“I’ll say I slipped,” I said the first thing that came to mind, and Evren’s gaze darkened.
“The queen isn’t a fool, princess. If she thought for a moment that you tried to run, she would do far worse to you than she ever did to…”
“My father?” I finished before he could.
He looked up at me again with that same pity in his eyes. “Your father or anyone else who dared betray her. You are everything she has been working toward, and she will not allow you to slip through her fingers.”
He pressed the next cloth against my cut, and this time, I bit down on my bottom lip to stop myself from crying out.
“I don’t want to be here.” I curled my hands into fists and pressed them into his mattress at my sides even as they itched to reach out for him.
“You don’t have a choice, princess.” Evren didn’t meet my eyes. Instead he was staring at my wound as he wiped the cloth against it and cleaned my tarnished skin. “I’m going to have to use magic to heal this.”
“What?” My voice shook, and I knew that he could hear the fear that dripped from it.
“My magic can heal this quickly.” He ran a finger along my inner thigh just below the cut, and I trembled. “Or I can use a needle and thread, but you’ll risk…”
“Just do it.” I clamped my eyes closed as his fingers pushed my legs farther apart.
“It won’t hurt, Adara.” His voice was soft and comforting, but I didn’t dare open my eyes as my mark began to thrum in a steady pulse. My eyes were closed, but I could still sense darkness around me, darkness that was unusual yet breathtaking.
The shadows wrapped around me like a caress, and I couldn’t differentiate what was Evren and what was his magic. But I knew that I didn’t want it to end.
The pain seeped from my leg as if he was taking it into himself, and I sighed as the last of it left my body.
His magic fell away from me slowly, as if it was as resistant to leave me as I felt about losing its touch. But as the last embrace fell away from my skin, I blinked my eyes open and watched as the black smoke that healed me seeped back into Evren’s fingers with a grimace on his face.
“Are you okay?” I unclenched my hands at my sides and pressed them into the soft fabric of his bedding.
“Don’t worry about me, princess.” He nodded toward my thigh. “Has that ever happened before?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No one has ever used magic on me before.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He lifted his hand and trailed it over where the cut had just been, and that was when I saw it. “Have you ever scarred like this before?”
I stared down at the starlight that shot across my thigh as if it were trying to hide my flawed skin. “No.” I swallowed hard as my fingers met his against my thigh. “Never.”
The starlight that marked my skin had been there since birth. Never before had a new mark shown up on my skin, even after all the injuries that had marred it.
And never had my star marks been shrouded in darkness like ink had been spilled on my thigh.
“You need to lie.” Evren’s fingers roamed over mine as he traced my new mark, and I felt it come alive under his touch as if it had been a part of me all along. “If Gavril or the queen sees this, you need to lie.”
“What do I say?” I searched his face, and I could see the hint of panic on his face.
“Whatever it takes.” His fingers contracted against my leg, and he lifted higher on his knees until his body was pressed fully between my thighs.
It fully hit me then that I was sitting on his bed in front of him in nothing but my undergarments and a shirt, and when his fingers tightened on my skin once more, I couldn’t bring myself to be worried about the queen or the crowned prince.
“They must never know that I used my magic on you.”
“What will they do if they find out?”
“I fear that neither one of us truly want to know the answer to that.” His fingers skated up my sides until they settled along my hips.
I widened my legs for him without thinking, and Evren took the opportunity to tug me closer to the edge of the bed and against him.
“And what if they find out about the way I’ve allowed you to touch me?”