#ryja

Chapter 3 -

The first time he walked into her new room, she was standing before the vanity, eyes dull, lips faintly quivering, and skin pale as ice. But all Ryder felt was a building anger.

“Quite the upgrade.”

Jade’s gaze found his in the mirror, and she gasped.

“Ryder.” She spun around, eyes wide, and found herself rendered speechless.

He stared at her in disbelief. In all the years he’d known her - even in the last near decade where their interactions had become more secretive, less easy to come by - he’d never thought she’d end up here. In the bedroom of the next wife of Quinn, Armadillo Baron of the Badlands.

He’d absolutely refused to believe it.

But he was that way about a lot of things he didn’t like to hear or accept. Practically everything.

“You have to understand—”

“Save it, Jade,” he scoffed and turned away from her, oblivious to the tear rolling down her cheek. “Or should I call you…Mom?”

“Don’t.”

The hitch in her voice made him turn to face her, weakened him a little. Because he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. She was hurting. He was hurting her. And he’d never in his life wanted to hurt her until he saw her seated beside his father at the breakfast table as Quinn announced she was to be his new bride.

She took a breath and approached him now. He didn’t back up. His eyes were glued to hers, his body tense as she reached for him and then retreated just before their skin made contact.

“You know I had no choice, Ryder.” Her voice hitched again. “You know if Quinn says he wants something, he gets it, and anyone who tries to say otherwise is damned. I would’ve been banished. I would’ve had nowhere else to go.” She paused, telling herself to breathe, to get a hold of herself, to stop crying for one second. “I would’ve never seen you again.”

Ryder closed his eyes briefly, letting her words wash over him. Especially that last part. She ached for him just as deeply, as passionately as he ached for her. It didn’t soothe his anger. If anything, it only intensified it. But he knew now he was directing it at the wrong person.

“Were you even going to tell me?” he whispered, trying to make his voice soft but coming out rough and demanding instead.

She swallowed hard, and this time her wandering, hesitant hand did grasp his. Relieved that he didn’t instantly yank himself free, Jade took another step closer and took his other hand in her other too. Then, without looking at him, she brought their hands to her face and rested one cheek upon his.

The vulnerability in her overwhelmed him and he found himself pulling her close, wrapping his arms around her and feeling the swell in his chest when she nuzzled into the rich fabric of his shirt.

“You told me not to tell you anything that had to do with me and your father,” she replied with the voice of an angel. “I was honoring your wishes, Ryder.” She paused and licked her lips. “Besides, you would’ve silenced me before I had a chance to really say anything, and you know it.”

She was right. He did know it. He had only himself to blame for not knowing sooner. He and his refusal to acknowledge the nightmare unfolding before him had sufficiently kept him in the dark, completely blindsiding him when the truth was forced upon him right there at the breakfast table.

“Silenced you with kisses,” he corrected, to which Jade lifted her head and matched the suggestive smirk now present on his face.

“That is your specialty,” she said, her eyes dropping to his lips.

He groaned. “Jade.”

Then his lips descended on hers and their current predicament was lost to the warm sensuality they wrapped around each other. Soon after though, footsteps sounded down the hallway. They probably just belonged to a cog, but the uncertainty of it was enough to make Jade tense up and break apart from Ryder and his tantalizing kisses.

“What is it?” he complained, his voice a notch louder than Jade would’ve wished. She placed two fingers on his lips, ignoring when he kissed them, and turned her head towards the door to try and hear if the footsteps were slowing as they neared her room or maintaining their pace further down the hall.

They continued, but she was wary now of everything.

“What?” he asked, softer this time. He searched her eyes when she looked back at him, worry and vulnerability coloring them. She was the only one who could pull that emotion from him, and she hardly even tried. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” he asked, starting to detach from her.

“No.” He tried to untangle himself from her, but she tightened her grip on him. “No,” she insisted. He sighed. “Not embarrassed, Ryder.” She swallowed hard. “I’m scared. For both of us.”

He shook his head, brushing his fingers along the graceful line of her neck, about to reassure her before she continued with words he’d been dreading since the night Quinn had fallen ill and Jade had tended to him.

“I think we should stop seeing each other.”

His eyes narrowed, and he dropped his hands from her. She let him.

“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? To rise in station? To marry my father? To leave me in the dust?”

“Ryder, how can you say that? I love you.”

He scoffed.

“I never wanted this. I didn’t ask for this.”

“So, you’d rather be in the fields, working all day until your hands blister? Instead of living in luxury with the silk cloth on your skin and cogs – which is what you used to be – waiting on you for your every desire?”

“I would rather live as your wife, but I was not given that choice.”

He tensed, wanting to be angry, but it was hard to do with her. He didn’t have the courage to confront his father about this, so he couldn’t direct his anger at the correct person. It wouldn’t matter though. Quinn would laugh in his face.

She closed the distance between them again, took his hands, kissed each finger reverently, and sighed.

“You kiss my hands until they don’t hurt anymore. You bandage them when they’re bleeding.” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “You don’t do that with anyone else. You don’t lift a finger to help a single soul, but you do it with me. I don’t think it’s out of pity.”

He caved, crumbling in front of her, pain and adoration seeping out of his eyes as he looked down at her.

“Because I love you, Jade,” he rasped. “Ever since we were children and you snuck into my room at night to give me the bread I’d been refused at dinner just because my father wanted to see how strong I was, how long I could endure without food. Even my mother couldn’t dissuade him from starving her own son.”

“You were my friend, and you were eight years old. I couldn’t let you starve.” She smiled softly, and he returned the gesture. “But there’s something I didn’t tell you about that night.”

His brows furrowed.

“I saw your mom in the hall after I left. She had brought you food too.”

“The piece of bread under my pillow the next morning,” he recalled.

She nodded and smiled.

“I took credit for it because you gave it to me the next time we played, but it wasn’t me.”

He shook his head. “Always trying to take advantage of the situation and get the higher ground.”

She half-laughed, but his smile faded and hers did too. Wasn’t she ‘taking advantage’ of the situation now? No, she very honestly told herself. She was just trying to survive. And Quinn would ask – before banishing her – the reason for her refusal. He would know it was about Ryder even if she said otherwise. She couldn’t let herself believe he suspected nothing.

“We can’t see each other anymore, Ryder,” she said, her voice exquisitely gentle. “I…I couldn’t stand if you got hurt because of me. It would break me.”

“And what about you?” he countered, though his voice wasn’t as rough as it had been earlier.

She swallowed hard, knowing he wouldn’t like what came next.

“Quinn will be good to me. You know he will.”

“And the two of you will…” he couldn’t finish. Jade closed her eyes, because she knew what he was thinking. “Have you already…?”

“No,” she said instantly, her eyes flashing open. But then she hesitated. “Not yet,” she corrected herself. “But probably soon. Tonight maybe.”

Ryder kept himself in check just barely when he saw how she flinched.

“Will you come to me afterwards?” he asked.

“Ryder.” Her eyes widened.

“He won’t expect you to stay the whole night. He didn’t with Beatrix, not at first.”

“You’d really want to… After I’ve… With your father?” She was bewildered. She knew he loved her, but after his father had touched her so intimately…? She had imagined he’d be too disgusted to even have her near him. At least that same night.

“We don’t have to…do anything.” He soothingly ran his hands up and down her arms, as if she was the one who would be opposed. “I just…” he sighed. “I just want to be with you.”

She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to his cheek, relaxing into his embrace.

“Alright, Ryder.” She sighed softly. “When it’s over, if he lets me go, I will come to you.”

It wasn’t enough by a long stretch, but at least he still had some part of her. His father couldn’t satisfy her, and she would never love him. If Ryder worked hard enough, maybe he could convince her to stay with him in secret. She was the only thing that kept him sane under the roof of a tyrant who treated his son as if he was nothing, would amount to nothing, and that there was no pretending otherwise.

He couldn’t lose her. If he lost Jade, he lost everything.