Moon's Flower (Kingdom, #6)

Her brows quirked. “Where are you going tonight in such a hurry?” her words were soft but with a flinty edge beneath.

Grinding his molars, he plastered on a tight smile. If he said he wasn’t sure, she’d know it for the lie it was, since it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that he was in a hurry. But if he actually told her where he was going, he didn’t see it ending well either.

“To the sea.” He was deliberately vague.

Licking her plump, red lips he could just see the thoughts moving like cogs behind her eyes. “Which sea, love?”

Hot beneath his collar, he slapped at his neck and swallowed the growl that threatened to choke him. “Why does it matter?” he chuckled, pretending as if he didn’t have a clue why she questioned him this way. But it’d been two months now that he hadn’t gone to visit Siria during the lifting of the veil.

The times he’d gone to see her hadn’t been anything other than an effort to keep their strained relationship from fracturing completely, but he wondered if maybe she’d hoped for more than what he’d offered. Maybe he shouldn’t have done it, but Jericho didn’t want there to be nothing but hate between them either. It was no way to live for the next three hundred years.

“Because you seem reckless in your attempt to get away.” Her smile was broad, open, showing most of her teeth. “Who is she, Jericho?”

He didn’t like the insinuation that it was any of her business, nor did he care for the way her words sliced the air. Like she was spitting out a curse.

“Siria,” he said in his most patient tone, though it was wearing extremely thin at the moment, “we’ve talked about this before. What I do, who I see, it is none of your concern. But if you must know I go to see a friend, that is all.”

She wasn’t buying it and he knew it. She was too smart and he’d been an idiot to let his temper show.

Siria’s temper was as fiery as the sun she controlled. The last thing he needed was for her jealous eye to turn Calanthe’s way. Which meant, he’d have to go to the sea first. She would probably send a tracker on him now.

Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply. Wishing he had more power than he actually did, but the sun controlled everything. And Calanthe’s blooms could not grow without its warm rays, so he smiled, and pressed a kiss to her hot cheek, before nodding.

“Siria, we are friends. And that is all you need to know.”

“Then come to my bed this eve. Make love to me beneath a blanket of stars, just as we once did.”

Tired of this battle, and her constant need for him, he rubbed his brow. “I can’t and you know why. We can be friends, Siria. Why do you always make me repeat myself? Why can’t you just accept that things are as they are?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Because you are mine. I brought you here. You loved me, Jericho. Do you know how many others I’ve burned? But not you.” She stepped in closer, framing his face in her hands, tawny eyes searching his. “You were made for me.”

Gently prying himself from her grasp, he shook his head. “You told me once, there are many mortals capable of filling my role. I am nothing special. You’ve had men in the moon before me, there will be more after me.”

“No!” She shook her head, as her face morphed into a mask of fury. “None that could handle my heat, my touch. You were made for me, Jericho. You are my match. My only match and I will not let anyone else have you!”

For the first time, her madness scared him. Not for himself, but for Calanthe. Siria’s obsession could be held in check, so long as he remained unattached. But what would happen if she ever discovered his truth? His love?

A terrible, slinking feeling burrowed through his gut and settled in his soul. Because the realization was this… to protect Calanthe would mean he’d have no choice but to leave her.

Siria’s reach was too powerful. He’d seen her capacity for cruelty in many forms. How she’d burn a land to ashes, refusing the skies to open and bring much needed rain. The drought that spread through certain lands like a plague, killing crops and people in an unmerciful path of destruction.

The glen was so rich with beauty, fairies were nature’s emissary… they could not survive in such a dead place.

His loathing for Siria grew even stronger then. For so many years he’d tried to set aside his anger and hatred, tried to be her friend again.

“I have to go,” he murmured.

Her nostrils flared. “Do not make me angry, Jericho. I only wish to love you.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he jumped into the tunnel that had formed and headed to the Seren Seas.

His disposition was cold and aloof when he took his seat on his rock. The maidens must have noticed, because they all gave him wide berth, casting furtive glances in his direction, but none came to talk to him.

His thoughts were like dogs chasing after rabbits, chaotic and frenzied. No matter how many different scenarios he ran through, the outcome was always the same.