Page 34 of Revert
“However much I may wish to prove myself worthy of your trust, unfortunately my desire and willingness don’t mean I’m able to freely share everything I’d like to.” He gave a faint, self-deprecating smile. “Besides, there are other, more important things we could speak of.”
“Like what?” What could possibly matter more than the shroud of mysteries that created the uncrossable chasm between us?
To my surprise, his gaze softened. “I want to hear about your childhood.”
For a moment, I just stared at him in shock, wondering if I’d misheard.
At my prolonged silence, he shifted uneasily. “Is the idea really so displeasing to you? I know you hate me.”
I could think of no reason for him to speak so plainly except to test me, the wrong response of which would only condemn me. Naturally, I should loathe my murderer with every fiber of my being. And yet, some inexplicable part of me ached to deny his accusation.
I forced a thin smile. “I don’t hate you, Your Highness.”
He leaned in slightly, his nearness flooding the shrinking space between us with a charged lure I couldn’t seem to resist. I should have clung to caution and recoiled, but instead, I found myself fighting the urge to lean closer, to explore this strange new current between us that made me almost forget to breathe.
“Though you’ve spent years within Thorndale, its darkness hasn’t yet corrupted you.” He looked at me intently. “You know how to play the game with words, but your eyes tell a different story. You’re not a good liar, Bernice.”
The voice I had always known as hardened and ruthless cradled my name like something fragile, soothing rather than invoking terror. “You spoke my name.”
They weren’t the words I meant to speak, but they tumbled out before I could stop them, shaped by the storm inside me—a tangle of emotions without a cipher, impossible to decode except for the aching, inexplicable longing to hear him say my name once more.
His eyes widened slightly, as if only now realizing his slip. “You’re the one who rewrote that particular rule when you said mine first.”
It took a moment for me to recall that charged moment during our confrontation in the corridor when the tension between us had burned hot enough to scorch. I clenched my teeth, frustrated I’d lost a game I hadn’t even known we’d been playing.
His triumphant smirk only deepened my irritation at losing such a key battle. “Perhaps that’s a sign that, contrary to what you believe, you don’t hate me after all.”
Fury surged up, sharp and fierce. I forced myself to remember the night in the darkened corridor, his cruel taunting, the searing pain when he stabbed me, the blood pooling beneath me, my father’s tenuous hold on life that had lost its chance when I died.
I glared. “You speak as if I don’t have a reason to hate you.” No other emotion should have fit my murderer, and yet what churned between us now was anything but hatred.
He flinched, as if the words struck deeper than they should have. But he didn’t deny it. For a long moment, he was silent, lost in a quiet war I could almost see moving behind his eyes.
“If that is true,” he said at last, his gaze dark and aching, “then I don’t understand why you ever had reason to call me by name at all.”
I couldn’t answer; the script I had always relied on seemed to have deserted me, leaving me directionless. “Why is it so important to you?”
“Because I already miss hearing you say it.”
Against my better judgement, my heart fluttered, before I could silence it. Surely the formidable prince would never want such a thing from someone me. “Is that an order?”
His gaze softened. “Only if you need it to be, but I’d rather it be something you choose for yourself.”
I stubbornly lifted my chin, ready to disregard his wishes and instead offer him a lavish, cutting use of his full title…but the words caught, torn away by the storm breaking behind his dark eyes. For a breathless moment, I found myself lost in his gaze.
“Castiel.” The name shaped itself on my lips like it had always belonged there.
The effect was immediate—light broke through the constant overcast that constantly overshadowed his expression, illuminating his guarded features, a softness that thawed something in me I hadn’t realized had frozen.
“I suppose I don’t have the same privilege of asking you to stop calling mePrincess,” I managed airily.
He lowered his gaze. “It’s easier. Keeping things impersonal is…safer. But I don’t think I’m strong enough to keep resisting. Your name is beautiful, Bernice. It suits you.”
I stared at him, stunned. Was that…a compliment?
By the faint, unguarded flush that touched his cheeks I surmised that it was. Out of habit, I sifted through his shy words, searching for the traps I was certain lay hidden…though for once, some foolish, reckless part of me wondered if this was one snare I would gladly allow myself to become caught in.
He read the confusing emotions I would have given anything to conceal. “Sometimes words are exactly how they appear. You are beautiful and bewitching, Bernice.”
