“I’m excited. We’ll have the knowledge of how to transfer the embers.” He paused. “Are you?”
“I think I’m a mixture of many things. Nervous that we won’t be able to find Delfai or that he won’t be able to help us. Excited about the prospect that he will have the knowledge,” I admitted. “I know it won’t change everything immediately even once the transfer happens. We’ll still have Kolis to deal with. But you’ll be the true Primal of Life soon, as you always should have been. And that’s important.”
“What’s important is that your life will be saved. That’s what matters.”
My gaze cut to his.You matter. Always.Those three words were more powerful than the ones I hadn’t been able to speak. One could easily argue that him seizing his true destiny was far more important than my life, but I…I believed he truly felt that my life was more important.
And that made what I felt for him root itself even deeper.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you something all night,” he said. “What changed this?”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. “Changed what?”
He gave me a knowing look with a raised brow. “You said that you only wanted to be my Consort in title.”
“But I did say that I wanted to be more than that before,” I pointed out. “Am I not entitled to change my mind?”
One side of his lips kicked up. “You’re entitled to the realm, Sera, but that’s a rather stark change in emotions when I would think that Veses’ most recent actions would’ve fortified your wishes to remain distant.”
My mouth dried, and I didn’t think any amount of whiskey would alleviate that. I’d been doing my best not to think about what I’d learned—mostly succeeding in that endeavor. “It wasn’t a change in emotions. What I feel for you didn’t change,” I said carefully. “My opinion on how I wanted to proceed changed.”
“My apologies,” he drawled, thick lashes shielding his eyes. “What provoked this change of opinion then?”
I squirmed a little. “Does it matter?”
“It does.”
My grip on the glass tightened. I didn’t want to betray what Rhain had shared with me. I also couldn’t tell him that I loved him—that I’d been in love with him before I learned of the deal he’d struck with Veses to keep me safe. I glanced at him, and my silly heart swelled so fiercely that my breath snagged. A storm of emotions flooded me. I didn’t feel fear or disbelief as I looked at him. I feltwonder. A wild fluttering in my chest and stomach. A need for him that went beyond the physical. A powerful empathy for him—the need to protect him even though he was more than capable of doing that himself. A feeling of rightness, or as Aios had said, the feeling of being at home. Of beingseen. The knowledge that I’d do anything for him. Anything. The fear that I would never be worthy of what he had sacrificed for me. And the determination that I would do everything to be that. I was drowning in all those feelings until my heart began to pound with the intensity of what I felt—with the knowledge that it was he who held my heart—only him.
Those thick lashes of his lifted as his gaze roamed over my face. Seconds ticked by. “What are you thinking about?”
I stiffened. Oh, gods, I’d likely been projecting. “What do you feel?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded confounded, curious. “I…I taste sweetness.” His brows pinched. “It reminds me of chocolate and strawberries.”
“And you don’t know what that is?”
“I don’t,” Ash said, frowning.
Gods.
My heart cracked a little as I quickly looked away. He didn’t know what he tasted because he didn’t know what lovetastedlike. Or felt like. Neither did I. Not until I realized what I’d been feeling, but Ash…it was different for him because hiskardiahad been removed. Love was never something welcomed or wanted.
I swallowed the knot, hoping I wasn’t projecting anything and that he wasn’t reading me. I didn’t want him to feel that sorrow.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” he persisted softly. “Why am I now Ash to you? Why would you want to be more than a Consort in title only after I hurt you? After I—”
“I know,” I cut in, briefly closing my eyes.
“Know what?”
“I know you didn’t betray me.” I sat the glass aside, choosing my words carefully. “And that you truly didn’t want to hurt my feelings. That it…it wasn’t like that.”
Ash was quiet.
Squaring my shoulders, I pushed anything I might feel down so deep, he wouldn’t be able to pick up on it. Other than my anger, I doubted he would want to taste anything else. I twisted toward him, hoping I didn’t tear any of the diamonds free. “I know about Veses.”
His features sharpened as he lowered the glass to his knee. That was the only change. The only sign that he knew what I was referencing. “Did she tell you?”