"What would you like me to do, Aethelind? Run over the King of Oshal?" Corbin spat. "She's pretty, but your brat of a daughter isn't worth committing a crime like that."
"Your Majesty?" the pilot asked, stepping out from the cockpit. "The King is demanding we open the door." Another glance to Reece showed a waiting set of stairs being rolled up to the plane with urgency.
"Do it," Corbin grunted, and the guard finally allowed me to get around him. I raced for the door as it opened, jumping over the gap and hurrying down the steps. Reece abandoned his position where he’d stood, intimidating, now meeting me at the bottom of the stairs and hauling me into his arms the moment we collided.
"Alina," he murmured into my neck. My feet left the ground, my legs wrapping around his waist without a single care for who may be watching. Our secret had been revealed before his bed was made, with my mother's insistence on sticking her nose where it didn't belong.
"I'm sorry," I sobbed, ducking my head down until I nestled into the crook of his neck and drew his scent deep into my lungs one last time. "I don't want to go."
"You aren't going anywhere, Baby Bird," he said back, tugging my hair until I lifted my head enough to stare down at him. "Oshal is your home now, and I’m not allowing anyone to ever lock you away again."
"Reece, I—"
"Come now, Alina. You've said your goodbye. Corbin is waiting," my mother snapped from the top of the stairs. Reece looked over my shoulder, glaring at her with a force that would have terrified grown men. My mother wasn't smart enough to know she needed to cower in the face of it, always believing herself invincible, even when it came to powerful men. She'd never met one she couldn't wrap around her finger.
"I have to go," I whispered, watching Reece's blue eyes land on mine once again and his face twist in agony.
"You're leaving of your own volition?"
My hands tightened around his neck, hating the pain I saw in his face and the strong features I loved to watch soften for me. The tears that burned the back of my throat finally slid free, leaving a wet trail down my cheeks. "It seems my father signed a contract before he died. If I don't marry Corbin, Lantis will pay reparations we cannot afford." I paused, leaning down to touch my forehead to his. "I want to be yours, but I can't leave my people to suffer to do it."
Understanding dawned on his face for a brief moment before he slid me down his body and set me to my feet. Pain exploded in my chest with the crushing confirmation that he couldn't help me out of the predicament that threatened to tear me in two. "This just goes to show you'll be an incredible Queen to your people." He touched his lips to mine in a fast and searing kiss that stole my breath away.
Then he strode past me with determined steps and thundered up the stairs to the plane.