“Pali?” Syndrian stood before me, looking at odds with me, with my words… He leaned forward on the toes of his boots and roughly scrubbed a hand over his face, grimacing behind his palm. “By the gods…Please.I want to help. I’m a…friend.” He settled on the word after a moment’s thought.
A harsh laugh passed my lips. I didn’t mean to sound as though I were laughing at him. The entire situation was as nightmarish as it was foolish. I was a titled woman, a woman who only had to follow the rules her parents set out. If I could have just been what they wanted me to be, I would have enjoyed a lifetime of comfort. Luxury. Power. Ease that could fool my mind and heart into believing that I was free.
But there was no going back now. What I’d done—what I’d seen—made ignorance an impossible choice. That night, deep in the subterranean lair, when my guide had told me not to react to the voices, of course I followed his instructions. But not reacting was not at all the same thing as notlistening. I’d heard. Heard the voices of the creatures who made my mask. Felt claws in my hair that were most assuredly not human. Smelled the curious ingredients when they mixed and applied the sealant to my skin as they formed the mask. I could not tell Syndrian this. That I had consorted with goblins and played with death magic. And all the friends in the world couldn’t change what I’d set in motion.
“I tried to buy a way out of Tutovl, Syndrian. Forever.” That was all I could tell him. For his own good.
As if his heart overruled his good sense, he took me by the arms, his hands firm as he searched my face. “What would you have done? You meant to leave?” His voice was scarcely a whisper. Rough and desperate. “Pali, I thought maybe you… That we…”
I lifted my chin, curious excitement fighting its way past my fatigue. “You thought what, Syndrian? That we what?”
“I was a fool,” he said, but he didn’t release me. If anything, he moved closer. So slowly that I found my lips parting and my belly tightening with anticipation.
“I’ve never known you to be a fool,” I murmured.
But if he was, I was the bigger fool. When I’d sought the company of the crofter and his mother, year after year, part of me always hoped to also encounter the solid, quiet presence of my brother’s best friend. I far preferred this rugged cutler to whatever wealthy, cruel Otleich boy I was destined to marry. I could see that now, even if I’d never be able to admit it to anyone. Even if it had taken years of playing board games on opposite sides of a table from this man to admit it to myself. Syndrian was the prize I so desperately sought—kind, strong, caring, funny… Even if I found all those qualities in an Otleich, he would still never measure up to what I knew a man could be.
Syndrian’s bright eyes narrowed, and that same confused, tortured expression covered his face. “What if I could take you away from all this?” he gritted out, his voice low and desperate. “Free you from whatever binds you? Is it money? Debt? Whatever it is—”
I could hardly follow his words. He would rescue me? Take me away from darkness he’d not even begun to explore? I wished for a moment that I could be like my mother. Cold and decisive.
I never believed she’d married my father for love—not after he’d fathered an heir with another and then hidden the boy and his mother away. Of course, he’d not hidden them far. Idony and Biko had been right under all of our noses all these years. But what kind of a woman would marry into those circumstances? I believed she’d wanted the same things my parents sought by marrying me off: power, position, and security. If I were like Lady Lombard, I would not desperately seek absolution from my fate. If I were at all like my mother, I would have worked tirelessly to capitalize on my destiny.
And yet here I was, alone with a cutler, contemplating a future that I had no right to even dream of. More than comfort. Better than stability. A future based on truth.
What Syndrian’s offer implied was so very different than an arranged marriage…or was it? Could he care about me? Care enough to put his own safety and future in jeopardy so he might marry me? For how long and to what end? I shook my head. I could not entertain those kinds of thoughts. As much as I might have buried secret feelings about my brother’s friend since I was a teenager, he did not understand what he’d offered. A union under those conditions would never be what I wanted. I would not be a weight someone else had to carry.
I squeezed my eyes closed, hoping my lashes would hold back the threat of tears that stung behind my lids. I understood that what I felt for Syndrian could no longer be explained away as a girl’s crush. Was no longer a young woman’s fancy for a handsome lad who was nothing at all like the men controlling the life she hoped to escape.
And oh, how I longed to accept his offer. To lean into his willingness to rescue me and simply let myself be saved. But that was not who I was. It never had been and never would be. Even if I could change my circumstances, I would not allow someone I cared about as much as I cared about Syndrian to be destroyed along the way. When I opened my eyes, I looked into the beautiful face of a man who was too good to drag into my complicated puzzle. Not this man. Not this way.
“Pali, please—”
“No. This is my burden.” I stopped Syndrian’s words with my fingertips. I touched his lips, his chin, his cheeks. Under my hands, his skin felt hot and soft, stubbled and smooth—everything I’d ever imagined he would be. “But I must know, whether I accept my fate or die fighting… May I be so bold as to kiss you?” I whispered, my nails lightly scratching the bristles on his chin.
His eyes widened in shock, and he pursed his lips as if to speak, but I shook my head.
“Only this once,” I rushed on, “then never again, I—I’m to be betrothed soon. But if I fail to escape my circumstances, I do not want my first taste of passion to be false. To be with someone I will not like and certainly could never love. I would like to have that memory of you, Syndrian. I will treasure it. If only this once.”
“By the gods… I…I want… I would…” He gritted out the words as though they caused him pain, and I nearly stepped back, ashamed of my request, but he hesitated not even a second before sliding a hand beneath my hair. He pulled me close, holding the back of my neck as he had in Kyruna, but this time, when his forehead touched mine, my heart raced so wildly, I feared he would hear it. Feared he would know that I longed for him in ways that even I did not understand. I was only thankful that he had not refused me, had not embarrassed me by turning away.
“Thank you.” My whisper was messy, too loud, gratitude and excitement and anticipation spilling into my chest.
I lifted on my toes and snaked my hands behind his back, giving in to the delicious pull that drew my hips close to his. The heat of him was so close, so thrillingly unfamiliar, and yet I arched into it, intohim. I parted my lips and licked them, unsure whether he would take the lead, or if he expected me to steal what I wanted from him and retreat with my precious memories. I inhaled deeply, partly to calm the racing thump of my heart, and partly to bury myself in the heady, delicious scent of him.
He grunted in response, a half-growl that resembled the erotic snarl he’d groaned against me back in Kyruna. My nipples grew hard as a jolt of excitement awakened every secret place in my body. He bent his head to my neck and breathed, drinking in the heat of me without actually touching my skin. Shaking so hard I feared he would pull away, I swallowed back the flutters of anxiety and anticipation and pressed my chest greedily against his. The soft length of his hair grazed my face as he lifted his nose from my neck.
“Pali.” He said my name again, and I never again wanted to hear him call me lady or miss. In this moment, I was his, and greedily, I longed to hear every endearment, every pleasure whispered along with my name.
“Syndrian…” Saying that felt different on my lips now, too. More than just a name, I called him to me, his name an erotic promise, a plea. “My sweet, beautiful…” I wanted to say more. To tell him every private thought, every sensual dream I’d ever had, but he was moving against me now. Holding my face with both hands, drawing me deliciously closer.
The tip of my nose nudged his jaw, and the aroma of him made my mouth water and the space between my thighs damp with a whole different sort of wetness. I wanted this, wanted him, in ways I’d never wanted anything else. My entire body seemed drawn against his, my limbs weak, and my mind a blur of pretty thoughts and fuzzy sensations. I closed my eyes and was tightening my hands against the solid muscles of his back when I heard the door shove open behind us.
“Whoa-hoooo!” Biko belted out, the sounds of water sloshing in pails drawing my eyes.
I quickly released my grip on the back of Syndrian’s tunic, and he untangled his fingers from my hair. Icy cold fingers of regret replaced the warm, dull buzz of our contact.
“Oh, no.” Idony sounded disappointed. She slapped Biko’s shoulder. “I told you we should have given them more time.”