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The ringing of a sword drawn from its sheath and the harsh clang of metal on metal snapped me awake. Chevalier’s arm was tight around me, and I clutched at him, burying my face in his chest as my heart sped up and out of control. Daggers in my nightmares, a near sword fight between my guard and Yves last night, and now someone was attacking us while we slept? This had to be a nightmare. It couldn’t be real. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, the horrible sound of steel screeching against steel echoing through my mind, and just when I thought I couldn’t take anymore, it stopped.
Everything stopped.
“Good morning to you, too, Chev,” Clavis said lightly. “I was just thinking it’s been a while since you tried to kill me for waking you up.”
A soft hiss and thunk signified Clavis sheathing his sword. Chevalier’s was a weight on the bed next to me. I still couldn’t breathe.
“Get out,” Chevalier ordered. His voice was as hard and cold as his sword, but the hand that had held his weapon was under the blanket with me now, stroking my hair with a light, soothing touch. I was trembling.
“Okay, but I hope you haven't forgotten about meeting with Sil’s parents before they leave,” Clavis said. “The sooner we can get them out of here, the better.”
“Out,” Chevalier repeated.
“I’m going, I’m going,” Clavis said. His footsteps retreated, but then they paused, and the door didn’t open. “Chev, are you wearing a dressing gown now?” he asked slyly. “Or are you hiding Ivetta under all those blankets?”
It would be nice if my panic could subside so embarrassment could take over, but Chevalier’s rhythmic strokes through my hair and down my back were all that kept me from falling to pieces in a sobbing mess.
“I know, I’m leaving,” Clavis said, opening the door. “A word of advice. Don’t give her that look. It’s not very nice.”
The door closed, and the room fell silent, save for my heart pounding in my ears. Chevalier’s fingers left me just long enough to push the blankets back, and then they were threading through my hair again while I gulped in the cool air like a drowning person.
“You’re safe, Ivetta,” he murmured.
I don’t know how long it took for the trembling to stop, but he just held me, and eventually, slowly, the fear faded. My heartbeat slowed, my body relaxed, and I took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Does that…happen…a lot?”
“No,” he replied. “Only when someone wakes me unexpectedly.”
If there were any tangles in my hair from sleeping, they were gone by now, but his hand was still moving, still giving me something to focus on and keep me calm, even with the unpleasant reminder of past attempts on his life. Because that was why he had that reaction to Clavis’ intrusion. I knew that, and I knew that he’d probably killed at least one assassin in this room, maybe in this bed. The knowledge was unsettling.
“Are…have you…?” I struggled to ask, peeking up at him nervously. He brushed my hair back behind my ear and leaned in to kiss my forehead.
“No, I’ve had no further attempts on my life. But I don’t take chances with you.”
I exhaled deeply and closed my eyes, pillowing my cheek on his chest as his fingers shifted from my hair to trace the outline of my face. “Please don’t kill Clavis.”
He chuckled, the sound rumbling through my ear to the rest of my body, easing my tension a little more. “Even though that was intentional?”
“It was?” I asked, opening my eyes and looking up at him again. He nodded, stroking my cheek lightly with the back of his finger.
“All my brothers know to announce themselves when they enter my room. He was checking to see if you were here, probably on Theresa’s behalf, and he was curious to see my reaction to a perceived threat to you.”
“Oh, I didn’t think about Theresa!” I exclaimed, attempting, and failing, to pull free from his grip. He tightened his arm around my waist and rolled over to face me. “Chevalier, she must be-”
He tilted my chin up and silenced me with a soft, sweet kiss, and the last of the fear melted away.
“She may have been worried, but now she knows you’re here, and you couldn’t be safer,” he murmured. I stared into his crystal blue eyes, close and warm and filled with me, and I licked my lips nervously. His eyes dropped to them immediately.
“I’m not sure about that…”
He smirked and kissed me again, pressing in a little harder and adjusting his grip on me to bring me in closer. I curled my fingers into his shirt and felt them brush against bare skin where the top buttons had come undone.
“You may be right,” he breathed, cradling the back of my head in his hand as his kisses deepened and intensified. A flurry of butterflies took up residence in the vacuum left by my previous panic, urging my fingers to release the fabric of his shirt and wander across his chest, up and around his neck. He smiled against my lips, his hand at my waist rubbing from there to the small of my back and around again to my stomach, eliciting a gasp from me that gave his tongue the opportunity to tease me further. I tangled my hands in his hair, and suddenly, I was on my back, and he was on top of me, kissing me long enough and hard enough to draw a soft moan from the back of my throat. My head was spinning when he pulled back, his face hovering over mine, a smile playing across his wet lips.
“Good morning, Ivetta.”
I swallowed, breathing hard, but the image flashing through my mind wasn’t Jack’s leering face. It was Chevalier’s, hovering over me with that same smile after he rode all night from the palace to the border because he didn’t want to wait any longer to see me. His kiss had been feather-light back then, his touch as careful as if I was a fragile porcelain doll, and even though I couldn’t return any affection with my broken, battered body, his expression was the same now as it was then. He always looked at me like this. Even when my face was a rainbow of bruises - even before that, when I couldn’t recognize my reflection in the mirror. There was more heat in his gaze now. That was the only difference. His love was the same.
I reached up to brush his pale blonde fringe back from his face and smiled. “Good morning, Chevalier.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his cheek into my hand, sighing his frustration. “I have to go.”
I felt a sense of disappointment, too, but I nodded and said, “So do I.”
He sighed again and rolled off of me and out of bed. I sat up and turned to scoot to the other side of the mattress, missing the warmth of his touch already, but his sword was in my way.
When I woke up, his right arm was around me. It never left me until now. I was sure of it.
“Chevalier,” I said, puzzled. “You’re right handed.”
“Single-handedness is a weakness I can’t afford,” he replied. “I taught myself to be ambidextrous.”
That was a very “Chevalier” response. And I believed it. But there was still a sword on the bed and in my way, and whatever hand Chevalier used to wield it, I didn’t like it there, and I didn’t want to touch it. I scooted to the other side of the bed.
“Um…we won’t have a sword in bed with us after we get married, will we?”
I spotted his sword sheath on the floor just as I finished my question. He chuckled again and walked over to pick it up. “We’ve never had one in bed with us. You were sleeping too hard to wake when I reached back to grab it.”
My cheeks warmed at his phrasing. We’d only slept together in a literal sense, and always under unpleasant circumstances like me panicking from a nightmare, but he made it sound like we shared a bed all the time.
And then his fingers trailed across my calf as he straightened up.
“Hey!” I protested, swatting his hand away and jumping to my feet to pull the skirt of my nightgown down. “I didn’t say you could do that!”
He smirked and rounded to the other side of the bed. “You get embarrassed too easily.”
“I thought Clavis was the leg man,” I pouted.
He picked his sword up, slid it into its sheath, and set it next to the coat rack, infuriatingly calm and collected while I was still very much flustered. “You want me to go easy on him and your guards,” he said, removing my dressing gown from its hook and bringing it back to me.
I took the dressing gown and a deep breath. He was right. The playful teasing had to stop. He had a breakfast meeting with the king and queen of Benitoite, and I had my lessons with Sariel.
“Um, yes,” I said, shrugging into my dressing gown and looking for my slippers. “Clavis couldn’t have known I’d react that way, and I…took advantage of how new my guards were to get them to disobey your orders. I know I shouldn’t have done that, but…” I stopped and bit my lip, keeping my eyes on the floor as I slid my feet into my slippers.
“But?”
“But sometimes, I…feel like I depend on you too much,” I admitted reluctantly. I swallowed the anxiety that came just from saying that and tied the laces at the throat of my dressing gown, determined to move on like he did, calm and collected, but then his arms were around my waist, and his chest was against my back, and the butterflies were in a frenzy all over again.
“Coming to me when something frightens you is not overdependence,” he said softly, his lips brushing against my ear. “If anything, I depend on you too much.”
“You…you do?” I asked, trembling as his lips pressed into my neck.
“I can’t breathe without you, Ivetta.”
Time ground to a halt. The butterflies dropped dead, my heart exploded, and my knees turned to jelly. That was the best way to describe what I felt when he delivered those words in that husky voice in my ear. They echoed in my head, over and over, and then I realized he was trailing kisses down my neck, and I’d closed my eyes and tilted my head to the side, and I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to be doing right now.
“We have a real problem,” I mumbled.
“What is it?” he asked, sliding his hands inside the dressing gown so only the thin fabric of my nightgown separated his touch on my waist from my skin.
“Neither of us can breathe anymore.”
The timid knock at the door saved me from his reply, which would have finished liquefying me, I was sure of it. My eyes shot wide open.
“Ivetta?” Theresa called hesitantly. “I hate to bother you, but you’re going to be late if you don’t get moving.”
Chevalier’s arms left me, and I knew my face was beet red as I straightened my dressing gown hurriedly.
“C-come in!”
The door opened a crack. “I brought some clothes, so you don’t have to go back to your room in-”
Her eyes met mine, and a mischievous smirk spread across her face.
“In your dressing gown,” she finished, her green eyes sparkling.
“Get in here,” I said, yanking her inside and slamming the door shut.
“Good morning, Cheva - oh.”
Her mouth dropped open, pink dusted her cheeks, and I turned to follow her stare to Chevalier, who was shirtless. My face burst into flames.
“You can change in the bathroom,” he said coolly. “Unless you’d rather I watch you, too?”
I was wrong. Now my face was on fire.
“N-no. C-come on, Theresa,” I stammered, pulling her after me into the bathroom and putting my face in my hands. She closed the door behind us and burst out laughing.
“Oh, I wish you weren’t running late, but don’t think that gets you out of anything. We are so talking about this later."
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