In the Veins of the Drowning(57)
“Are you mad?” I whispered at his side. “What the hell are you thinking?”
His face was impassive as ever. Ever the king, he held himself straight as he went to the water to wash the blood from his hands and forearms. Then he was pulling me along, trying to keep some distance between us and the crowd as we made our way back toward the huts. “Not now.”
“Yes, now.” My guilt was too tremendous to shake. “I’m not their queen. I did this to them. I’ve given my blood—”
There was a jerk on my arm, a grunt of frustration, and then Theodore’s lips were on mine. They were soft, warm, but the kiss was forceful, laced with command. He pulled back just far enough to glare at me.
A quiet, forlorn moan rolled through my chest. “What are—”
His hand hooked around the back of my neck, and he spoke against my lips. “I am keeping you safe.”
“But—”
He kissed me again. This time it was gentle, lips moving against mine painfully slowly. When he pulled away, taking my bottom lip between his as he did, he spoke in a clipped, heated whisper. “Gods, you don’t know when to shut up.” Then, as quickly as he’d kissed me, he took my hand and hauled me toward the village with determined strides.
My only response was a breathy, involuntary protest.
A gray-haired woman led us to one of the larger huts. Theodore urged me inside before requesting that our horses be cared for. I blundered across the packed dirt floor, toward the quaint hearth. My eyes burned and I squeezed them shut.
“Bloody fucking Gods, Imogen.” Theodore forced the door closed and dropped the strip of wood into the metal anchors to bar it. Then he went about shuttering and locking the three little windows. “When I tell you not now, you listen.” He’d worked to rein in his volume, but not a bit of his anger. “The sea villages are superstitious and zealous. They honor the Great Gods wholeheartedly. They shun whatever power they cannot understand. If you were not under my explicit protection—if I hadn’t made a show of my care for and trust in you—they would have gone after you.”
The lingering heat of his lips went cold. That was why he’d kissed me. I swallowed past the mass in my throat. “I’d deserve it.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s because of my cowardice, my selfishness, that these people live in fear. It’s because of me that they’re killed and taken.”
Theodore scrubbed his face at a washbasin. “Keep your voice down, Imogen.”
I kicked off my wet boots, skin crawling at the touch of the seawater. “Don’t be gentle with me now, Theo. Tell me what a coward I am. Tell me how I am a shell of what I should be. Aren’t you disgusted by me and what I have done to your people? To my people? Don’t you want me ripped from your blood as soon as possible? I am the reason the nekgya exist at all!”
He rounded on me. “Keep your Godsdamned voice down.” His wide eyes reflected the hearth flame. The effect was wholly fitting of his quiet rage. He pulled in a breath to steady himself and his gaze fell to my lips. He took a step nearer. Another. He tilted his head like he might kiss me again. “I won’t punish you. You are doing a fine job of it yourself.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.” My voice was sharp, but I couldn’t deny the pull he had on me. I wanted to be soothed, consumed by him, but I forced a step back. “It’s false,” I said. “Whatever we think we feel for one another—that burst of warmth we feel in our stomach when we touch—it’s a trick of the bond. I am everything you said I was. Fearful, and irresponsible, and you should give me what I deserve. Don’t let the bond make you neglect to show me the same penalty you would any subject who caused harm to your people.”
His gaze was impossibly dark, brows low, jaw severely set. “You want me to blame you? To punish you?”
My chest tightened. “Yes,” I whispered.
He swallowed hard. “I blame Nemea,” he said, voice dangerous. “It’s Nemea who has used you since you were a child. Nemea who knew what you were and carved fear into you. He bent you into the shape he desired. And even after all that mistreatment you did not break. In spite of him, you are alive. I’d wager you are braver and fiercer than any Great God or Goddess ever was.” His own voice had risen, and it boomed through the little hut, but he caught himself and stilled. His gaze cut straight through me. A slow breath pushed through his lips. One step, another, and he closed the little space between us once more. He spoke softly now, with awe in his voice, in his gaze, as if he were uttering a prayer. “You are peerless.”
Amid the heaviness of my guilt and shame and terror, for a moment, he made me feel weightless. “No, I’m not—”
“I won’t argue with you, Imogen.” Theodore reached up and, so slowly, wrapped an arm around my waist. “Not tonight.” His other arm encircled my shoulders and then he pressed my body to his.
A shaky exhale fell through my lips. I clung to him, willing my heart to slow. “Can the Mage Seer sever both bonds? Ours and the one I share with Eusia?”
After a long beat, he nodded. “We’ll ride all day tomorrow. I’ll get you there as fast as I can.” His hand drifted up and down my back, fingers playing through my ratty braid. I let myself soften against him, let my head rest fully on his strong shoulder. A breathy, longing sound rose in me, and I couldn’t tell if the resplendent heat flooding through my center was our bond or my desire. I looked up, noted the nearness of his lips, how hard and hot and inviting he was.