A Royal Wedding(51)
Her first official duty as the new Queen was this funeral. This sending off of a man who clearly inspired loyalty— devotion—from his people, and from the man who stood beside her now. Lara did not know how to reconcile the man they spoke of here, in hushed and reverent tones, with the monster her mother had conjured for her for so many years.
She did not know how to feel about the disparity. She did not want to believe Adel’s story of her mother’s infidelity—but could not seem to put it out of her head.
She did not know how to feel about anything.
Her orderly, comfortable life in Denver was gone as if it had never existed. The only constant was the man at her side, and the only thing she knew she felt about him was a deep and abiding confusion. Her body still longed for him, in deep, consuming ways that startled her. Her mind rebelled against everything he stood for and his own designs upon her. And yet her heart seemed to hurt inside her chest when she pictured him as a child, forced to play war games in the royal palace, torn from his own family when he’d been hardly more than a toddler. It seemed to beat faster when she remembered their first kiss, her very first kiss ever, so sweet and forbidden, in a hidden corner of the castle ballroom when she had been just sixteen.
She did not have to examine these things more closely to know that she was undeniably, and disastrously, consumed with the man who had an intolerable level of control over this new life of hers.
The question, she asked herself as the service ended and the procession began, and he was still the only thing that she could seem to focus on, was what, if anything, did she plan to do about it?
Much later, after King Azat had been interred in his final resting place beneath the stones of the ancient mausoleum and all the polite words had been spoken to all the correct people, Lara found herself still in her new, stiff black gown, standing awkwardly in one of the palace’s smaller private salons.
Across from her, framed by the gilt and gold that graced every spare inch of the walls and floors and ceilings of this fairy-tale place, looking every inch the new King, Adel poured himself a drink. He did so with his customary masculine grace, and Lara could not understand why even something so simple, so mundane, as this man splashing amber-colored liquor into a crystal tumbler should cause her blood to heat. He turned to look at her as if he’d felt the weight of her gaze, his expression that same watchful, careful calmness that she knew all too well by now.
Knew, but could not quite read. Why should that make her heart speed up in her chest?
Lara felt as awkward and as stiff as the fussy room they stood in, as the elegant gown she still wore when she longed for something more casual, more comfortable. Her hands moved restlessly before her, plucking at the fabric of her long skirt. She could not seem to keep still. She wandered the edges of the small salon, stopping before the great windows that looked out over the ancient city, all the spires and rooftops gleaming white and blue as the sun dipped toward the western mountains. It looked indescribably foreign to her eyes, and yet some part of her thrilled to the sight, as if she was as much a part of the landscape as he was. As if it was in her blood.
“They cheered,” she said, not knowing she meant to speak, not knowing her voice would sound so insubstantial. She swallowed, and reached a hand toward the window, the glass cool beneath her reaching fingers. “When we were in the car, heading back here. Why would they do that?”
“You are their princess, now their queen,” Adel said, his even voice filling the small room, pressing against her ears, and burrowing beneath her skin. “The last of an ancient and revered bloodline, the daughter of a beloved ruler now lost to them. You were stolen away from them when you were just a girl. They celebrate your safe return to the place you belong.” He paused for a moment. “Your home.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, not knowing why she trembled, why his eyes seemed so sure, and yet managed to make her feel so raw inside. She wanted to speak—perhaps she wanted to scream—but nothing moved past her lips.
“They adore you,” he said.
“Not me.” She shook her head, swallowed. “Some idea of what I should be, perhaps, but not me.”
He heard the dark, wild panic in her voice, and moved toward her, though he had promised himself he would not touch her again. A promise he had already broken repeatedly. In the cathedral. In the car. In the endless reception. He, who held his vows to be sacred. And still, he moved behind her, setting his untouched drink on a side table and letting his hands come to rest on her shoulders.