Callum didn’t think he’d ever seen someone clear a room as quickly as Laena did now, like she was a soldier hoping to escape a lecture, or a heart-tithing criminal trying to flee. 

She made her declaration to Hawk, agreeing to his ludicrous marriage proposal, and now she was running. 

She was always fucking running. 

Callum didn’t bother to turn, didn’t care to see the triumph that would no doubt be written across Hawk’s face. Didn’t want to know, truth be told, if Hawk’s expression would prove that this had been yet another calculated move, or if the king truly had no idea of Callum’s regard for his… betrothed. 

No. No, he would not accept that word. Not yet. Callum allowed himself a single, brief moment of stunned silence before starting after her. Hawk called after him, but the crash of the closing doors drowned out the king’s voice well enough that Callum could claim not to have heard. 

“Laena.” His voice barely wanted to leave his throat, but he forced it out as he strode past the alcove where he’d kissed her—he’d just been kissing her—and straight down the hall after her retreating figure. 

She’d made it halfway down the corridor, but her purposeful strides would not outdo his. He caught up easily, matching her pace and doing everything in his power to stem the tide of dismay that threatened to rise and overwhelm him. “What the hell was that?” he asked. “You’ll marry him? Truly?” 

Hawk, whose grudges were deep and unyielding. Who would pay her little mind in comparison to his precious books. Who saw her as his only chance at marriage, and therefore a means to an end—just like Ben and Katrina and Declan, may he rest in fitful fucking misery. And everyone else who should have protected her and supported her. 

Not that it mattered. Laena could have accepted the most deserving man in the Vales, and Callum would still fight it. He wanted to reach for her, to draw her to a pause, to kiss her until she saw reason. It was not too late to undo this, to return to Hawk and explain that she’d been wrong, that she’d spoken in haste. 

Perhaps she doubted Callum’s affection, somehow. Perhaps he’d not been forthcoming enough about his intentions. It was hardly an easy task to give voice his affections. For her, he would try.

But first, he would let her speak. And after a moment, she did. 

“I failed Etra,” she said, her voice a quiet tremble. He could hardly hear her over the tap of their footsteps, still echoing through the hall. “I gave up my crown and I left my people. And look at the result.” 

So it wasn’t anything he’d done, or not done. She was blaming herself for Katrina’s betrayal, and trying to set things right. Because that was what she did. “Laena.”

But she wasn’t going to let him speak. “And now there’s a path.” She was still walking, and he could feel her whole body quivering like she wanted to be wringing her hands, clenching her skirts. Instead, she was containing it all. Pushing her real feelings aside for what she thought was the good of everyone else. “There’s a path for me to make it right, to fix what I ruined. I have to take it.” 

Callum reached for her elbow, drawing her to a pause as gently as he could. If she pulled away, he would let her go. 

She didn’t. 

She was panicking. She’d been awake for less than an hour, after weeks spent enduring disaster after disaster. From shipwreck to kidnapping to battle, not to mention Landon Moore’s insults and her sister’s violent betrayal.

If they could only talk for a moment, if he could make her understand, then this could still be undone. Yes, Hawk would be irritated. But nothing was announced. It could be undone. 

Mages, let it be undone. 

Determined to have a word with her in privacy, he led her toward a small room where on-duty guards could rest and eat during a long day’s work. It wasn’t much, but it was private. More than he could say for this gaping hall, which was meant to be grand and intimidating. It felt like being on a stage. Even with no audience—and he could not guarantee that—the openness made his neck prickle with nerves.  

“It’s a guards’ room,” he said as she paused inside the door, glancing around in curiosity. He was still holding on to her; he didn’t want to let go. “For meals and breaks.” 

Her eyes tracked to the liquor cabinet beside the door, no doubt wondering why soldiers on duty should have access to whiskey, and he grimaced. “I am, occasionally, one of the guards.”

Her expression softened with understanding. It should make him feel vulnerable, and in a way he supposed it did. Only perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing. 

He wanted to pull her closer, to run his lips along the shell of her ear, to kiss her until she couldn’t see straight and remind her what she was choosing by accepting Hawk’s proposal. Or, more accurately, what she was not choosing.  

But she’d voiced a concern. So he would address it. 

“You shouldn’t have given up your crown,” he said. “On that, we can agree.” 

And he could see it on her face, the flash of anger in her eyes as she interpreted it as the insult everyone else leveled at her. Good. She should be indignant. But not for the reason she thought he was.  

“Marrying Hawk won’t make it right,” he went on. “Embracing your power, embracing what it is that you want, that’s how you’ll save your people, Laena. By first saving yourself.” Mages, but she had believe it. “And then by taking your own damn crown back.” 

She scoffed. “A pretty sentiment.” 

Funny, he wasn’t typically accused of being sentimental. Most would probably consider him very much the opposite. What had this woman done to him? “A true one,” he said. 

“Putting myself first is what led to this disaster to begin with.”

He should break away from her now, let go and allow her to step away. Or back up himself, give her space. And mages, he intended to do that. He did. 

Instead, he couldn’t stop himself from skimming his hand up her arm, from leaning in closer to examine her face. Every freckle, every glint of gold in those green eyes, every inch of her was so breathlessly perfect. How could she think otherwise?  

It pissed him off, if he was being honest. 

“Certainly,” he said. “But only if you buy into the story they tell about you. The story Katrina tells about how you gave up your crown to fuck some stablehand—”

“Fuck you.” 

The heat in her voice only made him want to be closer to her, to touch her until she could remember no other man’s name. Much less the king’s. He brushed his fingers along her collarbone, nearly groaning at the softness of her skin. He should stop, mages he had to stop, but his hand didn’t seem to realize it as he raised it higher to caress her throat.

“You are running away,” he said. “Again.” 

“I suppose you claim to have no stake in the choice.” 

There was a challenge in her voice, and in her eyes. Like she was daring him to agree. “I claim no such thing.” He backed her toward the wall until she was flush against it, flush against him, her ear a breath from his lips. Brutal honesty, wasn’t that what she needed from him? “I am in ruins, my lady.” 

She let out the smallest of exhales, and he was undone. Completely, utterly undone. He kissed her, claiming her mouth with his, and instead of pulling away she twined her fingers around the back of his neck, pulling him deeper, closer. His cock hardened, wanting so much more, wanting her skin against his. Wanting all of her. 

When she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, scraping her teeth lightly against his flesh, he nearly lost the last shreds of control he had left. 

“You will martyr yourself, and me with you.” He dragged his lips along her jaw and down her neck as she rocked against his body, wanting him as much as he wanted her. He knew she did. “I don’t want to let you do it.”

She dropped her head back against the wall, allowing him the access he craved. “It’s not up to you.”

It wasn’t. He paused, her skin still warm beneath her lips. He could see her pulse racing in her throat, could practically hear the erratic desperation of it. As if she wanted him to convince her. As if the right combination of words would wake them from a terrible dream.  

One last plea. He could still make one last plea. “You’re right,” he said. “It isn’t. But your power matters. Your desires matter. You needn’t run from them to save the world.”

You needn’t run from me. 

“To save Etra from Kat? From the mages? I have no choice.” 

And that was that. He loved her, wanted her, but he was not going to beg on his knees. She wouldn’t thank him for it. Her answer was clear, and he respected her too much to disregard it. 

With a monumental effort, he broke away from her. He felt like he’d just run ten miles uphill, like he’d just fought the battle of his life. He could still taste her on his lips, the fresh chill of a winter’s day. The salt of the sea. 

“Then I wish you all the best, my lady.” He wanted to mean it. He just wasn’t sure he actually did, not when the best for her meant a life without him. 

With silent thanks to his past self for placing that liquor cabinet by the door, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey and left her alone. As soon as the door shut behind him, he tipped the bottle to his lips, wincing against the burn, and wishing to every demon, mage, and god that had ever existed, in this world and all the others, that she would come after him. 

And knowing all the same that she would not.