There’s an entirely different tone to this moment.
It’s no longer fucking.
I can see the possession in his eyes. I can taste it on his tongue. And I can feel it as he fucks me with slow, gentle, torturous thrusts that would threaten to steal my soul if I still had it.
“All of you, Mira. I’m taking it all,” he promises, as I cry out again and surrender to the pleasure. “And this time, I’m not asking.”
I slip from the bed hours later, leaving Keir lying on his side, the breath easing in and out of his massive lungs. For a second, I pause beside the bed and simply drink in the sight of him. The faint lamplight gilds his olive skin, and the sheet barely covers the muscular globes of his ass. I’d like to say I could spend forever staring at that ass, but it’s his lips that draw my attention. His lips and his hands.
Soft lips.
Gentle hands.
Unless he’s using them to unleash ruin upon me.
But even then, there’s a certain sort of devastation they wreak.
Because I yearn for the taste of his mouth and the touch of his hands.
Not merely for sex, but in those quiet moments where he draws me into his arms.
It’s the single most brutal realization of my life.
I could love him. I could love him.
Suddenly, there’s a gaping chasm beneath my feet. My heart plunges into freefall, but this time there are no shadows to catch me. Digging my nails into my palm to ground myself, I turn and grab the glass of water on the nightstand, gulping it down.
By the time I lower my hand, it’s easier to breathe. Easier to think.
I’m only going to get him killed. If Father knew the truth about him… he wouldn’t stop until he was cutting Keir’s heart from his chest. He’d let the truth get out to the fae courts. He’d try and back Keir into a corner and come at him from the shadows. He’d use me against him, if he had any idea of what Keir feels for me. Of what I feel for him.
This fucking curse…. I half wish it would end us all.
But I promised him.
No more lies.
Together.
Trust.
I know what I have to do now.
Brushing a kiss against his temples, I turn and head for the horn.
I have to give him the horn.
Drawing my robe over my naked body, I clean up as best I can in the wash chambers, dress in my leathers, and then Sift out into the night to where I’ve hidden it.
The grotto is silent and dark now the wedding is over and I doubt any of the revelers will linger here. Not while Malechus is dead. Not while Mistmark’s prognosis is so uncertain. I know he’s going to survive, but no one else knows that.
I light the torch that guards the heavy stone sarcophagus that Soraya was trapped in, staring at the carvings on the tomb. It was the safest place to leave it. The stone lid’s too heavy to shift by mortal hands, and Falion—the only other fae who might be able to Sift through the stone and retrieve the box—told me the horn is mine now.
“The weight of its being rests on your shoulders now,” he’d said. “Mistmark and I are done with it.”
I don’t know what that means, but I’m fairly certain he never wants to see it again.
I Sift through the stone, releasing a sigh of relief when I find the box untouched. The second I reform, I dart a glance around the room, but there’s no one here. The hairs down the back of my spine lift, but that’s not unusual, nor is the pounding of my heart.
Time to get out of here….
Except that whispering sensation that filled my chest is gone. No disciplined thief would ever take the time to check the loot right in the middle of a heist, but doubt pools through me like fermented wine.
Just one little look…. When the fate of the world lies in your hands it pays to be—
The chest is empty.
Empty.
“What the fuck?” I blurt, scrubbing my hand over the insides of the box I found. No horn.
The breath explodes out of me. No. How did this happen? Who took it?
I jerk the lid down sharply, but a sound behind me steals my attention.
There’s a shadow rippling across the walls.
Kicking the box out of the way, I turn to face the intruder, both knives slipping into my hands. “Show yourself.”
Blue skirts slip into the pool of light, and then a woman steps forward, her cheeks gaunt and her arms wrapped around her. I have several inches on her, and there’s no sign of a weapon, but that doesn’t still my suddenly racing heart.
“Ismena?” What is she doing down here? How did she even get in? As far as I know, the grotto is locked and guarded.
There’s something broken about her eyes. Something fractured. “I wish I’d never met you,” she hisses. “I wish she’d killed you and not Narcissa.”
Calliope.
“Look,” I start, lowering my knives. “Everyone wants to forget what happened at the Court of Dreams. You think I enjoyed it—?”
“I think you’re a lying bitch,” she spits, “who ruined my life.”
“I was inclined to be tolerant, because you don’t seem at all yourself right now, but I’ve had enough. It’s been a tremendously shitty day. I didn’t ruin your life. You think you had a chance with Keir? He didn’t even notice you. Even now the extent of his feelings toward you seem to be guilt. I never stole him from you. I didn’t ruin anything. Because it didn’t exist, except for whatever ridiculous notion is playing through your—”
“You think this has anything to do with Keir?” she half screams.
A glint of gold echoes in the torchlight. I get a glimpse of a tiny crossbow, and then she pulls the trigger.
I go to Sift,
