Page 107 of The Prince's Captive

He gestured for the guards to let go and held his hand out toward her. He said in her tongue—he had thankfully much improved with her help, “Come, today there will be no sparring. Today, I show you my favorite place in the city.”

Her brow furrowed, but as her guards shifted back, she stepped forward and placed her hand in his. Unfortunately, one of the conditions of getting his parents’ agreement to take Marcella to the Academy was he had to leave her limiter cuffs on. If she wasn’t going to try to kill him when he’d first taken them off, he doubted she would. Still, he squeezed her hand and pulled her behind him to where his horse was waiting, the reins held by a stableboy.

She looked behind them and at the palace, saying, “It’s not here?”

He couldn’t help his scoffing laugh as he grabbed her by the waist and hefted her up into the saddle. Once she was up, he didn’t pull his hands back, instead letting them rest there as he stared up at her. He brushed his thumb over the scar on her side, hidden beneath her chiton. He said, “No. The palace is my least favorite place in the city.”

When she didn’t squirm to dislodge his hands or swat them away, he couldn’t stop himself from reading into it. She just looked down at him with a furrowed brow and said, “You are taking me off the grounds? Why?”

He squeezed her waist and was rewarded with a pink tinge on her cheeks and reluctantly pulled his hands back to swing up into the saddle behind her. “Because I want to. Why? Want to go back to your boring cell instead?”

He reached around her and gathered up the reins in one hand and squeezed her knee with the other. She looked over her shoulder at him and said, “No. Show me this place.”

He tapped his heels against his horse’s side and they started toward the gate. The guards manning it eyed Marcella sitting in front of him, but they didn’t move to stop him. He pulled her closer as they passed under the gate and he felt her breath hitch as they rode out the gate.

Marcella didn’t speak, which wasn’t surprising. Silence seemed to be the most natural thing in the world to her. Gavril didn’t mind. He would take any opportunity for a moment of peace with her if he could get it.

His hand rested on her side, splayed out so that he was highly aware of every inch of contact between them, the most exquisite agony he’d ever known.

It had fallen out of his mouth before he could stop it the other day.

How much he wanted her.

He’d almost told her the truth as well. The last time he brought her to the courtyard but hadn’t sparred with her, Nikias had interrupted him from it. From pulling out the set of lilies from his pocket and explaining to her in a way she would understand they were married. He hadn’t thrown them away; he couldn’t. He’d kept them, and after realizing she didn’t know they were married, he’d shoved them in a drawer until now. Now they still sat in his pocket despite the fact that Nikias’ words had gotten under Gavril’s skin enough to stop him.

The little progress he’d made with Marcella was as fragile as spider’s web.

Revealing they were married would shatter it. Especially considering the whole purpose of it hadn’t even worked.

And he couldn’t risk Marcella falling back into that horrible state she’d been in after he got her off the table where she didn’t want to live anymore. Somehow what he’d been doing had been working. He’d seen a change in her recently. Little things. She had purpose again.

She wanted to live again.

And…

She would hate him if she knew the truth. Lately… despite what she might otherwise proclaim, he didn’t see that same hatred burning in her he had before.

Marcella looked around the city as they rode, that sharp look still in her eyes. But there was also… a little admiration. A little wonder.

“I did not notice…” she murmured, turning her head so she could see him. “The first time, I mean, I did not notice how big your city is. I have never seen anything quite like it.”

It was pathetic the way he imagined for a brief moment the lingering admiration in her gaze might be for him and not his people’s architecture.

“Contra spem spero.”

What he had whispered when she’d volunteered the information about the cache.

“I hope against hope.”

That she wanted to live. That her hatred for him might fade.

“Mea spes, mea cupio…”

“My hope, my desire…”

He hummed. “What are your cities like?”

“The Desero estate is sprawling and the village beside it always bustling, but we use more wood than stone. We do not have these.” Marcella paused to gesture to the stone streets as his horse’s hooves struck them. “Our roads are dirt.” Her lips twitched into something of a sardonic smile. “I’m sure you consider that to be yet another sign of our backwards savagery.”

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