In Defiance of Duty

by Caitlin Crews

  “I’m sorry you came all this way,” she said over her shoulder, but there was no helping it. Not when everything inside her was focused on what Azrin must have said—what he must have been thinking—to get Diana to come here. And here she had been trying to give him distance to deal with his father’s condition! “I’m afraid it was a wasted trip.”

  She was almost to the door that led back out into the main part of the palace when her mother caught up with her.

  “Kiara!”

  The way Diana said her name suggested she’d said it more than once. Kiara stiffened, but she turned back around anyway—though it went against everything inside her to do it when adrenaline was pumping through her, making her feel jittery. Making her want to run through the palace and find him. Fight him.

  No, she thought again, furiously. He is not doing this. He is not doing this.

  “Perhaps you should take a moment,” Diana suggested, in that carefully neutral tone of hers that indicated she expected Kiara to erupt into temper. Or that she thought Kiara already had. “And really think things through.”

  “What do you think I need to think through?” Kiara asked, fighting to keep all that adrenaline out of her voice, all of her mounting tension to herself. She saw her mother’s expression and accepted that she’d failed.

  Diana pulled in an audible breath, and a wave of sadness—or perhaps it was regret—washed over Kiara as it occurred to her that her mother was nervous. That they were both so eternally nervous around each other.

  “It seems to me that your relationship with Azrin has been, since the start, based very much on spontaneous, emotional decisions,” Diana said, her voice neutral as ever—only that quick breath before to betray her. She held up a hand as if staving off an argument. “That is not a judgment. Merely an observation.” She took another breath. “Perhaps you have an opportunity here to pause and reflect. To think about what you really want.” Kiara remembered, then, the way she’d left things with her mother. The terrible thing she’d said to her—even if, a small voice whispered, it might have been true.

  And yet despite that, Azrin had called her and she had come. Kiara supposed that said more about her mother than she had ever been willing to admit to herself.

  That Diana loved her in her own way. That she always had.

  It made her profoundly sad that it was such a novel thought. And there was no reason at all that she shouldn’t face this relationship with honesty, too. No reason she shouldn’t try to see if she could make it that little bit better between them. If it was possible.

  “You and I are so much alike, aren’t we?” she asked softly. Diana’s eyebrows shot high, and her careful expression melted away into something … honest, at least. If wary. Kiara lifted a shoulder. “Neither one of us was asked if we’d like to take over Frederick Winery. You felt you had to live up to the Frederick legacy.

  So do I—except I feel I have to live up to all of that and your expectations. The sacrifices you made for me.” So do I—except I feel I have to live up to all of that and your expectations. The sacrifices you made for me.”

  “My sacrifices were my choice,” Diana said stiff ly. “But it was never my intention to force you into a role you hated. I could have sworn you enjoyed what you did, Kiara. I know you did.”

  “I did,” Kiara agreed evenly. “I like the business world. I like working. I particularly like the wine business.” Diana had begun to nod, as if Kiara was making her argument for her. Kiara shook her head. “But I am the Queen of Khatan.”

  It was the first time she’d said it like that. As if she was claiming it. She felt a deep kick of something like power, as if she was connecting, finally, with what this new life, this marriage, would entail. As if she was finally accepting that this was hers.

  He was not doing this to her. Not now.

  “Kiara …” Diana began, frowning the way she did when she was searching for another line of argument. Another approach, another rationalization.

  “Why do we both have such a narrow view of things?” Kiara asked then. “Why do we both assume that because something has always been done one way, it can only be done that way? That’s not how we make our best wines, is it?”

  Diana only gazed back at her, no doubt trying to figure out where she was going, what she meant. Kiara wasn’t sure she knew, but she pressed on.

  “I can’t be the vice president of Frederick Winery and also the queen of Khatan,” Kiara said, and she knew it was true. Some part of her mourned that deeply.

  Some part of her wanted to cling to that old life out of fear, just as she always had. But the rest of her wanted whatever came next—as long as it came with Azrin.

  “But that’s not to say I can’t sit on the board of directors. I just can’t be as involved in the day-to-day running of the winery as I used to be. It’s not all or nothing, is it? As if without me as vice president, Frederick Winery will fall off the face of the planet?” She laughed quietly. “It’s been running just fine without me these last months, hasn’t it? Too well, one might say.”

  Diana let out a small breath that could have been a sigh. She was still impossible to read. Kiara reminded herself that she would always be Diana, no matter what understanding they might reach.

  “Do you think this will make you happy?” Diana asked after a moment, shaking her head as if Kiara had disappointed her yet again. But, Kiara thought, if she had—that was all on Diana. There was nothing she could do about it. And she could no longer tear herself apart in the trying. “Disappearing into this world of his?”

  “Did it make you happy when you did it?” Kiara countered, and then felt a sharp pang of instant regret when her mother blanched. “I’m not trying to be cruel,” she continued, though she felt uneven, off balance and wasn’t entirely sure what she was trying to do. “I promise you, I don’t want to disappear. And you don’t have to, either, you know. If you don’t want to anymore. You can choose something else.” And so can I, she thought, and it was as if she was finally giving herself permission. Or forgiveness.

  It was Diana’s turn to blink. To stare at Kiara for a long moment, as if she didn’t know who Kiara was—or had no idea what she was talking about.

  “You had dreams,” Kiara reminded her, her voice urgent with emotions she couldn’t name—she could only feel the long overdue truth of them. “You can still make them come true.”

  “Because you think the fairies will come and run the winery, do you?” Diana asked, but Kiara heard the thickness in her voice that she was trying to conceal beneath that touch of asperity.

  “Go find a bed-and-breakfast on a lonely spit of land somewhere and see what happens,” Kiara suggested in a voice gone hoarse. “The winery will be fine. We’ll make sure it’s fine.”

  She felt the surge of heat at the back of her eyes, and could see an answering brightness in her mother’s, and for the first time in her life, wished that they were the sort of women who embraced.

  But maybe this was where it all started, the relationship they should have had all these years. This moment, right here.

  “You don’t have to prove anything in those vineyards any longer, Mum,” she whispered, using the familiar name she hadn’t said out loud since she was a child.

  And there might have been tears that they were both too stubborn to let fall, but they were both smiling, too. “And neither do I.” She found him in his private study, hidden away in the diplomatic wing of the palace, where she had never known him to go except in the daytime. She stood in the doorway for a moment, taking a breath or two to simply drink him in.

  He looked far too tired, if still so beautiful, his fierce face looking more weary than ferocious tonight, his hard mouth a firm, grim sort of line. He was sprawled back in the oversized armchair that sat at an angle before a fireplace. He was wearing one of his exquisite dark suits and he hadn’t even bothered to loosen his tie.

  He was staring straight ahead, as if he saw ghosts standing before him in the empty room.
As if he was the loneliest man alive.

  “You should be gone by now,” he said without looking up. Kiara’s heart gave a great thump in her chest.

  “I’m not being sent off in the night,” she replied tartly. “Under cover of darkness, as if I should be ashamed.”

  “Tomorrow morning, then.” Still, he did not look at her. Though she saw the way his mouth tightened, and she could sense the way his temper coiled in him, raw and close to the surface.

  “What happened to the two of us doing this together?” she demanded. “With no one running away?” She thought he meant to speak, but then he seemed to think better of it. She moved farther into the room. “Instead you called my mother?” she asked, her tone one of utter disbelief.

  He made a noise then that was somewhere between a snort and a laugh.

  “I imagined her triumph at the end of our marriage would make the long flight seem to race by,” he said in a voice too dark to truly be dry.

  Kiara kept moving until she stood before him, looking down at that marvelous body of his, long and lean and sleek. What was wrong with her, she wondered, that he could order her away with every appearance of sincerity and she could still want him so badly?

  He took his time raising his gaze to hers. She felt the heat of it, the way he dragged his eyes along every curve of her body. The tailored dress she’d worn to the hospital suddenly felt unduly confining. The modest neck and fashionably cinched waist seemed impossibly constricting, as if it was shrinking against her skin as she stood there.

  But she knew better. She knew it was Azrin.

  He finally met her gaze, his own dark, stormy. His harsh mouth betrayed no curve, not even the faintest hint of one. He looked edgy and dangerous tonight, too much a warrior, too unpredictable a man.

  “Do you need to hear me say it?” he asked, in a tone she hardly knew, harsh and almost cold. “I release you.” His voice was distinct. Precise. “Go. Be whatever

  “Do you need to hear me say it?” he asked, in a tone she hardly knew, harsh and almost cold. “I release you.” His voice was distinct. Precise. “Go. Be whatever you want, wherever you want. This time I will not follow you. This time I will let you be. You have my word.” She would have been heartsick to hear him say such things, she recognized from some distant place, had she had any intention at all of obeying him. As it was, she only stood there, staring down at him—challenging him.

  “You’re giving up?” she asked. Her brows arched up. “After all your talk at the pools. Is this is your revenge?”

  “The pools are not reality.” His voice was frigid, but his eyes were hot. He sat forward as if to emphasize the point. “And neither are we.”

  “But I thought—”

  “What is this?” He sounded impatient, but the way he looked at her said something else, and she clung to that. He rose from the chair then, so they were standing too close together, and frowned down at her. “I thought you would rejoice in your freedom. I thought this would give you the excuse you needed to leave here and never look back.”

  “You thought wrong,” she retorted. She wanted to touch him, but held herself in check. “Not the first time.”

  “I’ve finally realized that none of this matters, Kiara,” he growled down at her. “You, me—this was nothing more than a fantasy.” His jaw was like granite. “I’ve always known exactly what my life must be, what it will entail and what I will have to do to serve this country as my family has done for generations.” His mouth twisted then, and it was still no smile. It made Kiara’s stomach turn over. He reached over and took her upper arms in his hands, but not, she understood, in a particularly tender manner. She still bloomed beneath his touch.

  “I am a selfish man,” he said bitterly. “I always have been where you are concerned. And you were right. I knew what kind of woman I should have married.

  One who would have understood what was expected. One who would have welcomed the weight of it all. But I had to have you instead.” He leaned closer, and his eyes were the blackest she’d ever seen them. They made her shiver.

  “And look what I’ve done to you,” he whispered, his voice like a lash.

  He let go of her then and she fell back a step, feeling dizzy. She was not prepared for this. For what it meant if he gave up. If he stopped fighting for this, for them. For her. But she remembered everything that had happened at the pools, everything they’d discovered, and she knew that if she had to be the one to fight, she would. For him. For them.

  For as long as it took.

  “I don’t want you to let me go.” She searched his face as he stared at her. She watched the way he raked his fingers through his thick black hair. The way he shook his head. The way he yanked his tie from around his neck as if he, too, felt constricted.

  Perversely, that gave her hope.

  “I may not have choices,” he said in a low voice, “but you do. If you stay here, I can’t promise that these roles won’t eat us alive. I expect they will. They already have. And then what?”

  “I don’t want to disappear.” She moved toward him, deliberately, forcing his gaze to hers. “But I’m not afraid of that any longer, not the way I was. You asked me to trust you, Azrin, and I do.”

  “You say that,” he said quietly, his voice laced with regret, and that underlying bitterness, too, “but we both know that’s not so.”

  “Maybe it’s a work in progress,” she admitted. “But it’s happening.”

  “Then what about children?” he asked in the same quiet tone. He smiled slightly—sadly—when she winced in surprise. “Why do you flinch away in horror whenever the topic arises? You will not even have the conversation, Kiara. Why do you think that is?” She could see that he knew why it was. But so did she.

  And she was no longer afraid.

  “Yes,” she said, very distinctly. “The very idea of a baby made me feel trapped—choked. Look what happened to my mother! If she hadn’t had me, she could have done anything.” She reached over then and put her hands on his chest. She felt him stiffen, but he didn’t step away. “But I’m letting go of that, Azrin. I’m not my mother. You have to trust me.”

  “Kiara—” But he cut himself off, as if he didn’t know what to say for once, and Kiara felt compassion flood through her. His father was dying. He was not only a son coming to terms with his new role in his family, but a king coming to terms with what this must mean for his country. It was not so surprising that he’d done this, when she thought about it that way.

  “It’s all right,” she told him, letting her hands stroke him. Soothing him. Calming him. As she knew only she ever did. Or could. “You don’t have to be the king for me, Azrin. You can panic. We’re both safe here.”

  A great shudder worked through his big body, and his eyes closed for a moment. But he opened them again almost at once, and reached down to hold her hands in his—less in a romantic way than to keep her from caressing him, she understood. She didn’t protest it.

  “What do you want?” he asked, his voice a dark thread of sound. “It never even occurred to me to set you free until now, Kiara. It may never occur to me again.

  You already know you hate this life. Be very clear about what you want from this.”

  From me, his dark gaze added. From any of this, she thought.

  But she knew.

  “I’m going to be a terrible queen,” she told him, holding his gaze. “I will try hard, but fail you in a thousand ways, because I will never be the kind of woman you should have married.” She shrugged philosophically. “We will have to find the humor in it.”

  “And what will you do, as my terrible queen?” He moved his thumbs over the backs of her hands, as if he couldn’t quite help himself. She bit back a smile.

  “Aside from embarrassing me at home and abroad with your antics?”

  “Maybe I’ll buy a hundred wineries,” she said, her pulse leaping beneath her skin when his lips twitched. “Maybe I’ll start some new kind of business more appropriate for q
ueens.” She was intrigued by the considering gleam in his eyes then, but couldn’t let herself get sidetracked. “Maybe I’ll figure it out as I go along.

  But the only thing I know I want, have always wanted, is you.”

  He looked down at her for a beat of her heart, then another. For a terrible moment she thought he would pull away, but then he drew her hands to his chest instead, and held them there.

  instead, and held them there.

  “You have always had that,” he whispered. “I told you. From that very first moment.”

  “I love you, Azrin,” she whispered back, her voice harsh with emotion. With regret and with promise. With everything they’d come through, together. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Then if you love me—” he replied in the same tone, an echo of another time, her own words in that awful hotel room. A past she never wanted to revisit “—

  don’t leave me. Ever again.”

  She lifted herself on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. Making it real. Feeling the way she trembled all over, and sighing as his arms came around her, strong and hard and true.

  He kissed her. He kissed her again and again, as if testing out all the angles for the first time, and she tasted him in the same way, as if she could never get enough of him. Knowing she would never get enough of him. He sank his hands in her hair and she wrapped herself around him, desperate. Demanding.

  And in his arms again. Finally.

  He shrugged out of his jacket, his shirt. Then he took his time peeling her clothes from her body and worshipping every inch of skin he uncovered. They knelt together on the wide, soft rug and lost themselves in each other. Each touch, each taste, a reaffirmation. A vow.

  “Being with you isn’t disappearing,” Kiara whispered, kissing her way across his chest, his belly. “It’s finally being found.”

  “I will never lose you again,” he told her, laying her out on the floor and crawling over her, tasting his way to the center of her feminine heat. “Never.” And then he kissed his way into her, and tore her apart.

  Kiara slowly came back to earth. Azrin stripped the rest of his clothes off and then stretched out next to her, deliciously naked. It was enough to make her rise up, her languor forgotten as she climbed over him and took the hard length of him inside of her.