Needing to break her in some small way, just as she had broken him.
Then, her hands curled into his shirt, her fingers dug against his skin. A small gasp escaped her as her soft lips parted beneath his. She clung to him, her body melting against his. He invaded her, savoring in the taste and feel of her as he pulled her tighter. He forgot everything, all of her treachery, all of the anger and hurt as he held her. It was hard to remember anything when she was so right, and good in his arms. He had never felt anything as wonderful as she was, and as long as he held her, he didn’t care what happened around them.
It wasn’t until he tasted the saltiness of her tears upon his lips that he realized she was crying. It wasn’t until he pulled away to wipe her tears from her silken cheeks that he realized he cared for her far more than he had been willing to admit to himself. It wasn’t until she rested her forehead against his chest and began to sob heavily that he realized they were both doomed.
***
Aria watched silently as the prince threw another log on the fire. She folded her hands before her, clasping them tightly between her legs. Her eyes felt heavy, sore from crying. Her chest still hurt from the force of the sobs that had wracked her. Despite the heat, she was cold, freezing really. Numb with the shock, and horror, still clinging to her. He turned away from her, the muscles in his hard back flexing as he grabbed another log and tossed it onto the fire.
Aria glanced around the small house he had brought her to. She didn’t know why she was here, how he had known about it, but it was a quaint little cottage. He turned back to her, studying her for a long moment before he made his way slowly back to her. “You need to dry off, you’re shivering.” She didn’t tell him that she wasn’t shivering because she was still wet and chilled from the river. They both knew that it wasn’t the reason. “Arianna?”
She managed a small nod before rising to her feet and moving toward the crackling fire. She settled before it, holding out her numbed hands to the flames. He settled onto the arm of the sofa behind her, drawing his long legs up onto the cushions as he watched her. She pulled her hair before her, trying to dry it out and untangle it as she worked slowly through the thick, wet mess.
She didn’t know what to say to him, what to do. She didn’t know what he wanted from her. She started to shake again; she was trying not to start crying once more as she recalled the fierce, wonderful intensity of his kiss. For one brief moment she had felt whole, and alive, again. For one wonderful moment all of the pain of the past months had vanished beneath his touch. All of her hurt and the anger had melted beneath the wonder of his mouth against hers. She had tried to forget how amazing he could make her feel, she had remembered in an instant. And she was fairly certain that she would never be able to forget again.
“When did Jericho tell you about Gwendolyn?”
Her fingers froze in her hair; she turned slowly toward him, admiring the play of light over his hard features. “Gwendolyn?” she asked quietly, baffled by his question, and the name.
“The woman I am supposed to marry.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened, her fingers slipped from her hair as the numbness returned in full force. She had forgotten about that little detail, that huge, awful betrayal. For a moment she couldn’t breathe through the pain and anger that constricted her chest, through the knife that stabbed deep into her heart, destroying it. Her fingers clenched tightly in her lap, her nails dug into her palms. If she thought she had any chance of succeeding she might just punch him, but she had already managed to hit him once, in the palace, she didn’t think she would get the chance again. “I didn’t know that was her name.”
His head tilted slightly to the side, he had slipped the dark glasses off, revealing the full beauty of his steel gray eyes, and the bright blue band that encircled his irises. It was so rare when they weren’t in place, so rare when he relaxed his guard enough to take them off. She could see the faint hint of the scars that marred his striking eyes. Scars that served as a reminder that no matter how stunning his eyes were, they were flawed, and unseeing around everyone but her. “When Arianna?”
She turned sharply away from him, unable to look at him any longer. It hurt too much. “The morning he came to get me.”
“Why did he tell you?”
She spun angrily back on him, her eyes narrowing fiercely as she fought the urge to punch him. “What difference does that make?” she spat.
He stared silently back at her. “I want to know, that’s the difference.”
“And I want peace, but we don’t always get what we want.”
His eyes narrowed, he leaned forward as he glared at her. “I had forgotten how annoying you were.”
She glowered back at him, struggling against the tears that wanted to flow. “Then perhaps you should let me go.”
His hard mouth curved into a wry smile as he shook his head. “That is not going to happen Arianna. Answer my question.”
She shook her head, baffled as to why she was here and what he wanted from her. Did he just like to torture her by making her rehash the agony she had lived with ever since she had learned of his fiancée? She stared at the fire, watching as it snapped and crackled, shooting out sparks. She didn’t want to tell him why Jack had told her about his fiancée, she didn’t want him to know just how much she had cared about him back then. He had enough power and control over her, without giving him even more.
But she no longer cared for him like that; she couldn’t care about him like that anymore she reminded herself. She had been dumb and innocent back then. She would never be either of those things again. Not when it came to him. She turned slowly back to him, meeting his intense gaze. It didn’t matter if he knew why Jack had told her, he had no hold over her anymore.
“Because I didn’t want to leave,” she finally admitted. His eyes widened slightly, she saw the shock that rocked through him. “I was foolish enough to think that I wanted to stay, with you, no matter what the consequences of that action might be. Jack simply informed me of what an idiot I was.”
“Arianna…”
She launched to her feet, unable to sit still anymore, unable to listen to him. There was a clawing sensation growing inside of her, a desperate need to be free, a desperate need to escape this whole awful situation. She paced away from the fire, stopping before the window to stare out at the forest. They were far from the caves, in an area she didn’t know as it was close to civilization. It was an area of the woods she did not travel to, it wasn’t safe here. Her fingers pressed against the glass, the sun was out now, her family and friends would be worried about her. They would be looking for her. She needed to get back to them; she needed to get away from him.