Honey and Starlight (Tales of Ikronia Book 1) by L.A. Lambert

Author:L.A. Lambert [Lambert, L.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

BODY TENSED WITH a unique type of tension, Nero hobbled his way back through the halls to his room. He had no one to blame but himself, anyway. He deserved the cruel and unusual punishment of unfulfilled sexual satisfaction, considering he was the reason March was suffering a bout of temporary insanity anyway. How could he have been so stupid, to not pay attention to the amount the noble had been drinking? He’d known since the damn garden party that March had never indulged in alcohol.

Trapped in his own swirl of dark, self-loathing thoughts, Nero approached the door to his chambers, barely giving the guard a glance.

“Your friends are waiting for you inside, Your Highness.” He gave her a half-hearted nod and wave in response. It was only once the heavy door had closed behind them that the confusing nature of her words sank in. Friends?

“Laurel?” He hated how cautious his own voice sounded, in his own domain. “I didn’t ask you to come to my room.” He hadn’t, right? No, he remembered, head somewhat foggy. It was Cedar he’d asked to meet him.

“Cedar’s in there,” Laurel said, rising up from his seated position as he answered the unspoken question. “That’s why I’m out here.”

“What do you want?” He wasn’t in the mood to deal with the blonde male, particularly after they’d both been drinking. He’d been down that road too many times to count.

“I just want to talk,” He said, light brown eyes never breaking contact with Nero’s. That was something they had mused over in the past, their coincidentally similar eye color. “Surely your prissy little sweetheart won’t get upset about that, right?”

For a moment, Nero remembered everything about Laurel that had attracted him in the first place. They’d been friends since childhood, and had gone through an innumerable batch of firsts together. The sorcerer had always been intense, competitive, determined. Fiery, like the form his powerful magic most often took. But something had changed him, turned him bitter, paranoid, and unstable.

He hadn’t wanted to elaborate much about his short-lived tryst with Laurel to March. The less important he made it out to be to the insecure noble, the better, as far as he was concerned. But he’d been honest when he’d said it had only been sex. For one of them, anyway. Nero had always been attracted to the sharp-minded blonde, but he’d long since lost the compulsion to be with him.

Because with the memories of the cravings came the memories of how he’d been manipulated and used. How he’d been a whipping boy for Laurel’s emotional turmoil, suffering the lashes of malice that radiated from him when he was having a destructive episode.

I can’t fix you. He remembered saying those words, when he’d known for sure it was over. He regretted them now, despite the infinitely more awful things Laurel had said to him. You have to get some help. Those had been better, less ruthless. But it hadn’t mattered. In the end, Laurel was Laurel.

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