As the prince spoke very carefully, he could not quite dam the hunger from his low, poison-torn voice. ‘You should not sneak up on someone raised to expect assassins around every corner.’
Meilyr’s heart thundered. ‘I did not sneak up on you, My Prince. Though perhaps you should be more suspicious of the contents of your cup than corners.’
They were only in robes, Meilyr’s perilously bared thigh against Osian’s mercifully covered one. With vivid and decimating clarity, he imagined how Osian’s strong, warm hand might splay across his exposed skin and grip—
The prince moved to let him up. ‘I am sorry,’ he said.
Meilyr remained, wrecked by possibility, before pulling himself up on his elbows and adjusting his robe. ‘The fault is mine, Majesty. I should not have woken you.’
‘Has something happened?’
‘No, I merely thought you might freeze if left out of the covers.’
‘Ah.’
Osian had left an imprint of himself on Meilyr’s body, treasonously suggesting it would be easy to reach for him. To pull him close again and plunge into the ever-present waters that had beckoned him even since before that devastating kiss.
Meilyr took hold of the sensation, once more resolutely threw it into the ocean and moved from the bed. ‘Your cawl will be cold. I will be right back.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Memory is a funny thing.
If I alone remember how much something moved me,
that does not mean the world did not also shake.
The Book of Heart
TWENTY-EIGHT
Osian let him go. Watched as he slipped from the room.
The surge of selfish desire receded in the wake of the poison, each of his muscles laid to waste. He half clambered, half fell into the covers, and had to take a damnably long moment to catch his breath.
A moment too long, stirring memory: Meilyr beneath him, hair spilled like ink across the pillow. Breathing clipped, lips parted. Anticipation gathering in his eyes, as though—
Stop.Even if Meilyrhadfelt want, that did not change a thing. A physical response did not mean anything. Osian should have moved immediately. Would apologise again, profusely. Would give Meilyr space, and time.
‘You saved my life,’ he breathed. Thankfulness he did not deserve welled with a cold, rain-punctured memory from childhood, and he looked at the smooth band of gold on his heart-finger.
The door creaked open, and Meilyr returned with a bowl of deliciously wafting cawl. ‘Forgive me, I did not mean to take so long.’
‘Not at all. Thank you.’
How beautiful he was as he perched on the bed, patient as Osian gathered himself against the headboard.
‘You truly do not have to nurse me—’ Osian’s disloyal body chose that instant to lurch into coughing, by the end of which Meilyr’s hand rested on his arm. He retrieved it shyly. ‘After this, please sleep,’ Meilyr said.
‘I will.’
Osian made himself take up the spoon, resting the bowl on his chest as Meilyr wrung his hands the way he did when he thought no one noticed.
‘You need to rest as well.’ Osian averted his gaze, blowing on the spoon. ‘I can take the divan—’
‘No, absolutely not. Majesty.’
The belated attempt at correctness was so endearing it hurt.