“No,” he shook his head, “this is not an argument. What you choose to do with all that anger is your business. But you can’t control the world; someone will always be there to wrong you. It’s your choice to let it go. Only you can decide the woman you want to be.”
It’s finally time to let it go. I’m not excusing Montes’s atrocities, nor all the monstrous acts that his war brought with it. No, I’m releasing my bitterness so that I can find peace within myself. I want to be that woman my father spoke of, the woman my mother might’ve imagined I’d become.
Perhaps my father was against my current circumstance. It doesn’t change the fact that he always wanted the best for me. He’d want this, serenity.
By the time we arrive back at the king’s palace by the sea, my father’s remains are on their way to becoming ash. I didn’t think he’d want to be buried in the ground after spending so many years down in the bunker.
Once he’s cremated, I intend to scatter his ashes over our homeland, just like we did my mother’s.
I walk into Montes’s room—our room—and see the bed I lost my virginity in. I have mixed feelings about this place, but it’s definitely better than Geneva, where memories of my father haunt the halls.
Montes comes in behind me. His arms weave around my torso and across my stomach. It’s clear what feelings this room stirs in him.
He places a kiss along my neck. This hasn’t happened in awhile—angry hallway encounter not withstanding. Surgeries, kidnapping, and healing wounds have kept us apart. But as the king’s hands glide down my torso, I can tell that’s all about to change.
I turn my head to face him. The look he gives me commands attention—demands I quiet my thoughts so that I can be filled with his. I see his charisma, his charm. It’s what everyone notices, but below all those hardened layers is a shred of the man he must have been long ago. Someone who wasn’t nearly so cruel. Perhaps it isn’t just me who’s capable of becoming a better person.
His fingers hook under my shirt, and he peels it off me.
“I hate you,” I say quietly, without any of my usual venom.
Montes tosses my shirt aside. “I know—you’ve told me many times.” He doesn’t stop undressing me.
“But.”
The king’s hands still on the button of my pants. “But?” he repeats calmly. I know his cool demeanor is a ruse, especially when his eyes slowly travel up to mine.
I press the palm of my hand to the side of his face. “But it is not the only thing I feel for you.”
The king’s eyes smolder at my words. He understands what I’m saying even if I can’t really put words to it.
He threads a hand behind my neck and pulls me to him, and I catch sight of it: a flicker of something vulnerable and compassionate on the king’s face. His lips press hard against mine, kissing me like I’m his oxygen. This is magic, this is heaven, this is everything my life has denied me.
We begin tugging off our clothes. My hands grasp the collar of Montes’s shirt, and I yank it open, popping buttons as I go. He growls low in this throat. The sound makes me pause until I realize that this is an approving sound.
The king pushes me up against the wall, and my back hits hard.
“Fuck,” the king swears quietly, “did that hurt?”
There’s that shred of humanity again in his eyes. Too bad it’s misplaced. I am most comfortable with pain.
I tunnel my fingers into his hair and drag his head back harshly. “Don’t stop.”
The king’s eyes hood, and he recaptures my mouth, his tongue forcing its way in.
For all his rough ministrations, his hands and his gaze are gentle. While his chest pins me to the wall and his mouth pillages mine, his fingers trail down the skin of my arms and my torso. They come to a halt low on my belly, and there they linger.
It’s the area where a woman carries a child and just below the epicenter of my cancer.
The king falls to his knees and kisses it. I lean my head back and close my eyes at the tender gesture. We both know the king’s plans for an heir will be put on hold indefinitely—at least if he wants one that shares my blood. It’s one of the many things that go unsaid between the two of us because we can’t seem to acknowledge things that waken our cold, charred hearts. Like the fact that I’m still dying.
He unzips my pants, tugs them off, leaving me in only my lingerie. That’s what I wear now—scraps of lace. I only tolerate them because I’m obviously not wasting material.
Montes stares at them, and I can see his thoughts turning wicked. “I wouldn’t have guessed my wife would go for these.” His eyes move to mine. “I always assumed you were more of a cotton panties lady.”
“Better be careful what you say when my knee is that close to your face.”
A wolfish smile breaks out on his face. His lips skim over the material, and then he drags them off of my legs.
Suddenly I feel far too exposed. I’ve only done this with Montes a handful of times, and before that, never. I’m not used to baring myself, and the king is at face-level with the most intimate parts of me. I reach down to cover myself, and the king catches my hands.
“I don’t think so.” He pins them to my side.
When he moves his mouth to my core, I yelp. “Montes!”
I’m scandalized; I wasn’t aware that anything could still shock me.
The king lets out a husky laugh, then his lips return to the sensitive flesh. I don’t last long. My legs buckle, and Montes is there to catch me. He stands and picks me up.
He quiets me with another kiss, and carries me to our bed. When he lays me out on it and removes the last of his clothes, I swear his eyes shine in the dim glow of the room’s light.
Where I’m modest with nudity, the king isn’t. Once he’s fully unclothed, he approaches me, completely unselfconscious. My eyes stray to all the pleasing lines of his body. He is mesmerizing to look at.