Page 139 of Artemysia
I go quiet for a moment. “You did?”
“But there you were, dancing with the prince, looking at him like hewasn’ta total idiot.”
“He offered me a job. As queen. Nothing happened.”
“Liar,” he snarls. “You’d behisqueen? Marry that elk turd? I’m going to tear out his beating heart with my bare hands.”
He closes the distance between us with one long-legged stride.
The bewitching allure of his juniper scent reminds me of what I want.
Him.
“Lower your voice. Stop shouting at me—the entire palace will hear.” It’s my turn to growl. “I politely declined. Offered to knee him in the balls instead.”
His lips twitch. He stares at me as if stripping me bare. That liquid-fire stare of his burns through my every being, and the intensity distracts me from what I want to say, so I force my eyes shut for a deep breath.
“Doesn’t it get exhausting?” He sighs in exasperation, his shoulders dropping. “To be in charge of such an asshole?”
My anger cracks.
We’re nose to nose. He’s pressed me to the wall, inching closer so that I feel the heat coming off him from his climb up the wall.
“Riev, the world is Syf. The East River is poisoning them. Even the flowers don’t bloom along the banks,” I say to him, for no reason except it’s what I can’t get out of my head, that the world is getting uglier,even as we fight through our feelings for each other.
His throat bobs. “That’s what I discovered too.” He keeps his hands off me, though I wish he wouldn’t.
I don’t know why it’s so intoxicating, but up close, the faint scent of his sweat makes my pulse thrum. I want it on me. My body hums with desire, and it’s becoming very difficult to think, when all my awareness is on how close his lips are to mine, how he presses his hips to mine, how my nipples tighten in response with each rise and fall of his chest on mine.
I want all of him. It’s what I hunger for in the darkness of my emotions.
He slaps a palm against the wall beside my head, caging me in. “And you wish to be his queen.” His breath adds honeyed mead into the mix.
I ignore his ridiculous accusation. “Andyouthought to have more mead before climbing back up?”
“Only to wash out the taste of the sick show I had to watch—of you in the prince’s arms. Fuck it, Delphine. You burn like poison in my veins. I can’t take it.” His dark, lust-ridden voice sets me on fire.
“Don’t be stupid. Do you know what elseIdiscovered?”
“What? That someone likehimcan offer you all you could ever want?” Jealousy ripples out of him again, his face absolutely savage in the light of the two moons.
“No.” My tone is clipped. “Stop it.”
“That son of a—”
“I said stop, Riev.You’reall I could ever want.”
His expression hardens. “And…you sorted through your feelings after, what, dancing withoneother man? Did you actually think about this, or are you just reacting to avoid facing your deeper thoughts and emotions?”
I’m taken aback by his insight into my psyche. Is this what I’m doing?
Perhaps he’s right. I also don’t want to argue anymore. “How can you not be in a panic, knowing what we know now?”
“It is what it is.” He spins away from me, but I grasp his forearm.
“Nothing is as we thought it was! How can I make good decisions now, when I don’t know anything?”
His jaw grinds as he stares out the window. But then his temper thaws and his voice softens. “You go on as you always do. You always make the right decisions.”
