What if it was true and I’d been a fool all this time? What if everything I knew had been a lie?
If I’d truly misjudged Alrec so terribly, had I misjudged Caiman as well?
Except I’dheardCaiman speaking with Alrec that day, saying terrible things about me.
How could I trust myself knowing someone I loved may have been fooling me all these years? How did I know Caiman wasn’t taking advantage of me too?
She is a monster.
I shook my head against the memory. We’d been young. I may have been enamored with Caiman, but that didn’t mean he had felt the same about me. And it didn’t change the fact that we were married now and needed to find a way to heal the wounds of our past and move forward together.
I untied the bandages wrapped around Caiman’s palm to find the edges of the self-inflicted wound angry and red. Closing my eyes, I called upon my power, searching for its familiar heat and sending it toward him, feeling it travel from my body to his.
The wounds were small, and yet the pain in him was as great as that of the man I’d felt dying in the courtyard. Beads of sweat collected on my brow, and the room began to spin. It felt as if I was falling into a pit with no light and no end, swallowing me, dragging me under.
“Roisin?” The concern in Caiman’s soft tone brought me back from the darkness.
I opened my eyes to find him staring, brow furrowed and lips turned down. Although the wound across his palm had healed and his knuckles no longer showed damage, the scars remained.
“There. All better,” I whispered, licking my dry lips.For a split second, I could’ve sworn his gaze dropped to my mouth. I offered my husband a tentative smile, clutching the edge of the cushion to keep from passing out. My limbs felt as if I had swum across the sea.
“Thank you.”Caiman lifted a scarred hand to brush aside a strand of hair that had fallen over my shoulder. Every nerve in my body sparked to life as his fingers lingered, tracing my bare collarbone.
“You could never disgust me,” he said as if it were some deep, dark confession.
All this time, I’d thought his eyes were black, but they weren’t. They were the darkest shade of brown, like a cup of the strongest tea.
And his lips . . .
If I leaned toward him, ours would meet.Perhaps this was the way we started over. The way we moved forward.
“Your shawl, milady,” Lowri clipped from the doorway.
Caiman clattered to his feet as if we’d been caught doing something far more scandalous than sharing a sofa. I pressed my spine into the cushions at my back, desperate to calm my uneven breathing before anyone noticed. If only the ferocious blush creeping up my neck were as easy to control. “Thank you, Lowri.” I took the offered garment, wrapping it around my overwarm shoulders.
I could’ve sworn a smile ghosted across Broderick’s face from his post at the door.
“You should refer to her as ‘your highness,’” Caiman said. Although he had spoken to Lowri, his gaze remained fixed on me. “She is, after all, my wife.”
“My apologies,your highness,” Lowri amended with a curtsy.
Caiman nodded and left the room. Perhaps being married to a dark prince wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Lowri propped her fists on her hips. “So?”
“So, what?”
“So yesterday you were all ‘I hate him’ and last night you refused to let him in your bed. And then today you’re all ‘let me stare into your eyes until I drown.’”
I immediately regretted telling Lowri what had happened after the marriage feast. It was none of her business anyway. “Why is your opinion the only one allowed to change?”
“Because I’m not the one in love with his brother.”
Guilt tugged at my core. Was I to hate Caiman for eternity because I had loved Alrec? Should I wear my grief like a shroud for everyone to see so they didn’t judge me too harshly for trying to move on? “I am trying to make the best of things, Lowri.”
But to do that, I would need to know if I could truly trust Caiman.
I needed to learn the truth.