The Rebel King (All the King's Men Duet #2) - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,53

that again, but you’re right. I knew what I wanted to do, but I don’t think I knew how complicated it would make my life.”

“It’s all the compromises you have to make, the ideals you have to set aside, the plans you have to revise. It changes you.”

The sweet rasp of her voice and her slim fingers twining with mine make me want to drift on this water indefinitely. To make her laugh all night while she holds my hand.

“But under all the things we’ve done and become,” I say after a few contemplative seconds. “I think we’re basically the same.”

She tilts her head back to catch my eyes, smiling. “You do?”

And in just this moment, it’s like déjà vu, and we’ve been here before, said these things before. I’m the guy and she’s the girl, her innocence reincarnated, my ideals resurrected, and it doesn’t matter if we’re in a field of tulips, or under a canopy of stars. We believe again.

“We had to learn how to play the game,” I say, “and the rules may have changed, but our goals haven’t. Our endgame is still the same. Make this crappy world a better place.”

“I guess you’re right.”

She pulls my hand to her lips and kisses my fingers one by one, and with that simple act of affection, a rare, fathomless contentment saturates the air. A meridian of seconds where I’m completely satisfied, and at least for this handful of moments, there’s nowhere to be, nothing to gain, and this is enough. This, she is the first time I’ve tasted enough, and I savor it on my tongue, hoard it. Fold it into my hands to memorize the feel of complete satisfaction. An entire kingdom fits in this boat. My whole world rests against my heart.

Lennix leans up and takes my mouth in a kiss so gentle, so loving, I believe she’s completely content, too. For tonight at least, there’s nothing to do, nothing to conquer or pursue. All the power in the universe convenes here, throbbing and humming between our bodies.

And it is more than enough.

22

Lennix

Not only did Maxim and I cruise on the glowing bay, watching the dinoflagellates perform their fantastic underwater circus, but we camped for the night.

In a tent. With a sleeping bag.

Considering Maxim’s wealth, I expected at least glamping, some tricked out mansion-tent big enough to drive a Mack truck through, but no. It was just a tent and the most rudimentary camping equipment. We zipped our sleeping bags together and shared each other’s warmth, reminisced about the past, and passed our dreams of the future back and forth between each other.

I left Maxim there this morning, still zipped up, his hair slumping forward boyishly into his face, and struck out for a run along the coast. In the months when I prepared for my Sunrise Dance, I trained rigorously to endure the physical demands of the ceremony. Personifying Changing Woman, the first woman, was supposed to help me gain command over my weaknesses and even activate my ability to heal.

I need all those things now more than I did even then, but this woman has a lot more baggage than a thirteen-year-old girl. I find that peace more elusive. They say Changing Woman runs east so she can run into her younger self. What would I say to that younger girl?

With my run complete, I quietly pull my bag from the tent where Maxim still sleeps, and rummage until I find the items Mena gave me. I head for a jutting rock overlooking Tomales Bay. Legs folded beneath me, I spread out the simple elements for smudging. A bowl, sage, wooden matches and a feather. I light the sage and watch the smoke rise from the bowl before picking up the feather and using it to coax the smoke over my face, my head, my eyes, ears and heart.

Traditions are the memories of those before us, breathed to life when we carry them on. My hands reach back, straining through time for the peace my ancestors found even in the midst of unimaginable loss and injustice.

I haven’t smudged in so long that at first, I feel like a phony. Like I’m going through the motions of something that could be wasting my time, but when I close my eyes, I see Mama in the mornings. She liked to smudge outside. She said when you call on the four directions, you start with the east, and she could never remember where that was. Seeing the