Page 68 of White Horse Black Nights

“You’re to marry Rian,” he says.

There. It’s spoken now. At least it’s out in the open, this thing we’ve been circling. The topic of my impending marriage hasn’t come up as often in the past few days as it did at the ride’s beginning, and I can’t help but feel that Basten has been fighting to put it out of his head as he and I grow closer.

I turn in his lap to face him, the blanket still wrapped around my chest, my legs dangling over his right thigh.

“I don’t want to marry Lord Rian. I want to go with Myst to Salensa and see the ocean.” I hold his gaze with every ounce of my courage. “I want you to take us there.”

I nearly lose my voice as I ask the thing I’m terrified to ask. My heart knocks around in my chest in an attempt to escape the possible sting of rejection. I understand that he’s devoted to Lord Rian. In fact, I’m so damn sick of hearing about his loyalty to that man that I could scream. But Basten has killed for me, he’s sinned for me—is it so different to betray for me?

Yes. For him, it is.

And that terrifies me. Myst advised me to flip Basten’s loyalty from Rian to me, but I’m not sure I can. I offered him a bribe in the woods—he wouldn’t take it. I offered him my perfumed body on the inn’s soft sheets—he still wouldn’t kiss me.

His voice is grave when he answers, “Sabine, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I know exactly what I’m asking.” I hold my locked gaze steady. “I’m asking you to break your vow to your master.”

His throat bobs. “I made a promise.”

“So did your heart.” My voice breaks. “It made a promise to me.”

His jaw falls open, at a loss for words. I can see the torment traveling through his eyes. He rakes a hand through his damp, dark hair, tangling his fist in the long strands.

He finally moves me off his lap and unfolds himself, standing up to pace in front of the fire, securing the towel around his waist. At each turn, he throws me a guarded look like I might stab him in the heart. Is he wrong? Will I?

“Sabine—” he entreats.

“We’ll pose as husband and wife on the road to Salensa so we can travel freely,” I interrupt in a rush. “Once there, I can get work on a farm tending to livestock. You can hunt.”

He gapes in disbelief that I’m serious enough about this to have thought it out. He repeats in a distant voice, “Pose as husband and wife?”

A portion of the question hangs there, unasked. I glance down at my hands clasped in my lap. “If it’s about sex . . . ”

He barks a hard laugh. “It’s about sex. Gods, yes, it’s about sex. But it’s about so much more than that, Sabine. You know it is.”

A catching sensation snags in my throat. My body alone isn’t enough to tempt him, but can I dare offer him more? My heart is all I have left to give, and if I surrendered it, I’d have nothing. I made the mistake of falling for Adan, and I’m terrified of thinking I might be in love again, only to be wrong.

I start, “I know you feel loyalty to Rian—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know what you think. That my loyalty is blind and unmerited, but it isn’t. Rian is like a brother to me. More than that. I’d be in the gutter if it weren’t for him. Hell, I’d be dead.”

“He’s not a brother, he’s yourmaster! Hepaysyou!”

He continues to pace as our voices rise to a shout above the waterfall’s roar. Myst just steadily munches on grass while she watches us trade barbs. Basten readjusts his towel. His chest heaves. Every one of his muscles is on edge. He looks more frightening now than he did facing off against Volkish raiders.

Finally, he stops. The firelight casts shadows over the smooth dips and rises of his muscles, making him look inhuman, like one of the fae gods themselves. “I need more than sex. I need more than a few days with you, or however long it takes us to get to Salensa and for you to grow bored of me. No. I needeverything. Not now, not yet. But I have to know there’s a chance this could be more.”

My lips part. He’s turned the ultimatum back on me, and I’m even more nervous now than when I first proposed we run away together. What exactly is he asking? If I could fall in love with him? If one day, pretending to be husband and wife will become real? How am I supposed to answer that? I’m not even sure I know what love is. The last person who showed me unconditional love died twelve years ago.

“I can’t read the future,” I whisper helplessly. “I can’t make any promises.”

A muscle in his jaw jumps. “Well, I can’t betray Rian, if you can’t give us a fucking shot.”

By the Immortals.What does this man want from me? Weeks ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to lie to him, but we’re far beyond that. The least I owe him is honesty.

CanI see a future with him?

He stares me down with more heat than comes from the fire.

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