“Mind if I cut in, Prince Baynor?” Bastien asked as he came upon the couple.
Sorin looked irritated, but propriety dictated that he share. “Well, I have been taking up all of Thalia’s attention, but I can assure you, it has been time well spent.” He then lifted Thalia’s hand to his mouth and lightly kissed her knuckles. “I must have the next dance, Princess Thalia. There’s a matter of import I’d like to discuss with you.”
Bastien wanted to punch him in the face. Instead, he nodded at Sorin and then turned to Thalia.
He almost couldn’t stand how beautiful she looked, but he wasn’t going to waste a moment without his arms around her. With the ease of a man who’d attended many a ball, he pulled her into him—one hand holding hers, the other wrapped around her back. It moved her so close to him, their bodies brushed, and she blinked in surprise.
“I didn’t even know you danced,” she teased.
“It’s a required part of our training in the warrior caste. It’s how we learn to dance around our opponents during battle.”
“Really?” Thalia asked, her eyebrows rising with interest.
Bastien laughed as he shook his head. “No, not really. We have better things to do with our time.”
Thalia chuckled. “Good one.”
She looked up at him, eyes searching his, and he was overcome with nervousness. “Penny for your thoughts,” Thalia said, a smile flirting at the corner of her lips.
“I was just thinking…” he began. Can I do this? Will this forever change our friendship?
Trying to push past any doubts, he smiled as his eyes bore into hers. “I was simply thinking… well, that I love you.”
Thalia’s mouth dropped open and she stumbled. It was no big deal as Bastien easily caught and corrected her, smoothly gliding along the marbled floor.
She stared at him with an unreadable expression. Not a return sentiment or a declaration for him to go to hell.
Just silence.
Bastien, wondering if perhaps Selena had things all wrong, was on the verge of taking it all back with some stupid excuse like he’d had too much to drink, but then Thalia broke out into the widest, sweetest grin—one that made his heart clench with yearning. “It’s about damn time, Bastien Dunne, especially since I’ve been in love with you since I was eight years old.”
There was no helping himself, and he knew he’d probably catch hell from his father later, but Bastien stopped their dance right in the middle of the floor and brought his hands to her face. He dipped his head and kissed her for the very first time, and nothing in his twenty-three years had ever compared to that feeling of connection, love, intimacy, and desire.
Thalia was his, and he was never letting her go.
“If we can have order,” Laina Mercea’s voice rang out in the hall. It broke Bastien out of his memories. He was surprised to see Thalia and Sorin had returned and were on the dais with Laina. “We’d like all the royal representatives and Conclave members to gather around the table so we can begin discussions on moving our alliance forward.”
The designated heads moved to the dais while accompanying family members filled the rows of benches.
Sorin himself took a chair, yet Thalia moved Bastien’s way. He was braced for just about anything, but he wasn’t sure how he’d react if she approached him as a newly engaged woman.
Like all those years ago on Thalia’s eighteenth birthday, Bastien figured perhaps he should just kill the prince. That would solve his immediate jealousy, which was beyond unfathomable. In the library, something overtook Bastien, and he felt the need to not only possess Thalia but to brand her as his.
He wondered if he was losing his mind. His brain and heart were at war, and he didn’t know if he could trust his feelings.
The only thing he knew was that the closer Thalia walked toward him, the more tense he became. When she stopped before him, his hands were clenched into tight fists.
Thalia’s expression was unreadable, and her tone held no emotion. “You have your twenty thousand troops. Make wise use of them, Bastien.”
For a lifelong warrior, that should have pleased Bastien mightily. Instead, his eyes drifted over to Sorin. Bastien figured he’d never get away with murder, but he might have to beat some sense into him. Looking back to Thalia, he asked through gritted teeth, “And what did he get in return for those troops?”
The way Bastien felt at that moment, if she told him that the cost was an engagement, he would decline the troops and figure out some other way.
There was no satisfaction, though, in her answer. “That, Commandant Dunne, is none of your business. Your business is to train the troops I’ve gained and use them to win the war. I did my part. Now do yours.”