River winces as he shuts the door behind him, his hands going behind his back. A mask that I want to slap free of his face settles across his features. Calm. Nonchalant. In control.

I take a deep breath. River’s room is much like the others’, with a large four-poster bed dominating the middle, a wide-open window, and a chest of drawers. He also has a desk and chair, clean sheets of parchment and an inkwell standing at the ready. Familiar, and yet the male’s large body, his earthy scent, somehow make the large space suddenly seem small. Intense.

“Leralynn.” River’s deep voice rolls over me. “What did you wish to discuss?”

“Really, River?” I cross my arms. “You don’t know?”

His jaw tightens. He takes a step toward me.

I step back.

He stops. Clears his throat. “I never thanked you, did I? You are the one who saved all our lives last night. If you hadn’t interfered when you did, things might have ended differently. Would have ended differently. The courage it must have taken to grab hold of that much power—”

“Wrong answer,” I snap. “Try again.”

River draws a breath and rolls back his shoulders, the motion making him stiffen in pain. “I’m sorry you were dragged into a problem that my family appears to have started. Thank you for—”

“Try again, River.” I raise my chin. “And if you decide to thank me one more time for doing what any member of a quint would do for any other, I will walk out this door right now and not speak to you again until you pull your head from your ass.”

River’s nostrils flare and he crosses his arms in a mirror of mine. Then uncrosses them with a sigh. His neck bobs as he swallows, his cheeks and ears taking on a darker hue. Something in his back shifts, and in that moment, River suddenly looks . . . exposed. Vulnerable enough to make me want to wrap my arms around his neck and pull him against me.

I wait.

“I should have told you about my father,” he says quietly. “The whole of it, not just the insinuations. Should have told you that Klarissa was pushing me to take the Slait throne. And why I can’t—couldn’t. And may have to anyway. I . . . am sorry, Leralynn.”

“Better.” I walk forward, taking the chair for myself as all the fight goes out of me at once, fatigue taking its place. Plus, with River practically four times my size, there is little point in standing anyway. “Do you want to start with the explanation of what the hell happened with your father, or why you hid it from me?”

“I’d prefer to go into neither,” River mutters, the vulnerable truth of it flashing again in his gray eyes. He walks over to sit on the bed a few paces away from my chair, and this time, when he sits, he lets me see his cringe of pain. “But I imagine I’ve lost the privilege of keeping secrets, haven’t I?”

My neck tightens. “You don’t trust me with the truth?”

“What?” He shakes his head, running his hand through his hair. “No, Leralynn. I trust you. I . . . I am not proud of my heritage. And yes, I do worry that you might force me into something behind my back—”

“What—”

“Like, say, a second trial that I haven’t approved—but that’s not the same.”

The last is said with neither condemnation nor apology, and it’s my turn to flinch. “All right. I’m too honest to promise that would never happen,” I admit.

A small corner of River’s mouth twitches. “All right then.” He pauses, the humor draining to leave discomfort. “Can I make one request while we talk?” he says hesitantly. “Would you permit me to hold you?”

“Hold me?” I echo.

“It would be easier to speak if I didn’t have to toss the words across the room.” River shakes his head. “It would be easier to speak if I could feel you against my skin,” he says, correcting himself with visible effort. “Please.”

I frown, confusion mixing with my fatigue. I little see how the touch of skin would help anything just now. River isn’t in love with me, not the way he was with Daz, and it would be better if no illusion of intimacy clouded my senses just now.

His shoulders curl in on themselves.

Sliding off my chair, I decide on a middle ground and pull myself up on the bed beside him. Close, but not touching.

Before I can settle, the large male plucks me up in mid-motion, redirecting me to his lap. His chin rests atop my hair and he sighs, some tension going out of his injured muscles.

“River.” I twist to put a hand on his face. What are you doing? Why? “You shouldn’t be doing this. Not when you are hurt.” Not when you don’t mean what you hint at.

“You weigh nothing, Leralynn,” the warrior answers. Then he pauses again, catching his words. “Yes, the lashes hurt. But not very much, and the results were well worth the pain.”

I shake myself. Find his eyes. “I don’t understand you. In the hours before the trial, you made it rather plain that—”

“I know what I did.” River flinches. “You shouldn’t have had to lie with a stranger, but I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth about my family, but I still wanted to give you all the protection I could and . . . Practicality seemed the best option at the time.”

I brush my hand along his strong cheek, the slight prickle of his stubble rasping under my fingers. He is trying. Hard. And my heart breaks for the effort it takes him to voice even these small confessions, though I’m still confused about his feelings. More confused. All right. One step at a time. “Tell me about your father,” I order softly. “What happened?”

The words come slowly, River pausing to collect himself as he speaks of his colthood, meeting Klarissa, following her encouragement toward rebellion. The disastrous results that left River and Autumn without a mother and that forever ingrained the nature of the man sitting on Slait’s throne in River’s mind. River’s desire to never, ever, go near the throne again.

“Klarissa wanted to dethrone Griorgi before she ever sent us to Karnish,” River says, his body tight around mine, his arms squeezing so hard that it hurts. “She asked me to consider it after the initial word of the attacks on Blaze, knowing my involvement there, as a representative of the Slait throne, would be a direct challenge to my father’s power. I said no. You know what happened next. And now I don’t think there is a choice in the matter. Not now that Griorgi has allied with Jawrar and found a way to bring qoru into the mainland. We can’t let Griorgi break Lunos.”

I squirm to get out of River’s grip and turn until I’m straddling his lap, my face in line with his. He tries to avert his eyes but I catch his face, turning it toward me. “Is it standing against your father that scares you, River? Or taking the Slait throne?”

“Both,” he whispers, his beautiful eyes tight with pain.

“Then we’ll do it.” I bring my face so close to his that our breath mingles. “Together. All of us.”

“Stars.” River closes his eyes, a small chuckle escaping his chest. “You’ve enough fire in your blood to set all of Lunos ablaze.”

“Literally,” I mutter.

River throws back his head and laughs—a rare sight that’s so distractingly stunning, I’m almost relieved it doesn’t happen more often. “True. In fact, I just might be holding the most dangerous being in Lunos very close to my rather sensitive areas.”

Color rises to my cheeks. I try to turn my face, but River grasps my chin firmly between his thumb and forefinger.

“Your power is a good thing, Leralynn. More than a good thing—a great thing.” His voice lowers, all traces of humor gone. “And I am eternally grateful to whatever ancient beings gifted you with it, and gifted our quint with you.”

Warmth spreads through me, starting from the spot where River holds my face and slowly filling my chest. “Even if I occasionally try to destroy the world?”

River smiles, the handsome crags of his face making my lungs tighten. “We’ll work on that part.”

“I can agree to that.” The corners of my mouth tug up.

Before I can get too comfortable where I am, River slides his hands to my arms and pins me in place against him, restraining me for the second time. A habit that should be annoying but is somehow turning my bones to liquid instead. I shift beneath River’s attention, drawing a breath when my backside brushes against a sudden hardness.

“While I am offering confessions,” River says, his gray eyes flashing, focusing on mine with thunderous intensity. “There is one other lie that I feel the need to correct.” Without waiting for a response, River lowers his mouth to mine, his fresh scent drifting around my body in a caress. As one warm palm moves to cup the back of my head, his tongue opens my lips.

I gasp as River claims my mouth, pressing into me so thoroughly that I feel the pounding of his heart echo through my flesh. His tongue dances and twists against mine, marking its territory with a visceral need that leaves no room for doubt of what he wants. Of how much he wants it.

My heart jumps. I press back against River’s kiss, the pressure of his lips waking my body, pulling a moan from me before I can stop it. River growls against my mouth, the hand on the back of my head tangling in my hair until I could no more escape his kiss than I could give up breathing.

And stars, I do not want to escape it. Not with my thighs tingling, an ache starting low in my belly. When River pulls away, leaving my lips swollen and empty, my breath hitches from the loss. “What was”—I struggle to remember the start of this conversation—“what was the other lie?”

“When I asked to couple with you,” River says quietly. “I said I wanted you for prudence’s sake. That wasn’t true.” He leans down, biting my lip and groaning softly at my gasp of arousal. His hardness presses into me. “I want you because I want you. And I want to prove it.”