“And how long have you lived for?” I whisper.
Our eyes meet.
“Long enough for me to begin to feel the burden of my loneliness.” He looks away suddenly, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Long enough to feel my heart start to slow, and my blood to thicken in my veins. Long enough to drift in dreams for centuries, barely caring of what events transpired around me.”
I have to ask it. “What changed?”
He closes his eyes and tilts his face to the ceiling. “When I dream, I dream of the skies. Of chasing those very stars. I was very close, perhaps, to igniting. But one night a new star appeared. One that sparkled and winked on the edge of my consciousness. One that called to me.” He releases a harsh breath and looks at me. “Twenty-four years ago, I think. I’ve been searching for that star ever since.”
I don’t know what to say.
He sent out a Summons because he said the right constellations were in the sky, but I thought that was only a fae thing.
And when his astrologers consulted their lists, they narrowed down a list of princesses and ladies who fit their timeframe.
Twenty-four years ago.
I am twenty-four.
It’s impossible. My name wasn’t on that list. It was pure chance that saw me take a tilt at the Dragon’s Heart during that precise moment. I don’t even know the time of my birth. Sometime in the winter. Sometime when the snows kissed the ground.
It can’t be—
Keir reaches out with a sudden smile and bops me on the nose. “Stop thinking so hard. You don’t believe in fate, remember?”
“I know.” But I can’t help thinking that he does.
He’ll never let you go. Not if he thinks you’re truly his.
My heart is suddenly racing.
“What do you believe in?” he asks.
“Myself,” I blurt.
He laughs.
Keir crashes onto the mattress beside me, lacing his hands behind his head. It’s an innocuous move—his attention is on the ceiling—but the second I see his shirt cling to the thick muscle in his biceps, a pulse of heat goes through my lower abdomen.
Want. Need.
Maybe the rapture’s not entirely out of my system. Or maybe I’m still panicking.
“I like this,” he says.
“What?” I force myself to lick the gravy from my thumb, even though I can barely taste it anymore. I’m too busy trying to control myself.
Keir tilts his head to look at me. Hot, amber eyes flare like a dragon’s. I can’t breathe. I can’t look away. And I imagine that it felt a little like this to blunder into a dragon’s den all those years ago and come face to face with the great beast itself—knowing that you were prey.
“This,” he repeats, his voice like rough gravel. “I like it when you relax, when you talk to me. It’s what I liked about you from the beginning. You never looked at me as if I was an object to be hunted down. You looked at me as if you saw me. Me.” He looks away abruptly, staring at the ceiling. “Sometimes I hate that the most…. That it was all pretense for you.”
The breath bursts out of me. Panic sets in. It’s exactly what I needed—an icy bucket of emotions thrown all over my lust.
I can’t tear my gaze away from him as he stubbornly refuses to look at me.
Instead, all I can see is the Court of Dreams.
And his smile.
The way he teased me.
The way I smiled back and felt it, deep in my heart.
But I can’t say it. I can’t say any of it.
Keir pushes upright, slinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Malechus wants to take another tilt at the white hart. You should stay here. Rest.”
I drag the blankets around my shoulder as he heads for the door.
Say something….
Common sense tells me to let it lie.
This is a good thing. I can’t afford to encourage him. I don’t want to hurt him when it’s all over.
But….
“It wasn’t… all pretend,” I blurt out as his hand hits the doorknob.
Keir pauses with the door half open, throwing a hot-lashed look over his shoulder.
Our eyes meet, and there’s something in that silent duel that makes my heart skip a beat.
I can’t stop my mouth. “It doesn’t change anything. This…. Between us…. It will never last. There is no future. And I know it. I know it every time I look at you. Being with you is like a guilty pleasure I can never give myself over to wholly…. But I wanted you to know that. It wasn’t all pretend.” Drawing my knees up to my chest I rest my chin on them and close my eyes for a brief second before summoning the courage to look at him. “And I wish it was. I wish it hadn’t felt real.”
Keir’s shoulders still.
Tension fights within him.
My fists curl into the sheets.
I want to take those words back.
Even as some part of me rages to set them free.
Turn around. Turn around. Turn around.
Look at me….
Maybe I’m not the only one who can hear his voice in my head. Because the door clicks shut. He slowly turns around. And looks at me.
“Say something.” Once again, my tongue takes control of my scattered wits.
Heat blazes to life in his eyes. “One chance, Mira. One chance. Say no. Tell me to go on the hunt and I will. I will walk out of here. I will go. I will leave you alone. But if you say yes, Mira…. I won’t stop. Not today. This is your choice. This is always your choice.” His voice roughens. “But if you give me even one hint….”
The seconds tick out.
I can barely say it.
“Kiss me,” I whisper.
It’s a yes.
It’s always been a yes, hurtling toward me with the slow inevitability of a carriage wreck.
