There was an edge in his voice, a need to share with her. Dinah realized with a ragged breath that their relationship was about to change. Her heart started to gallop within her chest, racing so fast she felt it might explode. Despite all the oxygen running through her veins, she was frozen in place. Wardley seemed oblivious to her discomfort. He leaned back onto the mossy ground, stretching his arms above his head, his words shaping her world.
“Tonight could be the last night that I watch the stars simply to remember my place in this world. Everything that we have can be taken away. It will be taken away for many men that rest in those tents, maybe from you, maybe from me. There is no time to waste.”
Dinah felt a fury climbing up through her chest, only this time it was different. This was a longing, a need, something that felt like falling, like a string was yanking her heart out of her chest. Toward him, only him, always him. She was no longer in control—all she could feel was the desire to touch him. The passion crawled up through her until she became its puppet. It moved her limbs, her mind, her lips. She wanted him. She had waited long enough, and had almost lost him once.
“If this is the last time we will be together, then there is something . . . Dinah, what are you doing?”
He was still speaking when Dinah leaned over him, her arms on either side of his body.
Tenderly, she bent over him, her lips brushing his, as gentle and soft as dew drops on a petal. His were warm and moist, and tipped with everything good Dinah had ever tasted. Her red lips dusted across his, feeling his mouth staying painfully still. He lay motionless, frozen. What am I doing? Dinah yanked her head back and looked down at him with confusion and hesitation.
Wardley remained perfectly still for a moment, and then he grabbed the back of her head roughly and pressed his lips hard against hers. Dinah gasped at the force with which he kissed her. It was a hungry kiss with more than a hint of anger beneath it. With a grunt, he flipped Dinah onto her back and leveled his body over hers before he started kissing her again, ever harder, until Dinah felt her lips going numb. She lost herself in him, tasting the sweet hint of mint leaves on his tongue, feeling the muscles rippled across his shoulders as he pressed down against her. A whimper escaped his lips, falling into her own, hungrily sucked down into her core. The kisses were delicious and full of pleasure, and yet, something wasn’t right. His weight was too heavy, his motions too hard. Wardley’s hands were pressed against her shoulders as if he was holding himself back. His pose was defensive, his body tensed in anger. As he kissed her furiously, Dinah felt a wet tear drip down his face onto her cheek. She pushed his face back. It took her a minute to catch her breath. This was not how she dreamed their first true kiss would be—aggressive and accompanied by tears.
“Wardley, what is wrong? What are you doing?” Her eyes traveled over the face she knew so well, and she could feel her heart wrench painfully when she recognized his grim determination. He was forcing himself to kiss her. Dinah felt the creepings of a familiar dark emotion as she looked up at the man she loved so much: rejection.
“I’m sorry, Dinah.” He turned away from her, his voice shaking. “I can’t do this.”
Dinah’s hands clenched. “What do you mean, you can’t do this?”
Wardley sat back and extended his hand to help her up. Dinah slapped it away. “Please don’t touch me.” She sat up, her limbs trembling with unfulfilled passion.
This couldn’t be happening. No.
“Dinah!” Wardley grabbed her roughly, his hands on the sides of her neck, his forehead pushed up against hers. His voice was filled with desperation. “Don’t you understand? I want to love you this way. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to love you in this way, the way you love me. I’ve begged and pleaded with the gods to give me those feelings for you! I want to be your king, your husband, your lover. But I cannot . . .” He struggled with the words. “I can’t force myself to feel those things for you, no matter how much I wish it.”
“You don’t mean it. I can’t . . .” Her voice trembled.
Wardley jerked backward, and the look of devastation in his eyes shattered her hopeful, delicate heart.
Dinah finished. “I can’t lose you too.”
Wardley cringed.
“You are my best friend, a part of me! I will fight for your right to rule to my death! Does that mean anything?” His face was contorted in agony as he looked into her black eyes. “Dinah, please say something. I can’t bear the silence.”
They were both breathing heavily now. Dinah stared at him, her heart falling, spilling like blood down her chest, pouring out from her feet, seeping into the ground. The world was cracking, reassembling itself into dark, jagged places.
“Dinah, please say something. I can’t bear the silence.”
Her eyes were opened anew.
“Do not speak to me.”
Dinah felt a ripping that was both parts of her soul and her vision of their future. It was like being plunged into icy waters when you were burning hot. She was left empty, drained—without her love, without him. . . . He would never be hers.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t bear to look at his beautiful face for another second.
He didn’t want her.
“Please leave.” She turned away from him, her voice flat and dead. “Please leave, Sir Wardley. You have done your duty here.”
He grabbed her arm and tugged it. “Don’t turn away from me. I won’t leave you, not in this state. Please, look at me.”
She turned to him, her face a grimace of stone. “Is this all a game, Wardley? One more secret of my twisted upbringing? Did someone hire you to make me love you? Do you remember that day under the Julla Tree, when you kissed me? Was that part of the plan?”
Wardley grabbed her hands. “There was no plan. You were always my plan, but I can’t . . . make myself want you, not in that way. And of course I remember the Julla Tree. I kissed you because I wanted to. Because you were the first girl that I ever cared for. But even then, I knew that my feelings for you were not of that nature, no matter how much I tried to force them.”
“Force them? Did you force yourself to play with me when we were children? Did Cheshire put you up to it? Or to seek me out when we were older? Were you forced to train me on the sword or to follow me here?”
Wardley shook his head angrily. “No. Never! You’re not listening. You don’t understand. Dinah, I would do anything for you!”
“Except truly love me in the way a man should love a woman,” she replied coldly. “Except kiss me.”
“Does that even matter?”
Dinah let out a hysterical laugh. “Does that matter? Does it matter?” She bent over, shallow prickly laughs tearing her into pieces. “It was the only thing that ever mattered, Wardley.”
Wardley closed his eyes and whispered to her, his words drifting off in the wind, blowing away with every light dream she had ever had. “I am yours in every other way . . . you are my best friend . . . my queen.”
She couldn’t listen anymore to his words. Not when her heart was thumping on the ground, bleeding, dying. Tears were flooding her vision, and a retching sob was making its way up her throat. She took a deep breath. “I need you to leave. Now, Wardley.”
“Dinah, no—”