“A broken man can rule, but only ever badly,”his mother had always told him. Well did Tarek know it. The history of the world was littered with broken men who ruled their countries straight into the dark.
He had always intended to find the light. Always.
“You knew the rules going in,” he heard himself say, louder than he could recall ever speaking before. As if he howled to the moon and stars above. “You knew what this was.”
“But rules are not who we are,” Anya replied, with that impenetrable calm he found a challenge. More than a challenge—it bordered on an assault.
“Rules are what separate us from the beasts,” he thundered at her. “And emotions are what separate kings from mere men. I have a country I must think of, Anya. Do you not understand this? I cannot havefeelings.”
Because that was what this was. He understood that now.
He had become the thing he’d sworn he never would.
All because of her. The woman who stood beside him, when he had never wanted that. He thought of that soft, inconsequential girl he had been betrothed to and knew full well that none of this would have happened, had she done her duty. He would have felt nothing. He would have married her, even bedded her, with courtesy and distance. He would have treated her with respect.
He never would have felt a thing.
And now, instead, Tarek felt everything.
Every star in the sky above him was bright and hot and still dull compared to what shined in him now, all because of this woman.
Anya turned to him then, looking at him straight on the way she always did. Direct, to the point.
Honest,something in him whispered.
Neither hiding the emotion he could see on her face nor flinging it at him.
And a great deal as if she was daring him to do the same.
Daringhim,when no one else would brave such an endeavor.
“I understand,” she said, so evenly he had the mad urge toforce herto sound as uneven as he felt. As messy. As ruined. “If it was easy to fall in love, Tarek, we wouldn’t call it falling, would we? If it wasn’t overwhelming, we might say we stepped into it. Or slid into it, maybe. But everyone knows falling can only end one of two ways. Either you stick the landing or you don’t, and either way, it’s probably going to hurt.”
That word echoed in his chest. In his head. It beat in him like a pulse.
Like a drum.
“I have spent my life in service to this country,” he threw at her. Then his hands were on her again, somehow, holding her close. The look in her eyes was killing him.Shewas killing him, as surely as if she wielded a sword or gun. When all she was doing was looking back at him as if she already knew all the noise and clamor inside of him. As if she heard that same drum. “My entire life, everything I have learned and everything I became, I’ve done so to better serve and rule this kingdom. And not merely rule from afar, as so many do. I put my body into the fires of war to protect my people. I always will. This is who I am.”
“Of course it is,” she said softly. “No one doubts you are a great king, Tarek. How could they?”
“What you’re asking me to do is—”
But he couldn’t finish.
And all the while the drums grew louder.
“I’m asking you to love me,” Anya said, but she didn’t sound anguished. She sounded resolute. “I’m asking you to let me love you. I’m asking you to let us build a family, but not because it’s our duty. Not only because of that and not only because we intend to raise them in your family’s tradition, but because we want them to really understand what a family is.”
“Anya...” he gritted out.
“You’re right that I never mentioned protection,” she said, and to his astonishment, she smiled. How could shesmilewhen he was being torn asunder where he stood? “I didn’t even think of it and I used to give lectures on the topic. How could I possibly have failed to think about something so important?”
She shook her head, still smiling. Still wrecking him without even seeming to try.
Tarek tried to gather himself, but it was no use.
“I’ll tell you why,” Anya continued. “Despite some reports, I didn’t lose my mind in that cell. If anything, it clarified my life for me. And then there you were, with your hand outstretched, and I knew.”