Page 175 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

Rahk throws up his hands, pacing away and then back, dragging his curled fingers through his hair. “I want the truth! I want you to be honest with me!”

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do—

I close my eyes. Giving up. My voice shakes. “Do you truly want the truth?”

Rahk does not answer. I open my eyes to find that uneasiness has overtaken his features. But what am I to do? He demands I be honest with him. My heart demands the same thing.

So I manage to choke out: “I care deeply about you, Rahk.”

Every part of his face suddenly lifts.

“But our marriage canneverwork,” I finish. My vision goes blurry. I curse it.

The muscles of his throat contract and flex. “Why? Tell me a reason that is insurmountable.”

My breath releases in a shudder. “There is an insurmountable reason. But I cannot tell you what it is.”

“Why not?”

I can already feel him retreating from me. I can feel his regret already bubbling up inside him. The regret that tells him he should have listened to me when I told him I was a curse to him.

“Because it is a secret that belongs to others beyond me,” I say. “I have longed, from the very beginning, to confide in you about it . . . but I cannot.”

He turns his back to me, releasing a long, low exhalation. He rakes a hand through his long hair.

I hate this distance between us. This fear and the growing cavernous hole in my chest. I press the heel of my palm to my cheeks, trying to smear away the traitorous wetness.

The distance is good,I try to tell myself.You need this. He needs this. It hurts, but this is the only way you can keep from destroying him completely.

His shoulders rise and fall with his deep breath. “How long must you keep this secret?”

I stand where I am, longing for him to crush me to his chest, to tell me that it doesn’t matter what the secret is, that he loves me and no obstacle is too great.

“How long, Kat? A month? A year? A decade? Longer?”

The tears come in earnest now. “I can never tell you.”

Rahk’s mouth flattens as his nostrils flare. “So you have a secret that you cannot tell me—ever—that will always come between us? Our entire marriage, when I have made my feelings clear to you repeatedly, you have always known that it will never work between us.”

“I never wanted it to be this way,” I insist. The knife carving out my heart hurts vastly more than I ever dreamed it could. “Please know that. If I were at liberty to explain, I would tell you everything.”

He stares at me for several minutes. Then he goes to the bed and sits down. He rubs a hand down his neck, his jaw working. I want to go to him, to try to erase the lines between his brows, to soothe the tension from his arms and shoulders.

I want to take the pain from him. Mine already is unbearable, so what is more? I continue to be the curse to those who care about me. If I could ease his pain, I would.

“Well, I suppose I ought to say I have been keeping a secret of my own,” Rahk says with a humorless chuckle. “You have done the noble thing to push me away while keeping yours. I’m afraid I have not been so noble. Perhaps this is my repayment of that selfish evil. You must forgive me.”

He means the secret of him hunting the Ivy Mask. The Ivy Mask, who he believes I love for rescuing my mother. He must have assumed I would hate him if he told me.

I shrug, chewing mercilessly on the inside of my cheek. I do not trust my voice.

When Rahk speaks, he sounds like the distant, taciturn Nothril prince I first came to know. “Thank you for explaining. Now that we understand one another, we can move forward in a way that makes sense.”

Maybe I should make myself cold like him. I can build a fortress around my heart to protect its tender wounds.

It’s like losing Mama again,I think bitterly.Your choices are to pretend you don’t care, or be completely destroyed.

Rahk gets to his feet. I expect him to storm out of the room, but instead he comes to where I stand by the vanity, my fingers knotting together, my breath a shuddery whisper. Oh so gently, he touches my chin, tilts my jaw up. He presses the softest of kisses to my forehead.

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