Page 126 of Winds of Ruin
He sighed. “I want what is right—to keep the Corridor safe and to leave no one vulnerable. Plus, I have an advisor who would never steer me wrong.” He seared me with one of those damned expressions of adoration.
I sipped the liquor. “I’m doing the job asked of me.”
His stare narrowed. “You always sell your capabilities short. There’s not another person alive who could juggle the affairs ofthree courts, spend her free time raiding old tombs, and have the audacity to look as glowing as you do.”
The light of the fire danced across his features as he picked up his glass and sipped it, fixated on me. I desperately tried to quell the lightheaded feeling his compliments inspired.
“You think I’m glowing, pet?” I teased, glancing over my glass at him.
“You’re stunning, and you know it. Don’t insult me by not accepting the compliment. I’m not getting distracted this time.”
I huffed and winced at the liquor’s burn. “Handsome and charming. How does one get so lucky?”
He closed his eyes and rested his head back on the chair cushion. “I don’t know about all of that. But you’re still speaking to me. I’d say that makes me the luckiest man alive.”
I watched him as he rubbed his temples.
The taste of his lips haunted me; his smile sent a fluttering sensation to my stomach. Yet I couldn’t let him settle for me.
The world had just opened up for him. He was turning fifty—young for an immortal. So many possibilities awaited him. A crown, a future, a son.
After a long silence stretched between us, he seemed to read where my mind had wandered. “What if he hates me for not trying to find him? What do you evensayto a child you spent twenty years apart from?”
I straightened in my seat and pulled the nightgown down over my knees. “Hate you? Impossible. You’ve beenasleep.And he’s been loitering around Luz, around you, for years. You say something from the heart; you say what you feel.”
Hypocritical, really.
His hand dropped away from his face, and he looked over at me. “He did?”
“Yes. I always wondered where Lark’s fascination with you stemmed. It makes a lot more sense now that I think about it.”
He smiled.
Flutter.
I would die wanting this man, and knowing it was best to set him on his way.
“I can’t help but feel a sense of hope. What if they succeed together? I’ve no attachment to the boy and yet… I just know he will be a better man than I have been.”
I set down my glass abruptly. “If I’m not allowed to diminish my accomplishments, you’re not allowed to say such things about yourself, either. You are among the best of men—not the man that Caym made you to be.”
Letting my chin fall onto my palm, I seared him with my best stubborn stare. He met it with hesitation.
“Then, why does it feel like I’m not out of his grasp? Like nothinggoodwill ever truly be mine again?” The burning in his eyes made my heart skip. “I used to dream of having the life my parents led—quiet, happy, safe. A roof over my children’s heads, food on the table. It seemed so simple. Yet now I have a son that I don’t even know. I missed it all.”
His words only proved his error. He was worthy of all his former dreams coming true.
My blood ran hot, thinking about all the time Caym had stolen from him. “You can still have your dream. Yes, Caym took away your chance to raise Dritan, but immortal life is not defined by what you do in your first fifty years, or first hundred, or more even. You are only getting started.” I dared not look at him.
“Did you ever want children?” His voice quieted as he eased the question out.
I shrugged, though my throat itched and my palms felt clammy. “When I was around your age, I used to have this recurring dream. I had a babe, but I would keep forgetting they were mine or how to care for them. Each time, I’d wake up feeling broken up about it.
“It may have been my mind’s way of telling me I’d never be ready for such an attachment. Now I’mmuchtoo old, anyway, but I’ve never regretted not having children.”
Stranger things had happened; but conceiving after an immortal’s hundredth birthday was rare, and often only occurred between Source Matches.
He hummed and tapped his fingers against the chair’s arm. “The way you are with Lark—you’re her fiercest protector, and she seems to think the world of you. I doubt she feels likethatlacks attachment.”
