Page 165 of Bound to the Shadow Prince

Nemeth strokes my cheek, his expression full of the same humor and intelligence I’ve grown to love over the past few years. I see no deception there, no distaste, only the same affection he’s always shown me. Maybe Riza and Tolian are wrong. Maybe my sweet Nemeth has nothing to do with Ivornath’s plans.

“I’ll try again tomorrow,” Nemeth promises me.

“What if we leave?” I say brightly.

His mouth turns down at the corners and he tilts his regal head at me, as if he’s misheard. “Leave?”

I nod. “It’s clear we’re not wanted here. What if we leave? Just head back out and go back to the way things were before when it was just you and me? We can fish—I’ve gotten pretty good at catching my own dinner—and we can grow mushrooms. We can live off the coast or even head back to the tower, though we won’t have to stay inside forever. We can just come and go as we please!”

Nemeth stares at me, hard. “Candra…”

I grip his hand in mine. “Please, Nemeth. Say you’ll go with me.”

“What about your sister? What about the people enslaved here?”

He’s stalling. I know he is, and it breaks my heart. “I’ve changed my mind. I want to leave. I don’t want our child born here. I’d rather go back to the tower. Please.”

My mate’s bright green eyes fill with pain, and he slowly shakes his head. “We cannot, Candra. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think it’s the best thing for our child. There are physicians here. Herbalists. Midwives. You need them for our baby. And even if you can forget about your people, I cannot. Things are just as wrong here as they were back in Lios. It’s my duty to do what I can. Once I get to see my brother?—”

I fling his hand away. “I thought you loved me.”

I know I’m being dramatic, but more than anything, I need him to show that his allegiance is with me. That I matter above all else. That nothing has changed and we’re still in this together, the two of us against the world. I need him to prove to me that Riza iswrong wrong wrong, because my heart is shattering into a thousand pieces with every moment that passes.

Nemeth’s expression is defeated. “You know I do,milettahn. But I cannot abandon the people here for my own selfish wants and needs. Can you?” He grips my shoulders, forcing me to gaze at him. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you would be content with abandoning all those here in Darkfell. All the humans. All the Fellians who have nothing to do with my brother’s machinations. You would abandon them?”

“That’s not fair.”

He shakes his head. “None of this is fair. And yet it is the fate we have been given.”

I stare up at him, mutinous. “Fine. If you want to stay, then get me in to see your brother. The king.”

“I’ve been trying to see him?—”

“No, not you. Me. Let me talk to him.”

Nemeth’s jaw sets in that stubborn way of his. “You’re not going to see him until I have.”

“Then I guess that answers that,” I manage to say, my voice light despite my heartbreak. Tonight has proved one thing to me. Riza was right. Nemeth has some plan with his brothers, and he won’t let me in on it.

Whatever he might feel for me falls secondary to duty.

The restof the day is full of tension. We’re silent over our meal, and afterward, I declare a headache and take to bed. It’s not as if I can go anywhere else, after all. I pretend to sleep, the covers pulled over my head, while silent tears trickle down my cheeks.

I’m going to allow myself a tiny bit of crying, but that’s all. If Nemeth has used me, I can’t trust him. If I can’t trust him, then I have to make my own plans.

I have to think about my baby. I have to think about my people. It feels strange to say that to myself. I’ve never been the most devoted of princesses, not in the slightest. But Nemeth is right that there is something wrong here. He just refuses to see that it’s his brother.

So I have no choice but to work around my mate.

He holds me that night, his hand on my belly, and our child kicks and flutters in my stomach, reminding me that I have more to think about than just myself, than just Nemeth. The baby inside me is going to need a safe place to live, and I don’t care if that place is Darkfell or Lios.

Right now, neither one is safe. Darkfell is full of plague, slavery and intrigue, and Lios is full of mud and empty of people and food.

“Give me another day,” Nemeth whispers into my hair as I pretend to sleep. “We must go carefully when we approach my brother.”

I nod. As if I have a choice? In a strange sort of way, I do know that he’s trying.

I just don’t know if it’s enough. If he’s lying to me and deliberately stalling, dragging our feet could mean the death of so many Liosians. Even if he’s not lying and his brother truly is pushing him off, we cannot afford to wait.

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