Twisted Games (Twisted, #2)(9)
“You implied it.”
Rhys grimaced. “You’re not the first royal I’ve guarded,” he said. “You’re not even the third or fourth. They all acted similarly, and I expected you to do the same. But you’re not…”
I arched an eyebrow. “I’m not…?”
A small smile ghosted across his face so fast I almost missed it. “A superficial airhead.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
Me, laughing at something Rhys Larsen said. Hell must’ve iced over.
“My mom was a huge animal lover,” I said, surprising myself. I hadn’t planned on talking about my mother with Rhys, but I felt compelled to take advantage of the lull in our normally antagonistic relationship. “I got the gene from her. But the palace didn’t allow pets, and the only way I could regularly interact with animals was by volunteering at shelters.”
I held out my hand and smiled when Meadow pawed at it like she was giving me a low five. “I enjoy it, but I also do it because…” I searched for the right words. “It makes me feel closer to my mom. The love for animals is something only we shared. The rest of my family likes them fine, but not in the same way we do. Or did.”
I didn’t know what prompted my admission. Was it because I wanted to prove I wasn’t volunteering as a PR stunt? Why did I care what Rhys thought of me, anyway?
Or maybe it was because I needed to talk about my mom to someone who hadn’t known her. In Athenberg, I couldn’t mention her without people shooting me pitying looks, but Rhys was as calm and unruffled as ever.
“I understand,” he said.
Two simple words, yet they crawled inside me and soothed a part of me I hadn’t known needed soothing.
Our eyes met, and the air developed another layer of thickness.
Dark, mysterious, piercing. Rhys had the kind of eyes that saw straight into a person’s soul, stripping past layers of elaborate lies to reach the ugly truths underneath.
How many of my truths could he see? Could he see the girl beneath the mask, the one who’d carried a decades-long burden she was terrified to share, the one who’d killed— “Master! Spank me, Master!” Leather chose that moment to let loose one of his notoriously inappropriate outbursts. “Please spank me!”
The spell shattered as quickly as it had been cast.
Rhys flicked his gaze away, and I looked down, my breath gusting out in a mixture of relief and disappointment.
“Mas—” Leather quieted when Rhys leveled it with a glare. The bird ruffled its feathers and hopped around its cage before settling into a nervous silence.
“Congratulations,” I said, trying to shake off the unsettling electricity from a moment ago. “You might be the first person who’s ever gotten Leather to stop mid-sentence. You should adopt him.”
“Fuck no. I don’t do foul-mouthed animals.”
We stared at each other for a second before a small giggle slipped from my mouth and the iron curtain shielding his eyes lifted enough for me to spot another glimmer of humor.
We didn’t talk again for the rest of my shift, but the mood between us had lightened enough that I’d convinced myself Rhys and I could have a functional working relationship.
I wasn’t sure if it was optimism or delusion, but my brain always latched onto the smallest evidence things weren’t so bad to cope with discomfort.
The wind nipped at the bare skin on my face and neck as we walked home after my shift. Rhys and I had fought over whether to walk or drive, but in the end, even he had to admit it would be silly to drive somewhere so close.
“Are you excited to visit Eldorra?” I asked. We were leaving for Athenberg in a few days for winter break, and Rhys had mentioned it would be his first time in the country.
I’d hoped to build on our earlier flash of camaraderie, but I’d misjudged because Rhys’s face shut down faster than a house party raided by cops.
“I’m not going there for vacation, princess.” He said there like I was forcing him to go to a prison camp, not a place Travel + Leisure had named the ninth-best city in the world to visit.
“I know you’re not going for vacation.” I tried and failed to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “But you’ll have free ti—”
The high-pitched squeal of tires ripped through the air. My brain didn’t have time to process the sound before Rhys pushed me into a nearby alleyway and pressed me tight against the wall with his gun drawn and his body covering mine.
My pulse kicked into high gear, both at the sudden spike of adrenaline and the proximity to him. He radiated heat and tension from every inch of his big, muscled frame, and it wrapped around me like a cocoon as a car sped past blasting music and leaking laughter out of its half-open windows.
Rhys’s heartbeat thumped against my shoulder blades, and we stayed frozen in the alleyway long after the music faded and the only sound left was our heavy breathing.
“Mr. Larsen,” I said quietly. “I think we’re okay.”
He didn’t move. I was trapped between him and the brick, two immovable walls shielding me from the world. He’d braced one hand protectively against the wall next to my head, and he stood so close I could feel every sculpted ridge and contour of his body against mine.
Another long beat passed before Rhys re-holstered his gun and turned his head to look at me.