Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,12

into his room. It was dark; there was no moon visible through the skylight. He turned and walked away, through the outer chamber and into his actual bedroom. I followed him, my heart thudding against my rib cage.

“How does it feel?” he asked, his voice low, once I closed his bedroom door behind me. He stood a few feet away, a tall, shadowed figure in the nighttime.

“Feel?” I echoed, confused and unaccountably nervous.

“Yes. How does it feel to be scared for someone you love?”

“You know very well what it feels like.” The humidity was stifling, making it hard to breathe. Or maybe it was the anger in his voice that made my lungs tighten, stealing my air.

“Yes, I do.” He spun away from me, shoving his hands into his hair and crossing the room to kick the chair behind his desk. My eyes widened. I hadn’t seen him like this in so long — not since he’d stopped the act of playing the spoiled, petulant royal brat he’d portrayed for so long. “You nearly died today,” he said to the empty fireplace, his back to me. The anger was suddenly gone from his voice. In the darkness, his shoulders sagged.

And I finally realized what was going on — he was mad. At me.

“No, I didn’t. He barely even hurt me.” I hurried over to Damian to put my hand on his shoulder, but he flinched and moved away from my touch. I pulled back, hurt and confused.

“Only because he couldn’t get to you fast enough!” Damian slammed his fist against the wall and then turned to face me, his eyes wild in the dim light, his hair askew. “Tanoori told Eljin what it was like. She told him what that poisonous vapor did to you all. What did you see in there? Who did you think you were fighting?”

He searched my face, his expression stony, brooking no patience with lies.

“You,” I whispered, my heart in my throat. “I thought I was fighting you again.”

“Then I was right. You almost died.”

“No, I wasn’t —”

“You were going to let me kill you rather than hurt me the other night. And that’s what would have happened again, if that cloud hadn’t begun to dissipate before it was too late. You weren’t actually fighting me, but you thought you were, so you would have given up rather than hurt me. The only difference was that man wouldn’t have made himself stop like I did.” Damian spoke in a rush, stepping closer to me. “And he would have killed you.”

I stared up at him, struck silent. “But he didn’t,” I finally repeated quietly.

“You pushed me away. You had them drag me out of there — away from you.” He lifted one hand as though he wanted to stroke my face, but he paused before actually touching me, his fingers shaking in the space between us. “How could you do that to me? I had to threaten them with their lives, as their king, to get Deron to let me go back in. I had to use my sorcery against my own men.” He closed his hand into a fist and let it drop to his side. “It made me sick to do it, but I was sure I’d lost you. And I was sure that when I finally reached you, I would find a corpse, instead of my fiancée.”

“I’m your guard, Damian! It’s my job to protect you! When are you going to learn that and stop risking yourself for me?”

“When are you going to learn that you are not just my guard?” Damian finally touched me, but it was no gentle caress of a lover. He grabbed my shoulders, his fingers digging in to my muscle and bone. “You are to be my queen.”

“I —”

“I love you, Alexa.” He cut me off, his voice urgent and tinged with hopelessness. “You’re all I have, and yet you throw your life around as though it were worth nothing, and I can’t take it. I can’t take the thought of losing you.”

“Damian, I’m —”

But then his mouth covered mine, stopping my words with his kiss. He crushed me to him, his lips hungry and desperate. I clung to him, my own fear and love surging through my body at his touch. His hands twisted in my tunic, pulling it up to expose the skin of my back. When his fingers brushed my spine, skimming the scars from the wounds Lisbet had healed, I shivered. A want I