But then she starts to laugh, and relief washes over me. I reach for her, sweeping her up before anyone has a chance to comment. Finally, the gem inside of me sings. Finally, I can steal her away.
I’m breaking our rules. Again. But I can’t seem to stop the moment.
For a moment, she fights against me. “Wait, I was practicing.”
I shake my head. “No longer. We must speak.”
Chapter28
Enstatite
ESTELA
My palms are sweating as Teo takes me into his private chambers. Once inside, he locks the door and turns to face me. The king's chamber is bathed in an otherworldly luminescence as flickering spell lights cast eerie shadows upon the cold stone walls. I look up at him, heart racing.
Once inside, he looks over at me. “Liana has seen nine of the cold creatures that attacked you. We have been training for them, but the risk is significant.”
My eyebrows draw together. “But you killed the one that attacked me easily.” The memory is so vivid that it makes my breath come out faster than before.
He shakes his head. “That was one. There are nine now. The other one was also caught off guard, and these ones have had time to plan—if that’s something they are capable of.” He pauses and walks over to a shelf in his room, picking up something and turning it over in his hands. “When I was younger, being king was as sure as the sun rising in the morning. There was some foreordained logic that coincided with the cosmic path of the heavens. Until there wasn’t. When my father sent me to work on the peace treaty, my goal was to seduce and kill the queen. She forced me to her bed for months before I stabbed her through the heart and went to the final battle. There, I found my mother dead. The war wasn’t over, so my father used the volcano. I—I saved who I could.”
I hold my breath, studying the planes of his face that are illuminated by the gentle light. He looks much older than I’ve noticed before, his face ravaged by time, loss, and pain. So much pain.
“You are strong. It is hard to picture anything taking you down.”
He turns to look at me. “Yet you tried. You, the one who is meant to love and care for me, cannot stand the sight of your mate. You tried to kill me.” Those lines of pain are so much deeper now, and I am defenseless.
“I—” I close my mouth. “None of your people doubt you are a good king.”
"Estela," Teo's voice resonates through the chamber, echoing off the walls and reverberating through my very being as he closes the space between us. “This isn’t about anyone else. We are to marry in a handful of days. I am not strong enough to bind myself to you, thinking that you hate me. If you want to leave now, I’ll let you go.”
"Teo," my reply came out as barely more than a whisper. “I won’t leave.” The music between us is slowly changing into something beautiful. Our gazes are locked, and it is as if our souls were reaching out for one another, entwining like desperate lovers. The space between us crackled with an electric energy, tension taut as the strings of a harp.
“I doubt that I will die. But Dyrn was so quick and unexpected. I fear…”
I stop breathing. Then, my hand comes up and reaches for him. Both my hands cup his face, fingers brushing across his cheekbones. My heart thuds loudly.
“Estela, in you, I found a new life. I can’t lose that. Please, tell me not to die,” he says all at once.
My chest sags and my lips part. “Teo,” the words that come out of my mouth are gone because I have a chance to overthink them. “Do not die.”
I lean forward and press my lips to his. I can hardly believe I do it—my first kiss ever. At first, my mouth is soft against his. Then his mouth opens beneath mine, and the kiss deepens. His tongue is like velvet.
I explore his mouth with my tongue, tasting him for the first time as sparks of desire fly through my body. Our mouths move together in syncopated rhythm, struggling to mesh closer still. This was the kind of kiss that would leave us both wanting more.
I'd crossed a line and it couldn't be uncrossed.
The crystal near his bed starts to flash and he pulls away. “That is a message from the others. I must go.”
A sudden urgency chills the air, a bitter reminder of our reality. He steps back, his voice steady despite the turmoil brewing beneath the surface. "I must go."
“Yes,” I reply, struggling to keep my own voice from breaking. “You should go.”
"Nothing will keep me from returning to you," he vows as he reaches for the armor on a stand near his bed. It’s so much more intricate than I’ve ever realized, each metallic scale imbued the artistic power of Enduar forges.
As he dons the heavy breastplate, I watch his muscles ripple and appreciate the beauty of his masculine form.
Perhaps he is putting on a show for me, but this seems like more than a mere physical transformation; it is a rite of passage. Just like everything he did, it was a testament to his unwavering devotion to his people.