Page 126 of Vow to Claim You

“Mm.” He doesn’t agree, but he doesn’t argue. “Tassilo will arrange the transfer once she’s given me something worth the trade.”

“Thank you.” I mean it with my whole chest. “Aric, truly. Thank you.”

“Don’t.” The business is gone from his face now. What’s left is harder and more honest. “I’m doing this because she’s a grieving woman who was used, and not the architect of anything. Not because mercy is something I believe in. It don’t. I’ve watched mercy get better men than me killed. This is the last time I extend it, Ayanna. Do you understand?”

I nod. And despite the cold in his voice, it doesn’t frighten me anymore. I’ve finally understood that the man who walked into that café for me and the one the world fears have always been the same man. Somewhere between last night and this morning, I’ve stopped wishing for only the parts of him that were easy to love. I want all of him now. Even the darkness that comes with him.

“I won’t ask again,” I promise. “You have my word.”

He lifts a hand, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and lets his thumb linger against my jaw for a heartbeat.

“Go,” he mutters. “Before I remember I’m supposed to be running an empire and not negotiating with my own wife.”

I can’t help smiling, because for a man who swore he wasn’t capable of love, he’s doing a remarkably poor job of proving it.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Ayanna

Afew days pass. Days of learning the shape of this new thing between us—whatever it is, whatever we’re calling it. Days of waking with his arm draped across my waist. Days of stolen moments in hallways, against walls, once in the library when I was supposed to be reading, and he was supposed to be working, and neither of us managed much of either. Days of his hand finding mine at the breakfast table. Vidar watches that hand like it’s treason. Like his son has failed every lesson the old man ever carved into him. I can read all of it in the way his eyes narrow over his coffee.

When I’m with Aric, it feels something like a honeymoon. But when he has business to attend to—which is most of the time—I am catastrophically, soul-crushingly, climbing-the-walls bored.

“You’re staring at me.” Aric meets my eyes in the reflection of our bedroom mirror while he fixes his cuffs in front of it.

“I’m not staring,” I say from my spot on the edge of the bed. “I’m observing. There’s a difference.”

“The difference being?”

“Staring implies I have nothing better to do. Observing implies intellectual curiosity.”

He turns to face me, one brow arched, the ghost of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

“And which is it?”

“Honestly?” I shift, tucking my legs beneath me. “I have absolutely nothing better to do. I’m losing my mind, Aric.”

“Explain.”

“I’m bored.” The word comes out with more force than I intend. But God, it’s true. So painfully, desperately true that I’ve been biting my tongue for days to keep from saying it. “In Monsera, I had duties. Responsibilities. Charity work, diplomatic functions, educational initiatives. I sat on boards. I attended meetings. I had a purpose.” I gesture vaguely at the room around us. “Here, I have a wolf who tolerates me and a wardrobe full of clothes I have nowhere to wear.”

Aric studies me for a long moment. “You want responsibilities.”

“I want to feel like I exist for a reason beyond warming your bed.” I glance at him, realizing how the words sound. “I didn’t mean⁠—”

“You did.” He lowers himself in front of me. “And you’re right.”

My brow twitches.

That’s… not what I expected.

“I’ve been focused on keeping you safe,” he says slowly. “I didn’t consider that safety without purpose feels like a cage.”

“A very beautiful cage.” I smile.

“But a cage nonetheless.”

“Yes.”