Protect the Prince (Crown of Shards #2)(71)

Sympathy filled me, but I stayed quiet. I got the feeling that if I interrupted, he would stop talking, and I wanted to know more about his life at Glitnir. I wanted to know more about him.

“And now it’s just Dominic and me. My mother says that my father has been taking Frederich’s death particularly hard. That it’s made Heinrich physically ill, and that he just can’t seem to get over his grief. If my father had lost Dominic tonight too . . .” Sullivan’s voice trailed off, and he shook his head. “It might have killed him outright.”

He fell silent, still staring out into the night, lost in his own thoughts. It was several moments before he spoke again. “Sometimes, I wish that my mother had never stayed at court. That she had lived out in the city or the countryside. Anywhere but here.”

“Why?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I loved growing up with my brothers.” Sullivan softly rapped his knuckles against the glass door. “But I always felt like I was on one side of a door, staring through the glass at Dominic and Frederich. I could see them, but I could never truly be with them; I could never truly be one of them, no matter how hard I tried.”

His face remained blank, but the scent of his ashy heartbreak filled the room. I might not be able to protect him from his memories, but I could help him deal with the pain that came with them. So I threw back the covers, got out of bed, and walked over to him.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “For everything that’s happened to you. But I’m especially sorry for everything that’s happened to your family because of mine.”

“It’s not your fault, highness. None of this is your fault. We’re just trapped in an impossible situation.”

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder, offering him all the support and comfort I could with that one small gesture.

Sullivan turned toward me, hot hunger flaring up and melting the icy pain in his blue eyes. The same hunger coiled through me, burning through my veins even brighter and faster than the magier’s lightning had scorched through my body.

My fingers curled tight around his shoulder, and I longed to touch him—to really touch him.

To run my fingers through his hair and rumple it even more than it already was. To trace the faint laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, skim my hand down his face, and stroke my fingertips through the stubble that darkened his jaw. To smooth my palms over the curve of his neck, along his broad, muscled shoulders, and then down his chest until I could feel his heart pounding under my fingertips.

But most of all, I longed to kiss him and to have him kiss me back. To have his lips and tongue tangled up with mine. To run my hands over every muscled plane of his body and bring him as much exquisite pleasure as I could, even as his hands did the same to me. To feel the hot, hard length of him pressing me up against the glass doors, or sinking down onto the soft bed with me, or even drawing me down to the cold stone floor.

But I didn’t want to just fuck Sullivan, like Helene had said in the gardens earlier—I wanted to feel his heart too. I wanted to see the heat, the passion, in his eyes, and the care, and the concern. I wanted us to feel and fly and fall together until neither one of us could tell where the other left off and we began.

So I took a chance.

“I’m right here, Sully,” I murmured in a low, husky voice. “I’m on this side of the glass—with you. I’ll always be right here with you.”

He wet his lips, and he actually swayed toward me, as though he was going to lower his head and press his lips to mine. My breath caught in my throat, and my fingers clenched even tighter around his shoulder. We stood there, frozen in place, staring into each other’s eyes.

“You say that now, but we both know that it’s not true,” Sullivan rasped. “That it can never be true. Because you’re a queen, and I’m a bastard, and nothing will ever change that. No matter how much we might want it to.”

A shudder rippled through his body, and he stepped away from me. My hand slipped off his shoulder, and I had to clench my fingers into a tight fist to keep from reaching for him.

Sullivan turned away, putting even more distance between us, so he didn’t see the embarrassed blush that scalded my cheeks. A small victory, but I’d take what I could get, especially given the hurt that stung my heart over and over again, like a morph’s talons ripping me to shreds.

This was twice now that he had rejected me. What a glorious fool I was. Perhaps I was more like Maeven than I cared to admit. She kept trying to kill me, and I kept trying to get Sullivan to . . . well, I didn’t know what, exactly. Love me, perhaps? Or at least bend his principles and lust after me the same way that I did him. But Maeven kept failing in her mission, and I kept failing at this . . . whatever this truly was.

Sullivan cleared his throat and faced me again. “I should have told you before, but all the Mortan assassins are dead, except for the weather magier.”

Back to business, then. More hurt knifed through my heart, but I pushed it aside.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“In the dungeon. Rhea has been questioning her, but so far, the magier hasn’t said anything. Rhea is going to try again in the morning.”

I frowned, surprised that the magier hadn’t killed herself, like Libby had at Seven Spire. Perhaps the magier hadn’t had the chance yet. I glanced over at an emerald-crusted clock on the nightstand. Just after midnight, which meant that morning was hours away. Determination surged through me, and I hurried over to the armoire, threw open the doors, and started grabbing clothes.