“I take your point.”
Hadn’t really expected him to say that.
“Let’s begin anew, Empress.”
Over the rim of my bottle, I said, “I haven’t decided anything.”
He made a sound of frustration. “The mortal can’t provide for you like I can. I offer you a home. Does he think you’ll live in that muddy outpost?”
Defensive, I said, “Jack plans to rebuild Haven House for me.”
Anger flashed across Aric’s face. He schooled his reactions as quickly as he did everything else, leaving his emotions to seethe beneath the surface. “If you desire something, all you have to do is tell me. It will shortly be yours. You’ll see soon enough.”
I swallowed. Was he referencing the gift he’d spoken of? The trick up his sleeve? I almost dreaded learning what it was.
What if Aric could straight-up end the game? Blow up the machine?
“Deveaux will never understand you as I do. As only another Arcana can.” Aric replaced my beer. Because I’d finished it.
“Maybe not. But we have other ties.” I thought of the ribbon he’d kept all this time, the one now in my pocket. I thought of our mutual longing for our home.
“As do we. We are wed.” Aric set down his bottle, moving in front of me. “I think of you as mine. You don’t see the countless times a day I have to stop myself from touching my wife.” His eyes were just on the verge of glowing. Like this, his gaze reminded me less of stars, and more of a sunrise.
In time, would I forget what a sunrise looked like?
I caught his knight’s scent: rain, steel, and man. My toes curled in my boots. Whenever he was free of his armor, I could detect hints of pine and sandalwood.
He wedged his hips between my knees. With our faces inches apart, he said, “If you had any idea what is going on inside me . . . I’m feeling something I have never experienced, not in my twenty centuries of life.”
I swallowed, unsure if I wanted to hear him say the words.
His irises brightened and brightened. Eyes fully aglow, he rasped, “I am in love with you.” Irresistible Death. “And you love me in turn.”
I gazed at his mouth, recalling how I’d kissed that faint dip in his bottom lip. “Why would you say that?” My voice sounded so far away.
“My fierce Empress protected me before you left our home. Your concern told me much.” Pride lit his expression. “What foe did you think might get to me, little wife?”
Flustered, I said, “I didn’t know, okay? You said you were always a target.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, as if in reward. When he drew back, he gave me a real smile, not a smirk, not a grudging half-grin. I’d only seen this a couple of times before.
And it was devastating.
Inner shake. “Admit it: after my poison kiss, when you were reaching for your antitoxin, you believed I’d given you a lethal dose.”
“I admit it. And I was chastised for my doubt when I woke.”
“Chastised? Chastised? You broke my heart that night! You didn’t notice—or care—how much you were hurting me!”
“When I recognized that you weren’t over your infatuation with the mortal, I might have been . . . testing you.” He’d tested me the other night as well! “I needed to know if you felt something as strong for me.”
“What if I’d surrendered?”
His lips parted as if he was imagining that even now. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m glad you didn’t. You told me that you would grow to hate me. I didn’t believe it then, but I do now. I should never have put you in that situation.”
“Testing me doesn’t excuse what you did. Coercion is not cool.”
He backed away, stabbing his fingers through his hair. “Then teach me what is! I have no experience with a wife, but you know my capacity for learning. I can learn to be what you need.”
“I don’t think something like that can be taught. It’s part of your makeup, part of who you are.”
“My upbringing and history have shaped me, but I do evolve. Going into each game, I’ve adapted to different epochs.”
Epochs? How did he endure it? When he was this close to me, I could feel his palpable yearning. I could sense that gut-wrenching loneliness he’d suffered.
I pictured him in his mausoleum of a home, surveying all his lifeless collections. He’d devotedly tended to those treasures, those relics of the past, because they were all he had—all he’d ever hoped to have.
“Aric, selfless acts might be beyond you. And even sex with you would come with strings. What if I hadn’t realized you were minus one condom?” The memory stoked my fury. “You were about to trick me—to betray me.”
He raised his blond brows. “There was no trick, sievā. I didn’t set out to deceive you.”
“You had my entire future mapped out—with me knocked up—and you never mentioned it to me.”
He moved in front of me again, gripping the counter on either side of my hips. “It’s been this way between husbands and wives for thousands of years. At the time, I thought if we were so blessed, then all the better.”
Because his concepts about marriages and families were from a different epoch.
He swallowed. “You accuse me of calculation; know that I haven’t enough experience in this subject to calculate.” A flush covered his high cheekbones. “I was barely capable of speech when I saw you naked in my bed for the first time—much less plotting.”