been sure had left her completely boneless. Destroyed inside and out. And she’d been fiercely glad that they hadn’t been facing each other, because she was terribly afraid Kavian would have seen too easily all the ways she was ripped wide open. That her vulnerability was written right there across her face.
But she thought he knew, even so.
When it had come time to climb back on the horses and head south toward the palace, she was grateful. It had meant long hours for her to put herself back together before anyone could study the ways she’d fallen apart. Before she had to admit it to herself, how broken she’d become out there. Or, far worse, how much she’d liked it. Hours to hide herself away again, behind a mask she hadn’t understood she was wearing until he’d torn it off.
“I’ve never understood the appeal of the desert,” she said now, forgetting to censor herself as the sprawling royal stables came into view before them. Was that relief she felt that this ride—this odd interlude—would soon be over? Or something far more complicated?
“Never?” He made that low sound that was his form of laughter, that she found she craved all the more by the day. “But you are the daughter of a mighty desert king. It is deep in your blood whether you understand it or not. It is your birthright.”
“I’ve never cared much for sand,” Amaya said.
“Is this where you try to put up all your walls again, azizty?” His mouth was right there at her ear, and his voice was a dark flame that lit her from within, that dark current of amusement ratcheting the heat in her even higher. “How many ways must I take you before you understand that there will be no walls between us? There will be nothing but surrender. It would be better by far if you accepted this now.”
“Or perhaps I simply do not care for sand,” she said, and she laughed, then felt his hard muscles tighten all around her in reaction. “Not everything is a conspiracy, Kavian. Some things are simply statements.”
“And some statements have consequences.” His eyes would be gleaming silver if she could see them, she was sure. “As I have been at some pains to show you.”
“Is that what you call it? I rather thought you were putting on a grand show. Hauling me into the harem baths, then off to play queen of the desert tribes with no warning. It’s almost as if you don’t really want a queen at all, so much as a plaything.”
“Surely not having to choose is a benefit of royalty,” he said, and there was no denying the laughter in his voice then. “I will have to consult the manual upon our return.”
Amaya felt that as a victory, the rumble of laughter in his chest behind her. From the man who’d stood before her like marble to tell her the worst of himself, to this man who laughed with her, and it was all her doing. There were darker things that batted at her then, but she ignored them. She would bask in this, even if only for a moment. That she could do this for him. Take a stone and make him a man again. Even if only for a moment.
Even if only for her.
Kavian didn’t speak as they rode into the great courtyard. He swung from the horse’s back as they entered and led her the rest of the way toward the waiting stable hands. He lifted her from the saddle the way he had before, lowering her to the ground in a manner that only called attention to his superior strength.
And made her wish they were alone so she could feel the drag of his mighty chest against hers again. Like the addict she knew she was.
“We marry in two weeks, Amaya,” he said, the vastness of the desert in his voice and silver in his gray eyes, and she felt it like a caress. All of it. His command. His authority. Like a long, hot, drugging kiss. It made her feel alive.
“Perhaps if you didn’t keep saying that like it was a dire threat, you’d get a better response,” she said, tipping her head back to meet his gaze.
Her reward was that crook of his hard mouth. That gleam in his dark eyes.
“You prefer the threat, I think,” he said, and ran a fingertip along the line of her jaw. There was no reason it should echo throughout the rest of her, making even the blood in her veins clamor for more. “You rise to meet it every time. You’ll make me an excellent queen, azizty.”
And when she didn’t argue that away for once, when she only met his gaze and let her mouth curve instead, Kavian smiled.
Amaya felt it deep inside her, warm and bright, like a song she told herself she’d let herself sing for a little while.
Just a little while longer.
WHEN THE WEEK of their wedding dawned, Kavian insisted upon greeting all of their guests in the most formal manner possible, and he didn’t much care that the idea of such pomp and circumstance made Amaya balk.
“We’re not really going to sit in thrones and wave scepters about, are we?” she asked, her voice as baleful as her gaze as she stared at him from across the length of her dressing room. He’d instructed her attendants to prepare her for court, and the scowl on her face did nothing to take away from the breathtaking new gown she wore or the hair she wore up in a marvelous sweep of combs and braids, exactly as he’d wanted it. She looked exquisite. Deeply, irrevocably regal. The perfect queen.
But Kavian thought he knew this woman well enough by now to know better than to point that out to her. She might have stepped into her role in the desert. But he wasn’t fool enough to think she’d accepted it entirely. He needed to marry her, tie her up in legal knots, make sure she understood what he’d known since their betrothal: this was for life. There was no escaping it, for either one of them.
“There is only one throne,” he told her mildly. He remained where he was in the doorway as the women fussed over her skirts, his gaze trained on her lovely face and the hint of emotion he could see on her cheeks. “I sit in it. But if you wish to wield a royal scepter, I am certain we can have one made for you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kavian knew the exact moment she realized that was, perhaps, not the best way to address him in the presence of others. She straightened. Her dark chocolate eyes gleamed with more of that hectic emotion he’d seen more and more of the closer they got to their wedding date. “I don’t need a scepter. I have no desire whatsoever to play queen of the castle.”
“That is the problem, azizty. No one is playing, save you. Because you are, in fact, the queen not only of this particular castle but of all the land.”
Her scowl deepened as she dismissed her attendants and walked to him, and he took a moment longer than he should have to admire her. To soak her in. It wasn’t merely that she was so beautiful, or how she looked every inch a queen today. It was how perfectly she fit here. In this life. On his arm. At his side.
Did she truly fail to see that? Or was this merely another one of the games she liked to play—her way of teasing him to a distraction? He reached over when she drew near and wrapped his hand around her upper arm, enjoying the way she swallowed. Hard. Because she could deny a thousand things, but never that fire that raged between them. Never that.
“And if you look at me like that in the throne room, in public, in the presence of our guests,” he said softly, “you will regret it. I am only as civilized as it suits me to be. That can change in an instant.”
She
