Sanctuary with Kings by Moon Kathryn

Author:Moon, Kathryn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

WINNING HAND

I didn't remember sleeping, but I woke with dawn curling tendrils of light through nests of clouds.

"You don't know me," I whispered, the argument ready on my tongue, as if I'd slept with the words just waiting to burst free.

Hywel was awake, of course. He was still careful not to sleep, sitting up in the bed with me leaning against his hip and Laszlo still tightly fastened to my back. Long, pale fingers stroked my hair back from my face, and then the dragon shimmied down into the bed until we were nose to nose.

"You think I don't know the woman who dreamed in my lap? Who washed my scales while I was sleeping? Who saw the loneliness in my mate and gave him hope and reminded him how to feel affection?" Hywel blinked at me and waited for a moment, but I'd only had the single sentence ready and I was still foggy from the restless night, warm and pleasantly sore, surrounded by their bodies. "What have you hidden from us, Evanthia? What lies have you told?"

I nibbled on my lips, swollen and tender from kisses, and Hywel waited patiently, touching me everywhere he could reach in an absentminded pattern.

"What if I can't love you back?" I asked at least.

I expected him to frown or growl or object or correct me in some way. Instead, he simply took a deep breath and continued touching me, looking at me. "That's not quite the same thing as you not wanting to be loved," he said. He shifted, turning onto his back, still pressed against me. I couldn't help myself. I leaned in and rested my cheek on his shoulder, traced the elegant muscle of his arm with my fingertips. "Let's say, hypothetically speaking of course, that years go by and you find yourself never really in love with us, not wanting to remain at our side…" He paused, and I held my breath. "We wouldn't force you to stay."

Asterion had demanded I be free to stay or leave as I chose, but I suspected if I told Hywel now that I was leaving the castle, he would not allow me to do so. It ought to have rankled me or made me tense with the sense of being trapped. Except I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to leave this bed, these men, this castle. I felt as though I should, but Hywel had more or less refused to let me turn away.

"What if I was in love with someone else?" I asked, less determined to prove to Hywel that he shouldn't care for me and now more curious about the terms of such a relationship.

He only shrugged. "It would depend on how detestable they were. I am in love with someone else, you know," he pointed out, nodding over my shoulder to Laszlo and taking a moment to smile at the sight of the sleeping gryphon.

"That's different. He's—He and I—I mean, we—"

Hywel's eyebrows rose, mouth twitching, and

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