Or maybe it was because I needed to talk about my mom to someone who hadn’t known her. In Athenberg, I couldn’t mention her without people shooting me pitying looks, but Rhys was as calm and unruffled as ever.
“I understand,” he said.
Two simple words, yet they crawled inside me and soothed a part of me I hadn’t known needed soothing.
Our eyes met, and the air developed another layer of thickness.
Dark, mysterious, piercing. Rhys had the kind of eyes that saw straight into a person’s soul, stripping past layers of elaborate lies to reach the ugly truths underneath.
How many of my truths could he see? Could he see the girl beneath the mask, the one who’d carried a decades-long burden she was terrified to share, the one who’d killed— “Master! Spank me, Master!” Leather chose that moment to let loose one of his notoriously inappropriate outbursts. “Please spank me!”
The spell shattered as quickly as it had been cast.
Rhys flicked his gaze away, and I looked down, my breath gusting out in a mixture of relief and disappointment.
“Mas—” Leather quieted when Rhys leveled it with a glare. The bird ruffled its feathers and hopped around its cage before settling into a nervous silence.
“Congratulations,” I said, trying to shake off the unsettling electricity from a moment ago. “You might be the first person who’s ever gotten Leather to stop mid-sentence. You should adopt him.”
“Fuck no. I don’t do foul-mouthed animals.”
We stared at each other for a second before a small giggle slipped from my mouth and the iron curtain shielding his eyes lifted enough for me to spot another glimmer of humor.
We didn’t talk again for the rest of my shift, but the mood between us had lightened enough that I’d convinced myself Rhys and I could have a functional working relationship.
I wasn’t sure if it was optimism or delusion, but my brain always latched onto the smallest evidence things weren’t so bad to cope with discomfort.
The wind nipped at the bare skin on my face and neck as we walked home after my shift. Rhys and I had fought over whether to walk or drive, but in the end, even he had to admit it would be silly to drive somewhere so close.
“Are you excited to visit Eldorra?” I asked. We were leaving for Athenberg in a few days for winter break, and Rhys had mentioned it would be his first time in the country.
I’d hoped to build on our earlier flash of camaraderie, but I’d misjudged because Rhys’s face shut down faster than a house party raided by cops.
“I’m not going there for vacation, princess.” He said there like I was forcing him to go to a prison camp, not a place Travel + Leisure had named the ninth-best city in the world to visit.
“I know you’re not going for vacation.” I tried and failed to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “But you’ll have free ti—”
The high-pitched squeal of tires ripped through the air. My brain didn’t have time to process the sound before Rhys pushed me into a nearby alleyway and pressed me tight against the wall with his gun drawn and his body covering mine.
My pulse kicked into high gear, both at the sudden spike of adrenaline and the proximity to him. He radiated heat and tension from every inch of his big, muscled frame, and it wrapped around me like a cocoon as a car sped past blasting music and leaking laughter out of its half-open windows.
Rhys’s heartbeat thumped against my shoulder blades, and we stayed frozen in the alleyway long after the music faded and the only sound left was our heavy breathing.
“Mr. Larsen,” I said quietly. “I think we’re okay.”
He didn’t move. I was trapped between him and the brick, two immovable walls shielding me from the world. He’d braced one hand protectively against the wall next to my head, and he stood so close I could feel every sculpted ridge and contour of his body against mine.
Another long beat passed before Rhys re-holstered his gun and turned his head to look at me.
“You sure you’re okay?” His voice was deep and gruff, and his eyes searched me for injuries even though nothing had happened to me.
“Yes. The car took a turn too fast. That’s all.” I let out a nervous laugh, my skin too hot for comfort beneath his fierce perusal. “I was more startled by you throwing me into the alley.”
“That’s why we should’ve driven.” He stepped back, taking his heat with him, and cool air rushed to fill the void. I shivered, wishing I’d worn a thicker sweater. It was suddenly too cold. “You’re too open and unprotected walking around like this. That could’ve been a drive-by.”
I almost laughed at the thought. “I don’t think so. Cats will fly before there’s a drive-by in Hazelburg.” It was one of the safest towns in the country, and most of the students didn’t even own cars.
Rhys didn’t look impressed by my analogy. “How many times do I have to tell you? It only takes once. No more walking to and from the shelter from now on.”
“It was literally nothing. You’re overreacting,” I said, my annoyance returning full force.
His expression turned to granite. “It is my job to think of everything that could go wrong. If you don’t like it, fire me. Until then, do what I say, when I say it, like I told you on the first day.”
Any trace of our semi-truce from the shelter vanished. I wished I could fire him, but I didn’t have a say over staffing decisions and no good reason to fire Rhys other than we didn’t get along.
I’d been so sure our shelter interaction marked the beginning of a new phase in our relationship, but Rhys and I had taken one step forward and two steps back.
I pictured us flying to Athenberg with nothing except our familiar icy silence keeping us company for hours and grimaced.
It was going to be a long Christmas break.
4
Rhys/Bridget
RHYS
Bridget and I arrived in Athenberg, Eldorra’s capital, four days after my no-more-walking decree opened a second front in our ongoing cold war. The plane ride had been chillier than a winter dip in a Russian river, but I didn’t care.
I didn’t need her to like me to do my job.
I scanned the city’s near-empty National Cemetery, listening to the eerie howl of the wind whistle through the bare trees. A deep chill swept through the cemetery, burrowing past my layers of clothing and sinking deep into my bones.
Today was the first semi-free day on Bridget’s schedule since we landed, and she’d shocked the hell out of me when she insisted on spending it at the cemetery.
When I saw why, though, I understood.
I maintained a respectful distance from where she kneeled before two tombstones, but I was still close enough to see the names engraved on them.
Josefine von Ascheberg. Frederik von Ascheberg.
Her parents.
I’d been ten when Crown Princess Josefine died during childbirth. I remembered seeing photos of the late princess splashed across magazines and TV screens for weeks. Prince Frederik had died a few years later in a car crash.
Bridget and I weren’t friends. Hell, we weren’t even friendly most of the time. That didn’t stop the strange tug at my heart when I saw the sadness on her face as she murmured something to her parents’ graves.