"You hate me. Why save me? Answer."
“I should hate you, but I don’t.”
"Liar," I hissed.
“I have never lied to you, Princess.”
I launched at him again, driving an uppercut toward his jaw, then a cross-hook right after. He blocked them easily, still refusing to hit back, even though I knew he could. Fine. I’d use that.
“Who taught you to make healing potions?” I asked, keeping my guard up.
"You want answers but won't give yours. That's not trust," Lorik said, walking forward, guard down.
Without responding, I drove my knee into his gut with all the strength I had. That one landed as he was distracted.
He grunted and staggered back a step, the hit hurting just enough to satisfy me.
“If you must know, my mother is using the attack and Thalen for her own political gain and twisting the truth. Again, no one cares what I want,” I said while hitting a roundhouse kick. But he caught my leg mid-air, twisted, and yanked. My balance vanished, and I hit the floor hard.
“I learned healing potions from my mother,” he said.
A knot tightened in my chest at the mention of his dead mother, a piercing ache that nearly jammed my next movement. For an instant, sympathy clawed at me, raw and unwanted. Not now. Not with anger and regret writhing inside me like barbed wire.
I swept my leg out, catching his ankle. He stumbled and hit the floor beside me. Before he could recover, I lunged, straddling his torso and pinning him down. His wrists were solid beneath my grip, trapped above his head, our breaths crashing between us in the charged space I’d forced us into.
“I am sorry about your mother,” I said, leaning in.
He didn’t move. His breath hitched, barely, but enough.
“I am sorry you are forced into marriage with a vain and self-righteous Sunheart,” Lorik said, almost with kindness. He knew exactly why I was upset when I got here.
We both shared a truth for a truth. Now we both stood still in silence.
My legs were braced over the hard lines of his core, my weight pressed against him. His face was only inches from mine, too close, dangerously close.
I lost myself in his silver-bright eyes, the same eyes that had undone me in the tavern days ago. My grip on his wrists trembled, nerves sparking through me like static.
His gaze flickered to my mouth for half a heartbeat. But he didn’t blink, didn’t shift, didn’t even try to break free.
He just looked up at me, gaze steady, sharp, searching, as if trying to decode something written on my skin. I could feel his chest expanding below my tights. Our breathing from the fight was at the same fast rhythm.
If anyone walked onto the terrace right now, this would look compromising and completely inappropriate.
And for one suspended heartbeat, I didn’t care.
Then I heard footsteps and voices approaching. The sound snapped me back to myself. My grip faltered, and before I could fully scramble off him, Rory and Ugo stepped onto the terrace.
I froze.
Then I shot to my feet so fast I nearly tripped. Lorik stood as well, slow, unbothered, almost bored and broke the silence before their stares could settle into judgment.
“It seems the princess has recovered,” he said casually. “She almost kicked my ass.”
He stepped off the mat, uncapped his water bottle, and drank like nothing remotely compromising had just happened.
I followed him off the mat, my face burning. “I didn’t almost kick your ass,” I said, louder than necessary. “I did kick your ass. I swept you and pinned you to the…”
I stopped.