Chapter 17: Referring To Last Night

Naya woke before Ronan again, and this time she didn’t lie there wondering where he’d been. She simply got up, crossed to where Mira waited with her clothes, and began the morning as if his side of the bed didn’t exist at all.

She was done trying to understand Ronan Veyr. He defended her before the court, then accused her of hiding secrets. He praised her after the council meeting, then threatened her over her father’s letter. He’d almost kissed her, then turned cold again before she could even catch her breath. She was tired of trying to guess which version of him she’d get from one hour to the next.

Ronan stirred and noticed the silence immediately. "You’re quiet," he said.

"I’m learning," Naya answered, without looking at him.

"Learning what?"

"That speaking to you usually makes my life worse."

That landed. She watched his expression harden in the mirror’s reflection, though he didn’t apologize, because of course he didn’t.

"If you’re referring to last night," he began.

"I’m referring to every night since I married you."

He said nothing to that, and Naya let the silence sit between them, unwilling to soften it for his comfort.

Later that morning, Ronan announced she’d be accompanying him to a pack inspection near the eastern grounds. Nothing dangerous, nothing urgent, simply an obligation he expected her to fulfill without complaint.

"I have my own duties," she said.

"Not today."

"Then ask politely."

He stared at her like the words didn’t compute. Nobody spoke to him that way, and it showed.

"I’m your wife," Naya said, arms crossed, "not one of your guards."

"You’re coming," he said, colder now.

"There. That’s exactly what I’m talking about." She turned and walked off, and to his own visible irritation, Ronan actually had to follow her down the corridor.

"Naya."

She stopped, but didn’t turn immediately.

"Come with me," he said, and this time there was no command in it, only something closer to a request, however reluctant.

She turned slowly. "Was that your version of asking?"

His jaw tightened. "Don’t make me regret it."

"Too late," she said, and something in her chest eased slightly at the small, unfamiliar victory.

The inspection took them past rows of modest homes near the border of the pack lands, guards trailing a respectful distance behind, Mira occupied elsewhere with the household staff. For a few minutes it was only the two of them walking side by side, and the silence between them grew heavier with every step until Naya couldn’t hold it anymore.

"You don’t trust me," she said.

"No," Ronan answered, without hesitation.

"At least you’re honest about something."

His eyes narrowed. "You lied to me."

She stopped walking. "And you punished me for a theft I didn’t commit."

That silenced him, if only for a moment.

"You want me to trust you," she said, "while you hold a dagger beneath my chin?"

"Your father sent you a secret letter."

"And you think that gives you the right to threaten me?"

He didn’t answer right away, and Naya stepped closer, not to soften anything, but to make sure he couldn’t look away from what she said next.

"You keep asking why I don’t trust you, Ronan." She held his gaze. "Look at what you’ve given me to trust."

For the first time since she’d known him, he had nothing ready to say back. She watched it settle into him, the truth of it, plain and impossible to argue against.

"I don’t know how to trust your family," he said finally, quieter than before.

Something in her chest loosened at the honesty of it, brief as it was. "Then don’t trust them." She paused, letting the next part land with everything she had. "But stop punishing me for being born into them."

He looked at her for a long moment, and she could see the argument working behind his eyes, could see him trying to find a way around what she’d just said and failing.

Neither of them spoke after that. They stood closer than either had intended, and Naya became aware of her own breathing, uneven and too loud in the quiet between them. Ronan’s gaze dropped, briefly, to her mouth, the same way it had the night of the near-kiss, and for one second she felt the pull of it as strongly as he clearly did.

Then she stepped back.

"Don’t," she said.

He went still. "Don’t what?"

"Look at me like that when you still hate me."

The words hit harder than she expected them to, hitting him too, judging by the way his expression shifted, caught somewhere between denial and something closer to guilt.

"And how am I looking at you?" he asked, quiet now, none of the usual command left in his voice.

She didn’t answer. She turned and walked back toward the path they’d come from, leaving him standing there, and she didn’t look back to see what was on his face, though she could feel his eyes following her the entire way.

Ronan remained where he was long after she’d gone, the inspection forgotten, the guards keeping their distance as though they understood something had happened that wasn’t theirs to witness. He thought about the letter, about her father, about everything the Ripley name had cost him and his family before Naya had ever set foot in his territory. He told himself, the way he always did, that he couldn’t trust her, that the suspicion was justified, that a King who let his guard down around a woman with secrets was a fool.

But all he could hear was her voice.

Stop punishing me for being born into them.

He turned the words over slowly, the way he might examine a wound to see how deep it actually ran. She hadn’t asked him to trust her family. She hadn’t even asked him to trust her completely. She’d asked him to stop treating her as though she were guilty of crimes that belonged to someone else entirely, crimes she hadn’t chosen and couldn’t undo.

He thought of the necklace, of the humiliation he’d allowed his council to put her through before he’d finally intervened. He thought of the letter, of the fear that had crossed her face the moment she remembered what it contained, fear that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with what her father expected of her. He thought of the way she’d looked wearing his cloak, of the jealousy that had torn through him at the sight of another man’s hand near hers, jealousy he had no right to feel toward a woman he claimed not to trust.

None of it fit together the way he wanted it to. If she were truly working against him, she wouldn’t have looked at him the way she just had, wounded and furious and painfully honest all at once. Deception didn’t usually come dressed in that kind of anger.

Ronan wondered if the enemy standing before him had never been her at all.