Something I didn’t recognize rippled in his eyes. He glanced at the bathing chamber, and then his gaze settled on me. He didn’t speak. Silence fell between us.
It was me who ended it. “I found where Delfai is.”
“I know. Nektas told me. He’s in Irelone.”
“Then I need to go there—”
“I don’t want to talk about that right now,” he interrupted, taking a deep breath. “I mean, that’s not what I’m here for.”
The impenetrable emptiness felt more like a veneer in that moment. “What is it that you want to talk about?”
He came forward about a foot before stopping. “I’m sorry.”
Every muscle in my body locked up. “For the compulsion?” I waved my hand. “I didn’t like it, but I understand why you did it. I doubt anyone wants to rebuild this palace.”
His brows pinched as his gaze swept over my features. “I do need to apologize for that. I don’t like to use it, even when it’s necessary.”
“I know.”
Eather stilled in his eyes as he stared at me. “But I’m apologizing for what you thought you saw.”
Disbelief rocked the emptiness, threatening to shake it up. “I know what I saw.”
“You don’t.”
Anger sparked, but I refused to let it ignite. I knew it wouldn’t stop there because a far more dangerous emotion loomed behind it. One that hurt. One that could hurt others. “I saw you with the Primal you called the worst sort in your lap. She was riding you as she drank from you. Is that not what I saw?”
“She wasn’t—” Tension bracketed his mouth.
“Wasn’t what? Tell me how what I saw wasn’t what itlooked like,” I demanded. “That it wasn’t the first time it’s happened.”
His gaze sharpened. “What was said to you?”
“Does it matter?” I thought of Bele’s confusion over why he would allow this. Of my own. “So, thiswasn’tthe first time?”
He stared in silence for several moments. “No.”
I already knew that. I didn’t even know why I’d asked. Didn’t know why I continued to open my mouth. “Why were you with her?”
The glow dimmed in his eyes. “Because I was.”
“Because I was,” I heard myself repeat as I stared at him. A shocked laugh left me as my stomach pitched. “That’s all you have to say?”
He turned his head away. Silence.
Of course, he would go silent now. I felt another spark of fury, stronger than before. “When I made that deal with you—pleasure for the sake of pleasure—I should’ve made the same demand you made of me. That such intimacies remained only between us. My mistake.” The embers in my chest hummed as I forced a deep, slow breath in and out of my lungs. But the anger let some of the bitterness seep from the box and rise to the surface. “Or, at the very least, discussed who else you would be sharing such intimacies with so I could be prepared in case I happened to walk in on something hours after telling you that I wanted to be your Consort.”
He flinched.
The Primal actuallyflinched. I should’ve celebrated the blow I’d intended to land, but I couldn’t. It didn’t feel good. I rose and walked to the fireplace. “We don’t need to discuss this.”
“I think we do.”
“We don’t. Because I don’t care.”
“That’s not true,” he argued, and I turned, not even surprised to see that he had followed in that annoyingly quiet shadowstep way of his. “What happened by the pool was because you care, and I—” He looked away, his chest rising sharply. “What matters is that I caused you to lose control. I hurt you.” His eyes met mine again, now full of whirling wisps of eather. “I didn’t want that. I never wanted that. And I hate that I hurt you. I am sorry, Sera.”
I stepped back, a physical reaction I couldn’t stop becausehe sounded genuine. Like he reallydidknow that he’d hurt me. That I had a reason to be hurt. Somehow, him acknowledging that was so much worse than I could’ve imagined. I felt the veneer becoming even more fragile. “Don’t apologize,” I said, finding my voice as I folded my arms over my chest. “What you hurt was my ego. That is all.”