My hands pressed into his cheeks, the bristles of his beard digging into my palms.

And then I said what I had to say.

“No.”

He closed his eyes.

“Cass,” I shook his head gently, “look at me.”

He opened his eyes.

“I need to be seen at your side.”

“Yes,” he murmured tonelessly.

“Cass, I want to give you what you want but what you need is your princess by your side, her staff and her sisters at her back.”

“I know it. I just don’t like it.”

“I know you don’t,” I said softly.

He changed the subject.

“We need to send a bird to your mother. I was unable to get her promise to ally with me should the revolt that’s happening now, happen. But she needs to know where her daughter is, where her granddaughters are going, and the state of play at the former. She also has to help Fern, if she can.”

I loved it that he thought of them as granddaughters.

Not singular.

I did not share that in the moment.

I nodded.

He suddenly sat straight, disengaging my hands and stating irately, “This is bloody worst fucking day since my first fucking wife died.”

I drew breath in my nose and stayed silent.

“And I live with Gallienus,” he went on. “So, no day is a good bloody day.”

“Have you spoken to your father?” I queried carefully.

“He denies knowing anything about the insurgency. He also lies.”

Undoubtedly, he did.

I bit my lip in order to bite my tongue.

He reached out, pulled me up so I had no choice but to take my feet and then he wrapped his arms around my hips, pulling me between his thighs and shoving his face in my ribs.

I stared down at his shorn hair, my hands out beside me, stunned motionless and unsure what to do.

There was a vulnerability to this.

Cassius Laird, fearsome general, heir to the throne of a tyrannical nation, was showing me vulnerability.

He’d lost a man, and he was hurting.

He was riding with his woman at his side to uncertainty, but certain danger, the outcome of which could no longer be assured, for who knew now what Aramus and Mars would do, knowing this Rising was sweeping all lands and just how far they intended to go to make whatever message they wished to make.

But True could not ride with him and that was certain.

Cass had undoubtedly just watched hours of torture.

His father was plotting against him.

And he’d come back to the castle, stretched out on a bed with two little girls, and read them a bedtime story.

I suddenly knew what to do and that was to smooth my hands over his hair.

In response, he shoved his face deeper into my flesh.

I wrapped the fingers of both hands around the back of his neck and whispered, “What can I do?”

There was no hesitation before his reply.