He came to her that afternoon, bearing a manila envelope.
“What is that?” Cordova asked, frowning uneasily. She disliked the melancholy look in his eyes.
Lyon handed it to her. “See for yourself.”
Cordova opened the envelope and carefully unfolded the letter. Her jaw dropped as she scanned the contents—it was a proclamation declaring her cleared of all charges and released from her sentence.
“You…” she lifted her shocked gaze to him. What could she say to this, when she wasn’t sure herself as to how she felt about it?
Lyon shrugged. “You are released from your service to me. I know you have been wishing to return to your family.”
She should be ecstatic but with a torrent of emotions swirling inside of her heart, she could barely find the words. “I don’t know what to say.”
Lyon arched a brow, a hint of a smile on his face. But his eyes, blank of all emotion, told the true story. He didn’t care one way or the other if she left him. “You’d best get ready.”
He started to turn away, and Cordova called out, “You seem very sure that I’ve made up my mind to go.”
Lyon whirled back, dark emotion swirling in his eyes. “You would choose a life with me, knowing that we could never marry, and that any children you bore with me would be bastards, over the constant and unchanging love of your family?”
Cordova’s lips moved, but no words came out, and the King laughed bitterly. “Don’t raise my hopes with false promises, Miss Thomas. I’ll provide you with a coach and any provisions you need for the journey.”
“Why must you be so cold?” Cordova lamented, throwing her hands up in the air. “I feel like you are tossing me to the wayside, like a broken toy you no longer have use for. Am I not desirable to you anymore?”
Lyon yanked her against him, growling, and kissed her, forcing her jaw wide as he plunged his tongue into her mouth. His kiss was brutal, punishing, and filled with a combination of longing and frustration. Even so, Cordova melted into him, her body responding with the same fervor it had when he’d first laid eyes on her.
Eventually, he pulled away. “I will always want you, Cordova,” he breathed, pushing a stray lock of hair from her face. “But I cannot stand to see you in such torment. Go to your family. Be happy.”
He turned on his heel then, and began to walk away from her. Cordova called after him once more, desperate, sorrowful. “I will come back to you.”
King Lyon paused at the threshold of the door, only turning his head slightly to the side but enough to where she caught the glistening in his eyes. “Go home to your family, Cordova. You belong with them, not with me.”
Without another word, he stepped over the threshold, and out of her life forever.