CHAPTER 27

VIENNE

“You know,” Yasmin said conversationally as her husband departed the Blue Chambers. She turned to smile at Nicolette. “From what you and Prince Urban said, this woman sounds like she might actually be the real deal. Maybe ~I~ should get a tattoo from her too, to prove to my husband they’re not so evil after all and that he ~is~ my one true love. Where did you say she was staying again, darling?”

“Oh! She’s at the Cotton Maker’s Inn,” Nicolette answered. “The top suite. But she plans to leave tomorrow, so you’d have to visit her today.”

“Yasmin,” I started cautiously. “I’m not sure Caulder would appreciate you getting a mark after we just saw the way he reacted to Nicolette’s.”

But my sister merely laughed off my concerns and waved a hand. “Oh pish. He can never stay mad at me. Why…” Smile brightening, she added, “We should go together and each get a love mark. Don’t you think, Vienne?” Her sharp smile slid toward Urban. “Maybe your one true love isn’t even the prince, here.”

Urban merely narrowed his eyes. “I doubt I would’ve been able to bring her back from the dead if I wasn’t.”

~Or share dreams with each other~, I silently added.

Yasmin sniffed, her smile deflating. “Maybe she wasn’t dead when you decided to put your High Cliff mouth all over hers. Maybe she was merely passed out from the pain. She ~had~ just given birth and lost all that blood.”

“What the hell does it matter to you?” Urban snarled, glaring. “The only person it affects is me, and my life is none of your fucking business, so who the fuck cares about any of it?”

“Oh, I think it might affect Vienne, who happens to be ~my~ sister, in which I have a vested interest.”

Urban glanced toward me, unable to argue, since his mark did affect me quite a lot… In our dreams.

“Please,” Nicolette started, growing visibly shaken. “Don’t fight. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t gone to that woman and brought the dark magic into the castle, none of this would be happening. Now we’re ~all~ in danger.”

“Oh, sweetheart, no,” I told her kindly. “The danger was already here. Your visit to the priestess only made us ~aware~ of it.”

“Well, I don’t want to be aware of it,” she complained passionately. “I want to go back to when everyone was safe and free from any kind of darkness.”

And she ran from the room in tears.

I sighed, not sure how to make her understand she’d done nothing wrong.

“You should go after her and talk to her,” Yasmin suggested.

I nodded and hurried from the room after the young princess. But I only got halfway down the hall before I slowed to a stop.

Wait a tick. Yasmin had never worried about soothing Nicolette’s feelings before. Instantly suspicious, I backtracked to the opening of the doorway and peeked inside to find that only Urban and Yasmin remained, with no servants lingering about.

And she was back to staring at his codpiece. “Do you really think you can find this dark…~whatever~ that’s wandering around the castle?”

With a tired sigh, Urban ran his hand through his hair. “Hell, I don’t know. But I’m certainly going to try. I don’t want dark magic around my sister or…other people in the castle any more than the king does.”

Yasmin laughed lightly. “~Other~ people, hmm? You mean, my sister? You can say her name, you know. ~Vee…yen~. You don’t want dark magic around Vienne.” Wandering closer to him, she sent him an encouraging smile. “Go ahead, Prince. Say it. Say ~Vienne~.”

His return frown was suspicious. “I don’t see why I need to say it if you already know what I’m talking about.”

Without answering, she simply murmured, “Hmm,” and tapped her chin as she studied his face. Then she dropped her hand suddenly as if ready to try a new track to get under his skin. “You know, I think it’s simply delicious how devoted you are to her.” Trickling out a flirty laugh, Yasmin walked her fingers up the center of his chest, making him lurch back and gape incredulously.

“Oh, don’t be shy, darling,” she said, shifting closer to him. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. In fact, I could make you feel very, ~very~ good.”

My mouth fell open, unable to believe what I was hearing. But had she just… No. No. Yasmin wouldn’t… But then… Holy shit. She would, and she had. She’d totally just propositioned ~my~ man.

Urban narrowed his eyes and shook his head, squinting. “No, thanks.”

“No?” she asked with a questioning smile. “Are you sure about that? Because…if you’re waiting on Vienne to decide to be disloyal to her husband so you can finally have her for yourself, you may be waiting a ~very~ long time indeed. She simply doesn’t stray from her vows. But me, on the other hand…” Her laugh turned husky as she pressed a hand to her chest. “Let’s just say, you wouldn’t have to wait that long for me.” Then she winked. “Or at all.”

“No,” he said again, his voice stronger and sterner this time. “I know she won’t be disloyal. And I’m not waiting. I just have no interest in you.”

Yasmin gasped at his rejection. “Why, you…” She swung out her hand to slap him, but he caught her wrist before she could make contact.

“I know why you’re sniffing around me,” he spoke quietly. “But it won’t work. There are some things that belong to your sister that you just can’t take.”

“You really are a stupid High Cliff bastard, aren’t you?” she snarled, jerking her hand free from his grip. “You’ll regret this.”

“I doubt it.”

Sniffing, she spun away and stormed from the room, leaving through a different exit than the one I was hiding behind.

With a muttered curse, Urban rubbed the palm of his hand on his thigh as if trying to dispel her touch before saying, “Never fear, my lady. I would’ve turned her down even if I hadn’t felt you near, listening to everything we said.”

Since he’d already addressed me, I stepped quietly into the room with him.

He glanced my way. “Did you know she was unfaithful to the king?”

I shrugged. “It hadn’t occurred to me before, but it doesn’t necessarily surprise me.”

He nodded and glanced down before lifting his gaze again. My cheeks instantly heated, and I had to turn away, unable to keep eye contact with him for too long. I irrationally feared I might burst into hormonal flames.

“I…I should go,” I said, already stepping toward the exit.

“You’re uneasy around me today,” he said softly. There was confusion in his voice.

I paused and squeezed my eyes closed before slowly swiveling back around. “Well, can you blame me?” I said on a nervous laugh. “After… After that dream last night?”

The skin around his eyes crinkled, showing his confusion. Then he tipped his head to the side. “But it wasn’t our first sex dream.”

I laughed out a harsh, uncomfortable sound and glanced around the room, as if searching for something to help me stabilize myself, because I felt entirely unhinged. “Yes, but… Last night wasn’t ~just~ a sex dream. You can’t stand there and tell me it was like every other dream we’d shared before. It was…it was ~more~. It was—” With no idea how to explain how it had completely rattled my foundation, I lifted my hands and sent him a desperate, pleading stare, and I didn’t even know what I was pleading ~for~.

“Okay,” he finally relented with a single nod. “It was different. It ~was~ more. But—”

“No buts,” I cried. “It was ~wrong~. That’s what it was. And it can never happen again. It took feelings and emotions and words and mixed them with touches and kisses and—and it...it was just too much, too wrong. It totally crossed a line.”

I whirled away to flee, but he leaped after me to touch my hand. He didn’t even try to grab it; he merely slipped his fingers briefly across the back of my palm. But it stopped me as if he’d tackled and pinned me to the floor.

I turned back to him, feeling wild and unbalanced. He lifted his hands in surrender and backed away, giving me space. He didn’t stop until nearly fifteen feet separated us. But even from that distance, his blue eyes looked worried. I tore my gaze away, feeling my entire body flush with embarrassment and hot memories and shame. God, this was so agonizing.

“My lady,” he said softly, causing me to meet his gaze. “It was just a dream. ~My~ dream,” he insisted. “Everything you did and said was because I wished it so. It was what ~I~ wanted from you.” Shaking his head, he said, “I know you haven’t given me some grand declaration of love. I ~know~ that. It was ~my~ dream. My pretend.”

I nodded and started to turn away without speaking, only to stop myself and then whirl back to him. “But I’ve never seen the Great Sea before.”

He shook his head slowly, clearly not understanding. “What?”

“I told you in my dream that I’d never seen the sea before. And that’s actually true. I haven’t even been outside Donnelly. All I know is desert and sand and the one oasis that is Mandalay. So, how did you know that if it was exclusively ~your~ dream? You didn’t know any of that outside the dream, did you?”

“No,” he said slowly, only to shrug. “But maybe I made that idea up in my head because I wanted to show you something you’d never seen before. I mean, sharing something with you that I thought was your first experience ~did~ make it more meaningful to me. So, it could’ve just been a coincidence that it really was your first view.”

“Maybe,” I murmured. “Or maybe we have more control in each other’s dreams than we originally thought.”

“I guess that’s possible,” he drew out slowly, studying my expression with a slight frown. “But why are you saying this as if it’s a ~bad~ thing?”

“Because it is,” I insisted. “Because if I had any kind of control in that dream, then...then the things I said to you, the things I ~felt~ for you…there might be some ~truth~ to them. And if there’s any truth to them, then…”

“Then you’re starting to fall for me,” he surmised quietly, his eyes flaring with instant pleasure.

I hissed out a harassed breath and pressed my hand to my brow. “But we can’t have that,” I muttered, shaking my head insistently. “We can’t have that.”

“Why not?” he asked, amusement littering his voice.

“~Because~!” I dropped my fingers to send him an incredulous glance. “That would have problems written all over it. We absolutely cannot be together, Urban. I’m not—”

“I ~know~,” he muttered, sending me a moody scowl. “I know we can’t be together in the real world. But what’s the harm in letting it play out in our dreams? No one else knows about them, and it’s not like it’s really happening, so—”

“No!” I cried. “No.” Shaking my head, I pressed my hand to my chest. “Not even there is safe anymore. It feels ~wrong~.” When he frowned and opened his mouth to protest, I quickly added, “Last night was just too real. It feels as if I’m giving you some unfair false hope for something that could never be, and it…it’s making me a disloyal person.”

“Vienne,” he whispered, shaking his head and stepping toward me, but I held up a hand, and he paused.

“I know you’re going to repeat that it’s only a dream so we’re not really doing anything wrong, but I ~feel~ wrong.” Eyes glittering with tears, I shook my head. “In my heart, I’m being unfaithful.”

Because I wanted the dreams to be real.

His shoulders fell, and I watched the fight drain out of him. Agony entered his eyes as he bowed his head and nodded. “Okay, then,” he said in a suddenly hoarse voice. “What do we do to stop the dreams?”

“I don’t know.” My laugh was watery and hopeless as I looked up at the ceiling and then wiped the moisture from my eyes. “Is that even possible?”

He shrugged. “I always dream less after drinking too much ale. I suppose I could get drunk every night before bed.”

I laughed at his offer, though I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. I would never have him do such a thing. But the alternative was…there was no alternative. I’d probably still dream about lying in his arms, about growing closer to him, and I’d cherish every night of it.

Feeling the hopelessness of our situation weigh down on me, I hugged myself. “I wish…I wish…”

“You wish what, my lady?” He sounded closer, close enough to pull me into his arms and hold me through this pain, but I knew he was still many, many feet away, respectfully keeping his distance.

I turned my watery gaze to him. “I wish your mark was gone. I wish I could just claw it off your face so we wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore. So we didn’t have to ~hurt~ or ~hope~ for anything more.”

Except that wasn’t what I really wanted at all.

Urban studied me thoughtfully for a moment before shaking his head. “But the thing is, ~you~ don’t have the mark and you’re already experiencing some of the bond. So I don’t think this is the mark’s fault. I think… I think that if I were able to meet every woman in all the realms, and I got to know each of them to the best of my knowledge, the one I would choose after that, the one who could make me the happiest, would be you. The mark has merely cut out all the hard work of searching through every other woman out there and pointed you out directly to me. It didn’t ~make~ me fall in love with you. It just recognized you and made me infinitely aware of you so I’d pay attention to you and fall on my own. The rest is all on us.”

“But…” I threw up my hands, exasperated. “~How~? How in the world could a mere ~tattoo~ possibly know something like that?”

Shrugging, he chuckled. “I don’t know. It’s magic. The work of divine intervention. ~Something~. I just know it works.”

I gaped in disbelief. “And… And you just ~trust~ that?”

He seemed too practical for such blind devotion.

“Sure. Why not?” His grin turned playful. “It seems spot-on so far.”

“~What~?” I sputtered. “Did you just…” I shook my head, not sure I was hearing what I’d just heard. “You can’t really mean that. You don’t know me nearly well enough to be able to determine such a thing.”

His gaze heated as it moved over me, making me hot in the most private places. “But I’ve been paying attention. And it’s not wrong yet.”

“But that’s just… That’s… I don’t understand. ~Me~? Out of all the women in all the realms? Why ~me~? I’m not remarkable at all.”

“Not remarkable?” He stilled, moving nothing but his eyes, which he flashed to my face. A sudden sadness filled his gaze as if he felt sorry for me. “Then you’re not seeing what I see.”

I let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, I think I see plenty of myself. I know me better than you do, sir, and I am not—”

“No,” he said softly. “You’re too close. All you can focus on are the flaws and the fears and insecurities. Take a step back, my lady, back here from where I’m standing. Then you’ll be able to see the ~whole~ picture like you’ve never seen yourself before. Because I can see your insecurities and fears, too, the flaws you think you have. I see it all. The good and the bad. And those things you don’t like, that feel so significant and huge and insurmountable from up close… Well, from back here, they’re just little specks that can be brushed off with a flick of the finger, because the rest of you…” He nodded, sending me a slow smile of approval. “The rest of you far and beyond overshadows those murky spots. You are a good, caring, honest, and loyal woman. I do not believe my mark is wrong. ~You~ are where I belong.”

My heart nearly burst through my chest. I stared at him, with no idea how to react, no idea what to say. A fresh tear slid down my cheek.

“Vienne,” he whispered as if in pain. “Please, darling. Don’t cry.”

Just as he took a single step toward me, Caulder strode into the room. When he saw Urban and me, facing each other and standing nearly fifteen feet apart, he slowed to a stop, glancing suspiciously between us.

“What’re you two doing alone together?”

“It was quite by accident,” I rushed to assure him, quickly dashing my tear away. “Yasmin was here too, but she—” Realizing Yasmin had been trying to break faith with the very man before me, I gaped at him, too stunned to remember what I’d been saying.

Poor Caulder was a cuckold. The king. What would he do if he knew? How would the kingdom suffer?

“Yasmin,” he repeated, focusing on me. “Yes, I need her. Which way did she go?”

Urban was the one who pointed. “I believe she went that way, Your Majesty.”

“Very good. Thank you.” He started to trail after his wife, only to pause and motion between me and Urban. “And I don’t think it’s wise for you two to linger in any room alone together—not even one as open and public as this. I can certainly tell you weren’t getting into any mischief, but Soren wouldn’t if he’d been the one to stumble across you.” His gaze strayed meaningfully to me. “You know what I promised him if you ever broke your wedding vows, do you not?”

Wincing, I nodded. “Yes, I know.”

Narrowing his eyes, Urban stepped forward. “Well, ~I~ don’t know. What did you promise?”

Caulder glanced his way, drew in a breath, and answered, “I promised my cousin your head on a pike.” Urban’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t respond until the king added, “Plus Vienne’s exile from the castle… Away from her child. She could never have contact with Anniston again.”

“~What~?!” Urban finally roared in outrage. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t take her daughter from her.”

Caulder lifted a single eyebrow. “I’m the king. I can do whatever I want.”

Huffing out an aggravated breath, Urban growled, “But you must know she would never—”

“I ~do~ know,” Caulder answered, cutting him off. His eyes sliced my way. “I know exactly how honorable Vienne is. And that is why I had no problem making her husband such a promise. But…” He turned back to Urban. “I’m sure it would help if you didn’t try to tempt her away from her vows in the meanwhile.”

Urban bowed instantly…to me, not the king. “I won’t,” he promised. “I won’t let you lose your daughter. I swear it.” When he straightened, his gaze apologized for the situation we’d been put into.

I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault; he’d never forced my ass of a husband to come up with such a threatening ultimatum. But with the king standing between us, I feared saying anything. So, our gazes were forced to speak volumes in apology and regret before we simultaneously turned our backs to each other and departed the room, going in separate directions and leaving through separate exits.

And though no matter which way either of us went, I felt the distinct impression that a part of us stayed together.

That was the first time I felt the bond between us outside our dreams. And that’s when I really started to believe—I ~was~ his one true love, wasn’t I?

How remarkable.