I shrugged a shoulder. I didn’t wish to reveal that it throbbed whenever I moved too quickly. When Lenka had earlier undressed me, I’d had to hold the frame of the box bed for balance.
My breath caught as the prince’s hand moved under mine to raise my candle to my face. His skin was warm, his pressure gentle but unyielding. He studied my eyes for several moments, examining me like he was a physician. It took all my willpower not to drop my gaze to his lips. What was the matter with me? Hadn’t I kissed enough Ozerov men for the night?
Finally satisfied that my eyes were working properly, Anton reached for my head, then paused. “May I?”
My heart was a symphony of percussion, but I nodded. His hands carefully turned my head and skimmed over the sore lump. “Are you dizzy at all?” he asked.
“No.” Yes. I couldn’t be sure if my light-headedness came from my injury or Anton’s touch, his nearness. With my head twisted to the side, all I needed to do was lean into him and my cheek would rest against his shoulder. I forced myself back a smidgen and rotated to meet his gaze. At the movement, his hands slid around to hold my face. We stared at each other. How aptly I’d once called his eyes a simmered-butter brown. “I’m all right,” I said, but my knees rattled.
He caught me as I swayed and did more—he lifted me in his arms and carried me back through the evergreen door, the lavender door, and the red door to my chambers. When I saw the box bed, the lovely spell I’d fallen under dissipated.
“I don’t sleep here,” I confessed. “Not since the night you told me I could stay in the tapestry room.”
He regarded me, first with a subtly arched brow of surprise, and then his aura warmed with a glow of pleasure and radiated through my limbs and up to my face. Without a word, he turned around and carried me back through the red door, the lavender door, the evergreen door.
“This is ridiculous,” I protested, sure I was blushing. “I’m able to walk.”
“Hush, Sonya.” He drew back the covers and laid me down on my side, mindful of the lump on my head. Despite my declaration of strength, I weakly lolled onto the pillows. In truth, I couldn’t be sure if I was all right, if this was the culmination of my injury, too little food, and sheer exhaustion, or too much prince of Riaznin for my own well-being. “You’ve had a long night,” Anton said.
I noted how he kept every touch minimal and essential, even while he’d carried me and tucked the covers across my lap. How I wished he would lie beside me and let me drift to sleep cocooned in his warmth. I’d given Valko all the comfort I had to offer. Now I needed it from someone else.
“I’m not as simple as you think I am,” I said.
He froze in the act of standing up from my bed. “Pardon?”
“I didn’t forget about Morva’s Eve. And I know who you met with tonight. Count Rostav. Feliks. Yuri. Were you in Pia’s room? Did Yuri steal her key, or did she allow all of you entrance?”
The prince contemplated me, then set my candle on the bedside table. The soft light cast a reddish hue to the stubble on his chin. “Pia wasn’t involved.”
“But you don’t deny it was her room?”
He sighed and avoided my question by saying, “I don’t think you’re simple, Sonya.” With a humorless laugh, he dragged his hand through his hair. “Don’t you see what precautions I take around you? It’s because you . . . well, you’re complicated.”
I frowned, my finger trailing along the weave of my blanket. What did he mean by that? I wished to the gods I could sense where his aura differentiated from my own. Was any of my attraction to him reciprocal? Is that what he meant when he said, You’re reflecting something that is not your own? Did he think his feelings for me were one-sided, or did he have no feelings for me at all? I supposed it didn’t matter. Even if he did bear any desire for me, he would never act on it. I knew that much about the reserved prince. If he would never give me a dance, he would never give me a kiss. Why would he when every time he turned around, I was caught up in some mad embrace with his brother? “You think I’m weak,” I said.
Anton leaned closer. A spark of anger creased his brow. “Why would you say that?”
“You always discover me in Valko’s clutches. You see, again and again, what he does to me, what I allow him to do. You said he would make mincemeat of me.” I shook my head, wanting to bury myself in my covers. “You were right.”
“Stop!” Something deeper than anger emanated from him now, something I couldn’t name, but riveted me to his gaze. “Please don’t tell me what I think or what I feel about you.” With a growl of frustration, he added, “Don’t you see yourself at all? Do you know what you did tonight?”
“I made the emperor lose his alliance with Estengarde.”
“Riaznin doesn’t need Estengarde. And that wasn’t your doing.”
“I nearly committed to becoming the emperor’s mistress.”
“But you didn’t.”