.

“You and Juliette have kept me sane,” I said. “Lavendre kept us all alive—well, barely.”

She had a few more weeks to hide in her room like it was a makeshift cell, and then I was dragging her out. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been though, but this current behavior didn’t seem like the healthiest coping mechanism. Not that I was any expert on healthy.

His lips curved. “No thanks to your crazy antics.”

“There are things you don’t know.”

Numair’s smile faded.

We’d been friends our entire lives, and since I was twelve his feelings for me had shifted, and again after the year in New York. I’d come home and he’d changed, subtly. But we’d been embroiled in the feud, and there was always someone dying. Plus trying to maintain the semblance of a normal life and keep up the businesses so we could continue to fund the House without touching our inheritance. . .I hadn’t had the time or energy to even think about the possibility of a deeper relationship with Numair, even if I had decided to give up my promise to remain celibate until my was mother avenged.

Even if I hadn’t already been bonded, despite being made to forget.

“You know I love you,” I said. This conversation had been a long time coming.

“Yes. Not the way I love you. I don’t blame you for it.”

I opened my mouth and he pinned me with a look. I couldn’t forget that Numair was a warrior, and not to be taken lightly.

“I’m not asking you for anything,” he continues. “I’m nothim. I won’t press a courtship.”

“You aren’t angry?”

“Even if you take him to your bed, he’ll never have your heart. I do.”

I realized Numair was operating under two delusions. One, that I didn’t love Renaud. And two. . .that there was still some way out of the Prince’s claim. Numair was speaking as if there was hope that one day we would be together, if he was patient.

I closed my eyes.

I’d forgotten. Forgotten that Numair’s trauma response was always to pretend there was hope, even when that hope was delusional. He was not Juliette with her flash temper, or me with my depressive spirals and bloodthirst. But his pain was just as destructive. Hope. . .I’d rather have an anger management issue.

I loved Numair, the male who protected me with his life. But I could never tell him I didn't feel the same shivering, helpless, raging need with him that I felt with Renaud.

“You know he's staked a claim,“ I said gently, opening my eyes to look at him again. “He’s courting me, and has all but ratified my position. He’s only waiting on the word from me to do so.”

Numair drew closer, a flame of stubborn temper in his eyes. “He dishonors our House. He hasn't approached Lord Étienne. He hasn't sent gifts, or declared his intentions to Montague. If he had, they would already be at our door, seeking your ear to the Prince.”

“He gave me Lavendre.”

A gift he knew I wouldn't refuse. My cousin released from the dungeon. The concessions made in the peace treaty. The warriors who had attacked me. These were all gifts. They were simply the gifts of an ancient, savage warrior Prince. Numair’s mistake was in thinking Renaud civilized.

The most precious gifts he had given me years ago. One day I would wear the Cuffs—his courtship had begun when I was thirteen.

Numair slid his hand down to my wrist. “I don't blame you for courting his interest. We need every advantage in these negotiations, and I wouldn't expect you to resist seduction. But Rinne, you know you can’t love him. It can’t ever be more than political expediency between you. You haven’t truly given us a chance. I haven’t trulytried.”

His free hand cupped my cheek and it took me a moment to push past the inadvertent insults of the last several sentences.

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