Torrid Throne

by Julie Johnson

  Ignoring his taunt, I set my shoulders, suck in a deep breath, and take my first steps. They’re old and uneven, treacherous even in good lighting. With only the flickering candle to see by, our ascent is achingly slow.

  We don’t speak. I don’t know what Carter’s thinking, and I don’t dare look back to read his expression. I’m still in shock that he followed me from my suite; further, that he actually agreed to climb the turret with me. Most of the time, he can’t wait to get out of my presence.

  What’s different about tonight? I can’t help wondering. Why is he suddenly willing to spend time with me again?

  Half of me is convinced this is all a dream. That any moment, I’ll snap awake in my bed and realize this surreal climb was just the product of an overactive imagination.

  Please, tell me it’s not a dream.

  Tell me we’re done being mortal enemies.

  Tell me we can stop existing in strained silence.

  More than once, I bobble on a rough step, but Carter is always there, his free hand catching me before I can even begin to fall. I murmur halting thank yous into stagnant air and keep climbing, unsure whether my rapid breaths are from physical exertion or emotional turmoil.

  After a small eternity, we finally reach the top. I push through the wooden door, step out into the frigid night… and gasp at the magical sight that awaits me. A galaxy of stars is spread out overhead, so close I feel like I could brush the surface of the moon with the tips of my fingers.

  Laughing with awe, I rush to the far railing and lean out, my eyes feasting on the view. Thanks to the breeze, there are no clouds to obscure the many constellations or the lights of Vasgaard far below us. The omnipresent range of mountains looms in the distance, too dark to see despite the bright starlight.

  “This is so beautiful!” I squeal, breath puffing in the cold air. I’m grinning like a little kid, a rush like I haven’t felt in ages setting off fireworks inside me. I spin around, looking for Carter, wanting to see if he’s appreciating this as much as I am…

  I jolt to an abrupt stop.

  He’s standing directly behind me. The candle still in his hands, but it’s blown out in the wind. There’s a soft, almost tender look on his face I’ve never seen before. Except… his eyes are on me, not the stars.

  My smile falters when he sets the candle carefully down at his feet, then vanishes off my face altogether when he straightens to full height and steps toward me.

  “Why did you want to come up here so badly?”

  “I told you,” I whisper, sounding nervous for no reason at all. I needed air.”

  He takes another step. There’s only a half-dozen of them left between us, now.

  “I haven’t been sleeping well,” I add. “Which you know. Obviously. Since I’ve been keeping you up every night.”

  He takes another slow step.

  “I’m sorry for that, by the way. I don’t think I ever apologized…”

  One more step. He’s only four feet away now.

  “If I could stop, I would.” My laugh sounds forced even to my own ears. “I know it’s probably annoying for you to deal with, but it’s not particularly enjoyable for me either, trust me—”

  “Emilia.”

  “Mmm?”

  “You don’t have to apologize for things that are out of your control.”

  “Oh.” I suck my bottom lip into my mouth and start to chew on it, wishing I could catch my breath. “Okay.”

  Carter takes another step, bringing us within arm’s length. His eyes never shift from mine. I want to look away, to break the connection, but I can’t. I am drowning in a deep blue sea, unable to resurface.

  “Why are you really up here?” he murmurs. The question is soft and sharp at the same time.

  “I told you—”

  “You lied.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Omitted, then.” He leans forward and my whole world goes still. I am unraveling, second by second, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. “Why, Emilia?”

  “Because I’m suffocating down there, okay?” I snap, almost at a yell. “In that bedroom, in this life. Because the longer I’m down there, the longer I live as a Lancaster, the longer I dwell on my future… the more those walls seem to press in on me. And I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe, Carter.”

  I shake my head, trying to get a grip on my emotions before I have a full breakdown in front of him. Despite my efforts, I can feel the tears starting to gloss over my eyes. I tell myself it’s from the wind, not the pit of despair opening up inside me — the one I’ve been trying so damn hard to keep closed, these past few weeks. The one I’ve forcibly ignored, because I haven’t had the privilege of falling apart. Not with so many eyes watching my every move. Not with so many enemies circling close. Not with the future of an entire country resting squarely on my shoulders.

  My voice breaks. “Two months ago, I was a regular girl. Just… Emilia. No titles, no expectations. Just a college student with purple hair and straightforward plan for the future. But now…” I tilt my head up at the stars to keep from crying. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t even recognize the girl looking out through my eyes in the mirror. I’m holding myself together with staples and glue, but every day those rips get a little wider and another piece of the person I used to be tears off and blows away. Soon, there wont be anything left except shiny new pieces that Simms and Lady Morrell seem determined to cobble together into the shape of a proper princess.”

  Carter is watching me intently, but his expression reveals nothing. Not one ounce of compassion or understanding. Not the faintest flicker of anything resembling human emotion. Like everything else on this turret, he is made of unbreakable stone. He is a cold, winter wind. He is a plummeting fall from unforgiving heights.

  “Is that what you wanted to hear?” I ask, bitter notes filling the cracks in my voice. A tear streaks down my cheek. “Are you happy now, Carter?”

  “Am I happy?” His tone is as bitter as mine. Maybe more so. “You’re really fucking asking me that?”

  “Yes, I’m really fucking asking you that! How would I know otherwise? It’s not like you ever speak to me or look at me or even acknowledge that I exist unless it’s to stop me from screaming bloody murder at three in the morning!”

  His face is a mask of dark fury. “And why is that, Emilia? Why is it that we can’t be civil? Why is it that I can’t even look at my new stepsister for too long without wanting to punch a hole in something?” He advances another step. We’re nearly chest to chest, now. “I think you know.”

  “I— I—” I break off, unable to contradict him. Unable to think with him this close to me, invading my space, glaring at me like he wants to throw me off the top of this turret. “I know this is— I just—”

  “You what, Emilia?”

  The truth is, he’s right. I do know — I know exactly why things are this way between us. I remember every vivid detail of the night that altered our relationship forever.

  “Look, do you think this is easy for me?” I blink rapidly, trying to hold the tears at bay. “Do you think I like the way things are between us? Do you think I don’t regret—” I bite off the rest of my words.

  His scowl intensifies. “Oh, don’t stop there. What do you regret, Emilia? I’d love to hear it.”

  I bite my lip and glance away, unable to hold his stare when he’s looking at me with such contempt.

  When he speaks again, his voice is vibrating with barely-leashed violence. “You say you don’t recognize yourself anymore? That you feel powerless? Suffocated by everyone trying to force you to become someone you don’t want to be? That’s called life. It’s called being an adult.” He laughs, but there’s no joy in the sound. “You no longer have the luxury of doing whatever you want? No one does. Whether they’re a prince on a throne or a fucking pauper on the streets, at some point everyone is forced to change — usually by shitty circumstances outside their control. So, I’m sorry your life didn’t
work out according to your picture-perfect plans, Your Highness. But show me one person on this fucking planet whose did.”

  I glance back at him. My heart is pounding so hard, I’m worried it’ll leave bruises on my ribs. “Did you ask me to open up just so you could yell at me? Just to make me feel selfish and small? Congratulations! You succeeded.”

  “I’m not yelling to belittle you, Emilia. I’m yelling because I want you to understand that you are not exempt from change being thrust upon you just because you’re royalty now. I’m yelling because you don’t seem to realize that change isn’t one-directional. You have the power to change things too.”

  “Power? Sure, let’s talk about that. I have all this supposed power. Right?” I laugh, though there’s nothing funny about this situation. “I have a title and a birthright and a massive future sprawling out in front of me with crowns and thrones and coronations… All the trappings of authority. Except it’s not really authority if you can’t actually do anything with it. It’s not really a weapon if you can’t wield it. So, tell me — how the hell am I supposed to change a damn thing, Carter? By asking politely?”

  “I never said it would be easy. It won’t be easy. Because it’s the hardest thing in the world — figuring out who you are and refusing to apologize for it. Being yourself in the face of great opposition.” He takes that final step, bringing our faces into direct orbit. His voice is low with intensity. “You don’t like people tearing pieces of you away, replacing them with traits of their own design? Then take your pieces back. Remake yourself. And when you do, make sure you use more than staples and glue. Use iron and blood and stone. Use something so strong, they can’t break you apart ever again.”

  Twin tears streak down each of my cheeks. I reach up to brush them away, but Carter beats me to it — cupping my face with his big hands, gently swiping his thumbs across my skin. I feel his touch everywhere, radiating through my body, warming me despite the bitter wind that whips around us. It takes all my strength not to lean into the feeling. Into his arms.

  “Carter,” I whisper shakily, still crying.

  “What?”

  I blink up at him. He’s close — so unbearably close — and yet still so far away. “Earlier, when I said I regret it—”

  His hands fall away from my face; I instantly mourn their loss. “I remember,” he grits out.

  “I didn’t mean I regret being with you. That night, what we shared — I’ll never regret it.” I swallow, trying to find the right way to say this. My words are cautious and so quiet, I’m not even sure he can hear them. “What I do regret, more deeply than I can ever express… is that, afterward, things changed between us so drastically. What I regret is the aftermath. What I regret is this unbearable distance between us. I don’t know how to close it. And I don’t want it there, Carter. I can’t stand that it’s there, because—”

  I never finish the rest of my sentence.

  Because Carter reaches out, yanks me into his arms, and slams his mouth down on mine… effectively erasing any distance that existed between us in the blink of a bold blue eye.

  Chapter Eleven

  Carter Thorne is kissing me.

  Holding me.

  Touching me.

  He’s finally, finally touching me, and I can breathe again for the first time in weeks. He’s touching me, and my whole world starts spinning again.

  I didn’t even realize it had stopped.

  His hands delve into my hair as his tongue slides into my mouth. I have no conscious awareness of moving, but suddenly my back is pressed against one of the stone turret walls and he’s pressed up against me, bringing our bodies flush together. I loop my hands around his back to pull him closer, as close as physically possible, desperate to feel the heat of his chiseled body on mine.

  His hands fist in my hair, yanking my head back for better access to my mouth. This kiss is hard, hot, demanding. Less a kiss than the staking of a claim, long overdue. I’m being possessed, owned, taken over one tongue-stroke at a time, and I don’t object. If anything, I spur him on.

  My hands slide beneath his thick sweater, seeking bare skin and smooth muscle. I skim my fingers up the strong planes of his back, reveling in the way he shudders when he feels my touch.

  Maybe I’m claiming him, too.

  For a long, long while, we get lost in each other — forgetting where we are, forgetting who we are. We are one intertwined tangle of limbs. We are roaming hands and devouring mouths, completely caught up in a stolen moment. Not paying attention to the passage of time or the freezing temperature or the fact that what we’re doing here is probably the worst idea in the history of mankind.

  My shaky hands eventually find their way around to Carter’s front side, tracing the indentations of his washboard abs, toying with the elastic waist of his sweatpants, following the trail of hair I find there down, down, down, until I’m inching beneath the fabric. When he processes where I’m headed, Carter jerks abruptly away, tearing his mouth from mine in the process.

  My arms fall to my sides and my brows skyrocket. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?”

  He stares at me with swollen lips, his eyes bright with lust. His breaths are ragged. I can see how much he wants me — hell, I could feel how much he wants me from my cursory graze of his sweatpants. So I know how much it’s killing him to pull away, right now. He’s not the only one; it’s killing me, too.

  I don’t know why he’s stopped. If I’m being totally honest, I’m desperate enough not to care.

  “Kiss me,” I plead, arching my face toward his. But he doesn’t. Instead, with a groan, he drops his head into the crook of my neck. His rapid exhales are hot against my skin.

  “Carter? What’s wrong?”

  “We have to slow down a bit.”

  “But I don’t want to slow down.”

  I want to keep going until I forget all the reasons we’re supposed to stay away from each other. Until I forget all the disastrous repercussions of the last time we caved in to this same impulse, in a moonlit greenhouse on a dark autumn evening…

  “Christ, Emilia.” He laughs, but the sound is pained. “You’re killing me.”

  “You’ll feel better if you kiss me, I swear…”

  He lifts his head to meet my eyes. And for the first time, beneath the lust, I see something else. Something more than just physical chemistry or sexual attraction. Something deeply serious.

  Seeing it there makes the breath catch in my throat.

  Seeing it there scares me half to death.

  Carter’s forehead comes down to rest against mine, so we’re eye to eye, nose to nose.

  “The last time we did this, we did it wrong,” he murmurs, so close I can feel each word on my lips. “This time, I don’t want us to mess it up.”

  My shoulders tense. “Carter—”

  “I’m not going to risk this by rushing it with sex again. It’s too important.” He pauses. “You’re too important.”

  My heart squeezes painfully inside my chest. I can feel my blood pressure spiking with each doomed word he says. Tears start leaking from the corners of my eyes, and I know he can feel them wet against his cheeks.

  “Carter.” His name shatters on my lips. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t?”

  “Don’t say anymore,” I whisper. “Just kiss me. Can’t that be enough for now? Just kiss me and… Please, whatever you do, just… don’t say those sort of things to me anymore.”

  He pulls back, a fissure appearing between his eyes when he finally takes in the look on my face, the tension in my body. His voice is heartbreakingly vulnerable when he whispers, “Why?”

  “Because it’ll only make it harder.”

  “Make what harder?”

  My throat convulses, a violent spasm of muscle. I try to say the words in a clear voice, but it cracks halfway through. “Walking away.”

  The look of hurt and betrayal that flashes across his face will haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Don
’t you understand, I want to scream. Last time, it was just sex, and leaving you damn near killed me. So if you say all these perfect things to me… if we let it be about more than just a physical urge… if we let our hearts catch up to our bodies… I don’t think I’ll survive when it inevitably ends.

  His hands drop away from me like I’ve scalded him. He takes a full step backward, as though he can’t bear to touch me, anymore. “Right. My mistake. I thought things were different, this time. But I see we’re right back where we were before.”

  “Carter, don’t say that. It’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it, though? What’s changed, exactly?” His gorgeous features are twisted in a hateful glare. “You fuck me in a greenhouse, then you walk away; you kiss me on a castle turret, then you walk away. End result is always the same. The only thing that’s different is, this time I didn’t even get the benefit of an orgasm out of our little arrangement.”

  My tears are picking up speed, pouring from my eyes with alarming velocity. “Don’t do that.”

  “What am I doing, Emilia?”

  “Don’t… cheapen it. Don’t twist it into something it’s not.”

  “Then tell me what it is. Define it for me.” He pauses, eyes wild with fury. “You can’t, can you? Because you know as well as I do that you can’t define something that doesn’t exist.”

  A sob bursts out.

  God, I cannot take this anymore. I’m not strong enough. Another minute and I’m going to forget all my resolve and fall into his arms, damn the repercussions.

  “And so she cries,” he says coldly, watching my tears fall. He claps his hands together in a slow, mocking show of applause. “Bravo. What a stellar performance. You’re almost convincing me you care.”

  “Of course I care!” I dash the tears from my cheeks. “You act like I’m enjoying this, like it’s somehow easy for me—”

  “You think it’s easy for me?” he growls back, anger boiling to the surface. “You think it’s easy wanting the one girl who is, quite literally, the last person on earth I can ever be with, for a whole myriad of reasons? You think I’m having fun, watching you slip a little further out of my reach each day? You think I enjoy seeing the parade of delivery boys bringing you flowers from men who you’re actually allowed to contemplate a future with?”