And for reasons he couldn’t even begin to explain, an image of Ember popped into his head. She’d always loved to share showers. He hadn’t thought about that in a long time, either.
Alura had despised it. She thought it was intrusive and gross.
But Ember …
She’d lived to corner him right after he’d rinsed the soap off and then give him a whole ’nother reason to have to bathe again. His body went rock hard at the thought of her mouth sliding over his skin until he begged her for mercy.
Desire hit him like an Andarion Ring fighter and left him breathless. Squeezing his eyes shut, he savored the memories of Ember and the way she used to hold him. The way she’d laugh and tease. No one had ever loved him the way she did.
No one had ever hurt him the way she had either.
And that was the double-edged axe that slit him to the core of his soul every time he allowed himself to think about her or to remember his past.
While he wanted to cut the throat of his now ex-wife—Alura had filed for divorce and been granted it by the Trigon Court two weeks after his arrest—he couldn’t bring himself to hate Ember.
Even now. Even though he really wanted to at times. Even though a part of him wanted to lay all of this at her feet and blame her.
He couldn’t. And for that, he hated himself.
“I just hope you’re happy.”
Though it killed him to think about it, he prayed that whatever man she’d found to replace him gave her the love she deserved. That the lucky dog treasured her the way he should.
And that thought made his gut tighten. Worse, it churned up bitter emotions and memories.
You faithless, worthless bastard!
He flinched as a memory of one of Alura’s more stellar tantrums intruded. She’d been so angry when she found out that he’d been arrested for assaulting Ember’s rebound boyfriend. He hadn’t meant to.
But there he’d been, back from patrol, when he overheard her sister Cin talking about how upset Ember was that her new guy had stood her up after they’d been dating for a couple of months.
Worse, he’d heard Ember’s voice over the link as she cried to her sister. “Why can’t anyone love me, Cin? What is so wrong with me?”
Next thing he’d known, he’d tracked the bastard down and had beaten the utter shit out of him.
Yeah, that had bent Alura into all kinds of pissed off.
But he didn’t want to think about her right now. He needed to find some way to get free of this death sentence so that he could hand-carry one back to Barnabas.
Finishing up his shower, he left the room just as Jullien returned.
Jullien wore a peculiar expression before he gestured toward the towel Bastien had been molesting on his arrival. Not in a sexual way. But because it’d been so long since he’d last touched anything so soft and good-smelling. “You can have some of the towels, if you want.”
Embarrassed that Julie had caught him in a moment of sad weakness, Bastien actually blushed. “Pathetic, right?”
“Not about to judge. You don’t want to know how sorry my state was when my wife found me.” He handed a tray of food to Bastien.
At first, he tried to eat like a human, but this was real food. It was warm and delicious. Before he knew it, he was attacking it like a savage and shoving it into his mouth by the handfuls.
Then he made the mistake of glancing to Jullien and realizing that his gluttony, like his towel molestation, had a witness to it.
I am an animal.
Horrified, Bastien wiped his hands off. “Sorry.”
“Again, no apologies. Ever. I get it.”
Sighing over what a pathetic mess he was, Bastien set the napkin aside. “Who would have ever thought this would be our lives, huh? As a boy, I thought by now I’d be ruling, in complete bliss.” That was what his parents had planned for his future. A nice heiress in another empire.
But he’d wrecked that design the moment he met Ember.
“I never thought I’d live long enough to rule. Gods’ truth to that. Every day I woke alive in that palace, I counted it a miracle.”
Shocked by Jullien’s confession, Bastien set the tray aside. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Once Nykyrian was gone, I figured it was just a matter of time until one of my cousins grew brazen enough to take the fatal shot.”
“That’s why you wanted to live with your father?”
“Why else?”
Bastien let out a bitter laugh. “Your father thought it was a ruse of your grandmother’s so that you could take his throne.”
Jullien rolled his eyes. “Of course he did. All he had to do was marry and screw another whore for a son. I wouldn’t have cared. I just wanted away from Andaria.”
Scowling, Bastien gaped at him. “You know why he never did, right?”
“No idea whatsoever.”