Page 48 of Royal Fate

Coupled with the fact that I had no idea where to start, except that Endora had given us a general idea according to what she had gleaned from my memory probe. The most daunting issue was that I recalled none of what she’d done. If I could remember some of it, maybe I’d be some use in this quest, but at least I had the enchantress on my side. If Endora was just as convinced that there was something in the Locaza Forest that would help in some way, it had to mean something… didn’t it?

“You’re so quiet,” Zen commented halfway through the three-hour trip. I glanced away from the whizzing landscape to flash him a weak smile.

“Am I?”

“Aren’t you?” he teased. His hand reached across the console comfortingly, and I reached for it eagerly. “Whatever we find, I’m here with you.”

How did he do that? Keep his voice so calm and reassuring? He really was fit to be king.

I thought about how close I’d come to becoming a queen and shuddered at the thought. I would have made a terrible queen.

Again, Zen squeezed my hand and shook his head, his gray eyes focused on the highway in front of us.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he vowed. “You have to know that by now.”

“I do,” I answered quickly, glad he couldn’t hear what I was thinking.

He would only talk me down in his even way, make me forget that I wasn’t really worthy of everything he pretended I was.

I fell silent again until Zen sat forward to flick on the touch screen for music. The car filled with a light, jazzy pop song, and he playfully began to bounce.

“Ooh! I love this song!” he cried with exaggerated glee.

I cast him a sidelong look, my eyebrows arching.

He was putting on a show for me,I realized, a smile twitching at my lips.

“You like pop music?” I asked dryly.

“Of course! Doesn’t everyone love Courtney Sheridan?”

I snickered, amused that he knew who was singing at all. “Name one other of her songs.”

“There’s this one,” he began.

“What’s it called?” I insisted.

“Baby’s Got Secrets,” he answered matter-of-factly.

I gaped at him in shock. “You really do know her music!”

He shrugged and cast me a sidelong look, his attention still on the road. “What? A king can’t like this kind of stuff?”

I giggled. “I’m just shocked, is all.”

“Then she had that great album,All Rain, No Gain. That was her third and best, I think.”

I shook my head. “Aren’t you full of surprises?”

He winked coquettishly at me. “You have no idea, Little Mouse.”

My heart soared. It was the first time he had called me by the nickname since I’d been back from Agnan’s, and it hurt my heart.

Did that mean he’d fully forgiven me?

It was so hard to figure out what Zen was feeling about me, despite the fact that we were mated. Not all mates needed to be together, did they?

My life with Agnan had taught me to live on pins and needles, waiting for my authority figure to snap on a dime. With Zen, he expressed himself accordingly, his feelings and moods fitting to the situation. And I still didn’t know how to deal with it.

---