At Rowen, Kaian had a habit of lingering in doorways.
I'd open the door to find him standing there, and he'd wait—sometimes for quite a while—as if my invitation needed to be enthusiastic enough. The ritual felt almost domestic, safe.
Here at the hunting lodge, there were no servants waiting outside my door. Everything was different from the royal castle's formality. I felt unexpected relief seeing him there.
"If you're not coming in, should I close the door?" I asked playfully.
"That would be unkind," he replied, stepping inside. The cold air clung to him.
"You haven't changed your clothes," I observed. He still wore hunting garments, coat, and cape.
"Come. We're going out."
"Now? I just changed into nightclothes."
"It doesn't matter. Come."
Before I could protest, he'd dressed me in fur boots, wrapped me in my coat, then swaddled me completely in his cloak. I could barely move.
"What are you doing?"
"It's cold."
He carried me wrapped like cargo through the dark forest. I heard animal sounds in the distance and tried not to panic.
"Kaian, you're not leaving me out here, are you?"
"What kind of question is that?"
He walked with practiced ease down an unlit path until a small log structure appeared. Using his foot to open the door while still holding me, he set me down inside.
Warm, humid air enveloped me.
The interior was nothing like the rough exterior suggested—it was a proper bathhouse with tiled walls and plaster finishing. A large wooden barrel sat sunken into the floor, luxury chairs arranged around it.
Without explanation, Kaian untied my wrappings, removed my boots, and settled me into one of the chairs. He gestured to the water.
"Put your legs in."
I did, rolling my pajama legs up to my knees. The water was hot—hotter than my usual bath temperature—and the moment my legs submerged, the chronic ache I'd been ignoring for days simply... dissolved.
"How is it?" he asked.
I'd never mentioned pain. Yet he'd known.
"How did you know my leg hurt?" I asked quietly.
"You've been walking differently since we arrived in the capital. Your gait changed. I noticed the first day."
I hadn't realized it was so obvious. The walking, the stairs, keeping pace with crowds—it had been difficult. I'd attributed it to lack of exercise, planning to walk more at Rowen.
"This is the Holderley Round hot springs," Kaian explained, sitting beside me and rolling up his sleeve. Without asking, he began massaging my calf, his touch both gentle and therapeutic. "Rest here for a few days. The springs will help significantly."
I stared at him working, tears unexpectedly stinging my eyes.
*I was going to ask him about Bianque.*
Looking at him now, all my doubts vanished. The man who treated even royalty with cold indifference was utterly focused on my legs, his eyes soft with concern.
"Thank you," I said.
"It was nothing."
"You don't like the capital. Yet you came here deliberately. For me, wasn't it?"
He removed his hand from the water, shaking it dry. "I've been busy rebuilding Rowen these past years. But yes, I came deliberately. I knew the hot springs would help with your recovery."
My heart raced at the revelation. He'd planned this. He'd known what I needed before I did.
"I've troubled you."
"It's no trouble." He stroked my head, an unusually tender gesture. "If there is any woman who could trouble me, who else could it be but you?"
His words were crude in delivery but honest in meaning. He was a good husband—careful, attentive, devoted in ways he rarely articulated.
I wanted to tell him how I felt. But words, once spoken, can't be retrieved.
Without thinking, I stood abruptly. Water sloshed from the barrel, spilling across the tiled floor.
"Why—" Kaian began, looking up in confusion.
I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him toward me.
His head tilted back, lips parting in surprise.
I kissed him desperately, pouring months of accumulated emotion into the contact. My tongue pushed between his lips, claiming him with an urgency that made my breath ragged.
I wanted to consume him. To make him mine so completely that nothing—not Valquiterre's obsession, not Bianque's desperation, not duty or politics or death—could take him from me.
But I had no power to enforce such possession. My money, my status, even my body—all subordinate to him as long as he allowed it.
The desire I didn't possess transformed into obsession. An emptiness that couldn't be filled, even as I held him close.
After a long kiss that seemed to reach into the very core of my greed, all strength left my body.
When I regained awareness, I was sitting on his thighs, his arms supporting me.
Candlelight flickered across his face, obscuring his expression. I didn't care. There was only honesty left—honesty toward my own heart, toward my own desperate need.
I embraced him and whispered what I'd been holding back for months.
"I want to have you."
Not as a wife fulfilling duty. Not as a politically necessary union. But as a woman who loved him completely, impossibly, without reserve.
"I want you to be only mine, Kaian."
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