to his bed.
I fidgeted. “Uhhh…?”
“You’ll have to sit on my bed,” Rigel clarified. “All other spaces are taken.” He motioned to the small armory spread around him.
I picked my way across his room and hopped up on the bed. He had a pile of pillows nestled against the headboard. I rearranged a few to lean into and prop me up.
“Are all these chests filled with weapons?” I asked.
Rigel loaded a bolt into a crossbow and checked it before unloading it and putting the bolt in the chest. “Mostly. They’re not all mine, though.”
“How does that work?”
“At least half of them are pieces from my family lines. I decided it was better to bring them here than leave them at the family house since I will no longer be in residence there,” Rigel said.
“And all your family members are deceased?”
“Yes.”
“Ahh.” I wriggled deeper into the pillows and watched Rigel at work.
Muffin came inside a minute later.
She almost knocked a dagger off an end table, but a look from Rigel was enough to discourage her.
Steve and Kevin came in shortly after that. They sniffed around but settled on a rug by the foot of the bed.
An hour ticked past, and Rigel had almost finished putting all of his weapons back in the chest.
There was something soothing about watching him work, even if he was as silent as a shadow.
The cheerful light of the room and the warmth of the pillows had me yawning as he started on the last remaining item—a quiver of arrows.
“Thank you,” I said, breaking the silence of the room.
Rigel gently pulled the arrows from the quiver, then glanced in my direction. “For?”
“For letting me stay in here.” I paused, unsure if I should continue. “And for helping and supporting me. I didn’t really think we’d ever be like this.”
Although his facial expression didn’t change, a mischievous light glittered in Rigel’s eyes. “You never pictured curling up in an assassin’s bed while he cleaned his weapons nearby? How disappointing.”
I gave the obligatory chuckle.
“I support you because I can see what you’re trying to accomplish for the Court, and everyone can see that you care about the fae. That’s something I didn’t expect.” He cleaned an arrow and slid it back into the quiver.
“Maybe, but this has turned out drastically different from what I told you it would be like when we got married,” I said. “I know it’s your choice, but I still appreciate it. I’m glad you said yes.”
“To marriage?”
“Yeah.”
Rigel put the last arrow in the quiver. He stowed it, then shut the trunk.
When he left the chest where it was and started to saunter across the room, I made myself sit up.
That’s my cue. He probably wants to be done for the night.
“Thanks for letting me—”
Rigel interrupted me. “You can stay.”
I blinked. “What?”
“If it really does help, you can stay.”
We stared at each other for a very fragile moment, and I wasn’t sure how to react.
Despite all of my trolling, we’d kept a pretty strong line between us. His invitation to stay wasn’t really crossing that line, but it moved it.
We were married, but Rigel wasn’t romantically interested in me. I was pretty sure I could do the salsa with daggers—a thing he was deeply interested in—strapped over every inch of me and he wouldn’t even twitch.
But this invitation was almost a bigger deal. He wasn’t just supporting me, in a way he was letting me in.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes.” Rigel slapped my feet as he passed by. “As long as you stay on that side of the bed.”
I knew how to deal with joking, that put us back on familiar territory. “Oh come on. I’m not going to ravish you in your sleep.” I rolled my eyes as I rearranged the pillows for sleeping.
“You have an obsession for my abdominals,” Rigel said. “I’m not taking any chances.”
He met my gaze, and I cracked—laughing in a night I didn’t think it would be possible to find joy in.
I slid my feet under the covers. “You’re a pretty perfect consort, Rigel.”
“I don’t know that anyone else would agree with you.”
“That doesn’t matter. I think so, and you’re my consort,” I said.
Rigel lay down on the top of his bed, still fully clothed.
Considering the time I’d busted into his room in the early morning and he’d been shirtless, maybe he really was worried I was going to try something.
I grinned, and my eyelids slowly shut.
The endless tirade in my mind that reminded me of the day’s horrible failure