Mina turned her face to the side, closing her eyes until she thought she had herself under control. The nearness of his body didn’t help, that thumb stroking her throat. Back and forth. Mina bared her teeth and snatched at his wrist. “Don’t.”

Thick lashes shuttered his eyes as his gaze dropped, fingers tracing her collarbone and lower, hand turning, the back of his knuckles leaving a tickling sensation against the smooth slope of her inner breast. He looked back up, a challenge there. “I thought you said ‘anything.’”

An odd mix of desire and revulsion filled her, washing her hunger back down into the depths within her. She wanted him, but not like this. It was an ugliness that he asked of her to clearly mark the change in their relationship.

“I won’t let you make me your whore.” Not even for Alexa? After everything the queen had endured over the past decade while married to the prince consort?

His hand froze against her skin, a horrified look flashing across his face before he smothered it. “Perhaps I wasn’t asking you to be my whore.”

He pushed away from her and Mina slumped against the wall, feeling the loss of his heat. What the hell had he been asking for, then? Her eyes narrowed to slits.

Barrons paced to the door.

“Wait.”

He lingered, half glancing over his shoulder.

“What do you intend to do with me?”

“Christ, Mina. Quite frankly, you’re the least of my concerns.” He yanked at the doorknob and she couldn’t help noting the stiff line of his shoulders and the weary, almost beaten way he carried himself.

A part of her felt an odd kinship with him. Her tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth, words hesitating there. How much had she longed for a kind word when she’d been in his position? When the entire world—her family and status—had almost been stripped from her?

“Barrons.”

“Yes?”

Clearly he had no intention of making this easy for her, and she could let it continue, truly she could. Let him build this wall of distance between them until she was safely walled back in.

Ice princess. In her gleaming ivory tower… A part of her had never liked those words, though they’d protected her. A part of her didn’t like herself very much when she looked at it that way. Because walling her heart off was safe and she’d needed that so badly once, but she was stronger now. She’d caught a glimpse of what it could be like for someone to tear down those walls.

And this wasn’t about her. She wasn’t the one hurting so badly now, though there was almost no sign of hurt in Barrons’s composure.

“I’ve never seen you so uncertain,” she said. “You’re always so confident at court. It’s…part of the reason you intrigue me so much.”

He didn’t say anything, but she could feel him listening.

Silence stretched out. She tried another tack. “I know what you’re feeling. As if the whole world has turned upside down, including your place in it.” As though there was nothing left in the world beyond the dogged determination to fight for survival. Duel after duel, familiar faces falling beneath her blade… How they’d turned on her then, when suddenly she was no longer a niece or a cousin, but the path to power.

“Do you?” The words were almost broken.

“You forget who I am.”

“No, I don’t.” And his eyes told her in that moment, that he saw only what she wanted him to see—what the world saw. He no longer saw her.

It had threatened her, the uncanny way he seemed to know her, but now its loss was almost unbearable.

Something of it must have shown on her face. His harsh expression softened, just a hint. “I can cope with the loss of power, of position. What man can’t forge himself anew? Do you know what the worst thing is, though?” He waited for her to answer, then never gave her the chance. “It’s Caine. I knew he wasn’t my father, and he was never the type to act the role, but things changed in recent years, once it became obvious that he was facing the Fade. For the first time in my life, he needed me. And damn me for a fool, but I gave him everything he needed. I protected him, no matter what the cost, and today he couldn’t even look at me. Not one word of protest. He wouldn’t even take that much bloody risk.”

“Maybe he couldn’t.” A generous assessment, but she didn’t share that thought with him. Barrons was too lost in his own grief and anger, and she…she knew exactly how that felt. “It will fade,” she said quietly. “The feeling of betrayal, of loss.”

“How do you know?”

Mina ignored the sharpness of his words. “I have lost a father too, and more than that, far more.” Her fingers twitched, aching to toy with her skirts. “When my brother, Stephen, died, I was fourteen. It was a duel, something reckless that my cousin Peter had led him into. Of course, my family was devastated, my mother more so than most. He was…” A deep breath. “He was the kind of brother who always made me feel like I was welcome at his side. He was the one who taught me blade work, when I was five. Hardly the pursuit of a young lady, as my mother frequently stated, but Stephen insisted on it. Won her over with charm, like most people. He had the entire household wrapped around his little finger.”

She didn’t want to look up at him, but something drew her gaze. A peculiar prickling, as if he were focusing all of his attention on her. Mina reached out and gestured to the wall beside her. Slowly he sat. Folding her legs under her, she sat beside him. Their shoulders brushed against each other.

“When he died, it was like a little piece of me died too. There went my laughter, my sense of order, for such a long time. My mother vanished into her grief, and my father turned his entire focus onto his experiments and the pursuit of a way to heal even death. I was left to my own devices. Peter became heir presumptive, and my father could barely stir himself to protest.

“It’s the worst kind of feeling—to be useless, ignored, left to your own devices. I felt invisible, and then my debut came, and of course, every blue-blood lord wanted to have me for his thrall. No longer invisible.” She gave a bitter laugh. “But still not seen. And Father began to fall further and further into his work. Someone had to manage the duchy’s finances and deal with creditors.

“For over a year I managed the duchy, and then Father started growing ill. We thought it the Fade at first. Paling, losing time, losing his strength…taking to bed for long periods of time.” This time she couldn’t hide the grief underlying her words. “He kept saying it was Caine, that your father had done it to him. My mother and I feared poison, but what kind of poison could afflict a blue blood? We’re invulnerable to illness. I’d never been so frightened in my life.”