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The last time I saw him, we were lying on the rooftop of the boarding school dormitories, staring at the clouds as they passed through the sky. He made me laugh, and every time his eyes would meet mine, a blade of excitement would pierce my belly.
I thought I was in love with him. A little ten-year-old girl with stars in her eyes and a boy she thought she’d never leave.
Then the headmistress came to my room and told me my parents had died in a car accident. In an instant, I became the Queen of Nord. The youngest in history.
I left boarding school. I left Asher. Life swept me up in its current, carrying me far, far away from those happy memories.
Cold distance is my constant companion now. There’s been so much tragedy and death in my life. So much grief. I hardly even feel the pain of it. I hardly feel anything anymore.
Except…now.
Asher’s grown into a man. A perfect male specimen, broad chested with carved angular features. He stares at me, mouth open, letting his gaze sweep down my body and back up again. Heat follows wherever his eyes fall, my body reacting to nothing more than the way he stares. Heat. It’s…unfamiliar. It almost hurts to feel the warmth wash over me, because I’ve felt so cold for so long.
Asher’s tall, with big, strong shoulders. More muscular than most courtiers I’ve met, but with a leanness that reminds me of a warrior.
He could snap me in half, I find myself thinking, but it’s not an unpleasant thought. Excitement trills through me as his deep brown eyes finally meet mine again.
“Pen,” he whispers, his voice full of gravel and longing.
A tremor passes through my stomach. I feel the need in his voice, echoing my own. I see the loneliness in his eyes. The hunger. Has he spent the past few decades battling a hostile world? Has he been beat down by life the way I have? Does he feel like a shell of who he used to be, with his heart frozen in a block of ice?
He doesn’t call me Your Majesty, which I like. I’m still Pen to him. I’m still the little girl who convinced him to haul rose bushes onto the roof. The girl who dragged him across the boarding school lawn to catch fireflies in the evening. The girl who got him in trouble for climbing over the school walls on a moonless night.
I want to get in trouble with him again.
I want to feel.
But I’m a queen now, not a little girl with mischief in her eyes. Still, when Asher looks at me with those hungry eyes, I want to be the girl I was before. My body riots under its layer of ice, and it takes every bit of self-control to keep myself together.
My feet take a step toward him, as if unable to resist the pull of his presence. I stop myself, throwing my shoulders back as I dip my chin down. “Hello, Asher.”
He sucks in a breath, as if the sound of his name makes his heart skip a beat. Saying his name feels familiar and foreign all at once. Like my tongue enjoys the movement of his name as it rolls over it, but my body hasn’t quite caught up to the feeling of speaking it out loud. My heart tries to thump harder, but it’s been dead for so long it hurts. My ribs creak and bend under the pressure of my pulse. I gulp, trying to regain control over my body.
I’m a monarch now. The Queen of Nord. I’m not a little girl who can thread my fingers with Asher’s and wonder what it would be like to press my lips against his.
Asher looks down at his finger, where a small trail of blood is still flowing. He brings the finger to his lips and I watch in fascination as his tongue swipes over its bloodied tip. Perfect male lips, wrapped around the tip of his finger. I want to kiss him. Desperately. The thought crashes into me without warning and the need to feel those lips against mine overwhelms me, as if nothing else ever existed.
My heart hammers, like it’s trying to burst free of a cage I built years ago. I lift a hand to my chest, watching how Asher follows the movement. His eyes are dark brown, almost black. Whenever his gaze meets mine, I feel like I’m on the boarding school roof once more.
Blinking, I look away. His gaze is an assault. Why do his eyes make my body burn up like that? Why do I care about the little boy I left behind?
“You’re a queen now,” Asher says, his unreadable eyes dropping to my lips. He shouldn’t be looking at me like that. No one should look at me like that.
He says the word queen, but what he means is woman. His gaze shifts down to my shoulders, my clavicle, my breasts. Everything is sensitive beneath his gaze. Every stitch of fabric feels rough. My heart thumps as I watch him take in my waist and the fluttery fabric of my gown. He shouldn’t be staring. I shouldn’t allow it.
I’m not a woman. I’m not a widow. I’m not a wife.
I’m a queen.
Nothing more, nothing less. I gave up my life to serve my kingdom. Seven years ago, I gave up my future when my husband died. I gave up my desire for an heir. I gave up everything except my duty.
Asher has no right to make me feel anything again. He has no right to look at me like I’m anything more than a monarch. He has no right to want me, or to awaken this hungry desire.
Clearing my throat, I nod. “I’ve been a queen for a long time.”
My feet won’t cooperate. They should be walking away from him. I shouldn’t allow him to remind me of all the things I’ve lost or left behind—but I find myself taking another step closer. As if watching someone else, I notice my hand rising and my fingers brushing his jaw.
The bumpy yet smooth skin of his scarred cheek feels warm to the touch. The edge of the burn mark crawls up the side of his cheek, covering one entire side of his neck. Asher closes his eyes for a moment, letting out a sigh as my fingertips brush the marred skin. It’s so…imperfectly perfect. He wears his scars on his body, while I keep mine hidden away. He’s brave—much braver than me. My eyes roam over every feature, feeling the edge of the smooth scar tissue where his stubble starts to prickle my finger. The boy I remember has grown to be a man I barely recognize, but somehow I feel like I’ve known him forever.
