The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)(95)

She knocked, then waited. No answer.

She tried the handle and, for once, found it unlocked. “Aren?”

Aren was nowhere in sight. This was her chance. She could pretend she found the fire burning.

Securing the door, Lara bolted to the heavy desk, immediately spying the open stationery box. And the beginnings of a letter composed to her father.

Her heart in her throat, Lara stared at the few lines of dried ink addressed to her father. How Aren could stomach being so polite to his enemy was beyond her. Though perhaps that he couldn’t stomach it was the reason the letter wasn’t finished.

A purr caught her attention, and she looked down as Aren’s cat began to wind his huge body between her legs, nearly knocking her over. An idea, one better and far less damaging than a fire, jumped into her head. “Sorry for this Vitex. But I need your help.”

She staged the scene, placing the box on its side on the floor, then splattering the letter with ink, leaving the well overturned on the rest of the pages so they were soaked through and unusable. But not before counting the stack. Twenty-five blank pages plus the unfinished letter made for twenty-six.

Luring Vitex over, she scratched his ears, gently taking hold of one of his paws and using it to make distinctive prints through the ink. Realizing what she was doing, the cat hissed at her and pulled away, leaving a trail across the room as he went.

Every muscle in her body twitched, and with a ragged gasp, Lara sank to her knees, staring at what had been the culmination of all her efforts. Of all her training. Of her life. Remembering the way she’d felt the last time she held those pages, knowing that the damning words she’d written would save her people. How wrong she’d been.

Yet with them gone so went the weight she’d been carrying since she’d learned the truth of her father’s deception. What she’d done before . . . It had been awful. The worst sort of betrayal. But it had been motivated by lies that had filled her ears almost her entire life. Whereas turning on her father now was an act driven by the truth. What she was doing now was her own choice.

And though Lara knew that she’d painted a target on her back, that her father’s assassins would never stop hunting her, for the first time in her life, she felt free.

Driven by some strange sixth sense, she drifted into the antechamber and opened the door to the courtyard, the wind buffeting her with the force of a giant. Stepping outside, she found herself in a hell of wind and rain.

The air shrieked as it circled the courtyard, carrying leaves and branches and rain that bit into her bare arms and slapped her cheeks. The tempest was deafening in its fury, multipronged bolts lancing across the sky, the thunder battering her eardrums.

In the midst of it stood Aren.

He was shirtless and barefoot, staring up at the sky, seemingly heedless of the tempest circling around him. Or of the danger he was in.

A branch ripped from one of the trees to hurtle across the yard, exploding against the side of the house. “Aren!” But the storm drowned out her voice.

It was impossible to keep her feet as she struggled down the path, knocked over time and again by gusts of wind that threatened to lift her into the air. Her hair whipped in a wild frenzy, blinding her, but not for a heartbeat did she consider turning back. Regaining her feet on the slick stones, she lunged.

The winds died as her hands closed on Aren’s arms, as though the world itself gave a sigh and relaxed, the debris falling softly to the ground and the rain easing into a gentle patter against her skin.

“Lara?”

Releasing a ragged breath, she tilted her face up to find Aren staring down at her, his expression bewildered, as though he couldn’t comprehend how she’d come to be standing before him.

“Is it over?” she asked, finding it difficult to breathe. And even more difficult to think. “The storm?”

“No. We’re in the eye of it now.”

The eye of the storm. Her chest tightened. “What are you doing out here?”

The hard muscles of his forearms flexed beneath her grip. “I needed it.”

Instinctively, she understood what he meant. Most people sought solace from danger, but for him, the danger was solace. The rush of adrenaline that cleared his mind, that wiped away the uncertainty that plagued every decision he made as king. The fear of erring. The consequences of doing so. In the storm, he knew his path.

She understood, because she felt the same way. “You could’ve died today. Doing what you did.”

“You would’ve died if I hadn’t.”

His hands closed around her arms, and though his palms were feverishly hot, Lara shivered. “You might have been better off if I had.”

His grip tightened. “Do you honestly believe that I could have ever forgiven myself if I’d stood there and watched you drown?”

“But what I did—”

“Is in the past. It’s behind us now.”

Her pulse was a dull roar in her ears as his words sank in. Aren had forgiven her. How he’d found it in his heart to do so, she couldn’t understand, but there it was. What she’d wanted more than anything, but hadn’t had the hope to wish for.

“Do you want to leave Ithicana? Because if that’s what it takes for you to be happy, I’ll set you on any shore you wish with everything you need to make a life for yourself.”

Lara had planned to leave. Her father’s assassins would soon been on her heels, and she hadn’t believed there was anything to be gained by staying. A relationship between the two of them would never have a chance—Aren would inevitably discover the truth about her and would never forgive her for it.