I turn away and walk to the window, hating that he wishes he didn’t feel so much for me and understanding it all the same. That’s the worst part of this: I get it. I don’t understand the rush to find a wife or a world where those decisions usually aren’t emotional ones, but trying to connect with someone he may marry while his mother’s deadline looms? I can sympathize. “You looked like you felt it just fine,” I say.
“I wanted to, but I didn’t.” He blows out a breath. “If I felt for her what I feel for you, I wouldn’t have sent her home.”
“Okay.” Right alongside my hurt, guilt ravages my chest. I spent last night begging Finn. I spent this morning loving the laughter in his eyes when he teased me, and the entire afternoon trying to figure out how to save him. And I don’t know where this puts me and Sebastian.
“Can we put all that aside for the night?” he asks. His warm hand slides down my arm until his fingers wrap around my wrist. “I want to focus on us for the next two days. I don’t want to think about you training with Finnian or my mother pressuring me to choose a bride or how soon I’ll have to take my position as king. Can we just focus on us for a while?”
“I’d like that.” Liar. While he thinks he’s taking me to Serenity Palace so we can have some quality time together, my focus will be on finding the Grimoricon and getting it back to Mordeus.
He smiles. “Are you feeling okay?”
I narrow my eyes. Does Sebastian know someone drugged me last night? Was Riaan involved? “Yes, why?”
“I came to your room after breakfast, and your maids said you were still sleeping. That’s not like you.”
Pretha must have put some sort of glamour on my room to make my maids think I was here and sleeping . . . or glamoured someone to look like me and play the part.
“I had a few glasses of wine at the party last night,” I say.
“I’m glad you went.” His eyes soften. “I like seeing you take part in events around the palace.”
But maybe a little more honesty would be better. “Bash, I think I was drugged.”
His faces pales, and those beautiful eyes turn as violent as a raging sea. “What?”
“I didn’t feel right. Hot all over, low inhibitions.” My cheeks heat in embarrassment. Thank the gods only Finn witnessed the worst of it. “When my—my maid found me at the party, I was trying to take my clothes off.”
His jaw is hard, and his eyes glitter with anger. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.”
How can he and I ever stand a chance when simple honesty is something I can never agree to?
Sebastian takes me by the shoulders, his face solemn. “Did you see Finn or any of his people last night?”
“You think they drugged me?”
“I think Finn would like nothing more than to gain your trust, then lower your inhibitions so you’d do something reckless . . . like agree to bond with him.”
“I didn’t bond with anyone.”
“I know.” He squeezes my shoulders gently. “I want to know if they tried.”
The only one I was tempted to bond with last night was Sebastian, and my bargain with the king kept me from indulging that wish. “But . . . why? Why do you all care about this bond so much? You act like it matters more than . . .” More than me. That was at the root of my begging in the shower, wasn’t it? It seemed that Sebastian couldn’t want me without a promise of the bond, and I wanted to feel like I’d be enough even without it. I can’t blame the drugs for that.
“Because it does matter.” He searches my face. There’s more he’s trying to tell me. Maybe he can’t. Maybe something about the curse? “I wouldn’t put it past Finn and his crew. A simple bonding ceremony, and he could take you away from me forever.”
Didn’t Finn give me a similar warning about Mordeus when I first came here? Why would they both warn me this way? And Finn was angry this morning when I admitted that the bargain with Mordeus is truly what keeps me from bonding with Sebastian. What else would he have said if Pretha hadn’t come in with Lark?
I can’t afford a fight with Sebastian now, and defending Finn and his friends will only prolong this argument, so I swallow back the urge and shake my head. “I don’t know who drugged me.”
He squeezes my hand in his. “If we were bonded, I’d know when you were in trouble. I would have found you last night and made sure no one could use your inhibitions to their advantage. I hate knowing how vulnerable you are.”