Sakina
I rode back to the palace hard, this time without stopping. We must have been in the cave for some time, because the sun had almost set as I raced through the palace gates. I went straight home, slamming the door shut behind me. What a f*cking fool I had been, thinking I could just be his friend when my chest seemed to press down on my heart whenever he was near. Foolish, foolish woman. F*CK.
I was grateful that Mama and Ma were spending the night at the palace as I screamed with rage in my empty house. The tears that had been threatening to fall for hours finally made good on their threat. I wiped them angrily, screaming again. At goddess, at Lucien, at my cursed fate to be mated to a man who didn’t love me back.
When he hadn’t mentioned our conversation in which I had told him
