“Burning it, more likely.” He hurried to the stove, grabbed the tongs, and scooped the blackened bread out of its pan.
Ari glanced around the empty kitchen. “Where’s Maarit? It’s not like her to allow a decent breakfast to hit the table.”
“Teague said she isn’t feeling well this morning and is staying in bed.” He turned the sausage and poured a bowlful of beaten eggs into another skillet.
She joined him at the stove and sniffed appreciatively at the chives he’d sprinkled into the eggs as he put butter and two new slices of toast into a pan. “Mmm, compliments and a full breakfast. You sure do know the way to a girl’s heart, don’t you?”
“I know yours,” he said quietly without looking at her.
The heat from the stove had nothing on the warmth that rushed through Ari, rekindling the torch in her heart and igniting something deep within her.
Her breath caught, and Sebastian’s shoulders braced as if he expected a blow.
Longing spread through her. Somewhere along the way, between sparring sessions and long talks about everything and nothing, Sebastian had become something far more precious to her than a weapons master turned friend. She wanted him to look at her the way he had when he’d seen her in her ball gown. She wanted his fingers on her cheek and his arms around her waist. She wanted his smiles, his silences, and his kisses.
Stars help her, how she wanted his kisses.
It was lunacy. She was trapped in Teague’s villa, one word away from dying, and the choices she was making would either ruin her keeper or destroy herself. She had no right to want more than friendship with Sebastian when she wasn’t sure she’d live to see the next morning.
“That was . . . I’m sorry. Again,” Sebastian said into the silence, and the reserve in his voice galvanized Ari into action.
“Only apologize if you didn’t mean it,” she said, and waited, hardly daring to wish for him to turn toward her. To show her his face so she could know if he longed for her too.
He was silent for an agonizingly long time, his body held perfectly still the way he did when he was looking for threats in a new environment. She willed him to trust her. To trust himself.
To want her.
Finally, he said, “I shouldn’t say things like that to you.”
“Were you telling the truth?” She reached past him to flip the toast before it burned, and then stirred the eggs.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Forget waiting for him to turn toward her. Ari wiggled between him and the stove, prayed her hair wouldn’t catch on fire, and looked up to meet his gaze.
His brown eyes widened, and he started to step back.
“Please,” she said, “stay.”
He stayed—separated from her by a breath of space, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his lips parting as he stared at hers.
Every part of her strained toward him, but she held still. Waiting. Letting him get comfortable with almost touching. With staying.
Her heart was thunder, her blood lightning, and the rest of the kitchen fell away as he slowly bent his head toward hers.
She swayed toward him and pressed her palms to his chest. “Sebastian,” she breathed.
“Princess Arianna,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes.
“I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Teague’s cold, polished voice spoke from the doorway.
Sebastian jerked back from her, his body instantly tense as he spun to face Teague. Ari glared at the fae.
“Just for that, you don’t get any sausage.” She turned toward the stove and plated the food while she waited for her skin to cool and her heartbeat to return to normal.
Under no circumstances was she going to deal with Teague while her body still wanted Sebastian.
“We have errands to run. Eat quickly,” Teague said as he took an apple from a bowl in the center of the table, sat down, and took a bite.
Ari grabbed her plate and then risked a quick glance at Sebastian, her cheeks warming at the (absolutely delicious) memory of almost kissing him.
He gave her his crinkle-eyed smile.
So much for not wanting Sebastian while she had to deal with Teague. Thank the stars she had a real breakfast on her plate. She was going to need it.
Her search for the secret to stopping Teague was at a standstill. She had the empty contract, and she planned to read through it at her first opportunity, but it wasn’t like he would’ve carelessly included an addendum with instructions on how to kill him.
She needed information she couldn’t find inside the villa. She needed a contact on Llorenyae to research Teague’s past, she needed her vial of bloodflower poison she’d unfortunately left behind in her suite the night of the ball, and she needed the Book of the Fae.
None of those were going to be easy to come by while she was trapped in the villa beneath Maarit’s and Teague’s watchful eyes. She put a bite of egg into her mouth and met Sebastian’s gaze.
She might be trapped in the villa, but he wasn’t. The next time Teague and Maarit left them alone, she’d ask Sebastian to go out and gather what she needed.
Sebastian crinkled his eyes at her, and she gave him a quick little smile, even though eating near Teague was nearly enough to kill her enjoyment of the sausage.
Teague stayed in the kitchen with them for the entire meal—an act that made Ari wish a pox upon him and anyone unfortunate enough to be related to him. When breakfast was finished, Teague said, “Sebastian, see to the shipments at the dock this morning. There’s a horse saddled and waiting for you in my stables. Princess, you’ll accompany me.”
“Where?” Ari asked, her hands trembling at the thought of being stuck alone with Teague for hours on end.
He smiled. “I have a special debt to collect at the market today.”
She frowned. “Why do you want me to come along?”
His smile grew. “Maarit is unwell, and I think we both know I’d be a fool to leave you unsupervised.”
Ari’s heart pounded painfully and her palms were slick with sweat as Teague escorted her out of the villa and into his waiting carriage. A golden spinning wheel was painted on the door.
Maybe yesterday hadn’t been the victory she’d assumed it was if Teague was still suspicious of her.
But Teague didn’t have proof of her actions yet. And he was taking her to the one place where she might finally get some useful answers about him.
She just had to find a way to get to Rahel’s bookshop and hope that the Book of the Fae was there waiting for her. And that she could sneak it back into the villa under Teague’s nose.
Matching Teague’s malicious little smile with one of her own, she settled back against the carriage seat, looked out the window, and began to plan.
THIRTY-FOUR