Chapter thirteen
Prelude in Red Minor
Siobhán
Iwakeslowly,thekindof slow where the air feels heavier and the light too soft to trust. My eyes flutter open, not with panic, but with the weight of everything that happened yesterday anchoring my limbs to the mattress. I don’t move. I just breathe—shallow, unsure.
Cillian’s chest rises and falls beside me. He’s awake, though still, his arm draped over my waist like it’s the most natural thing in the world. As if we never stopped beingus. As if the years and miles and damage never carved us into two aching pieces of a broken melody.
His lips brush my shoulder, and I feel it like a blessing. “Good morning,a rún,” he murmurs, his voice all velvet and gravel. Irish and honeyed and safe.
I choke on the softness of it. There’s a peace here I don’t trust. I don’t deserve. Butgod, I want to stay in it. I turn toward him and press my forehead to his collarbone, breathing him in—salt and clove and the faint smoke of yesterday’s rage. I could bury myself in this moment and never come up for air.
His hand slides up my spine, slow and reverent. “Still with me?” he asks gently.
I nod. I’m with him. I always have been. I look around the room again. This house. This bed. This man. It’s the home we whispered about at seventeen when we didn’t know what we’d lose. Four rooms upstairs—he kept them exactly the way we planned. One for each child we swore we’d name after poets and saints and stars. He built this life withmein mind. Every hall. Every lock. Every code. Every inch of this place is carved with a prayer to the girl he lost.
And I’m lying in his arms like I never left. My chest tightens with guilt, thick and rising. But then he looks at me. Like I’m music he’s waited years to hear again. Like I’m the only sound that ever mattered.
I trace the line of his jaw with shaking fingers. He lets me. Even with all the blood he’s spilled. Even with everything he’s capable of. I love him. I love this cruel, brilliant, violent man who once knelt beside me at the piano and promised to make the world quiet so I could play.
I swallow the sob rising in my throat. I don’t deserve this moment—but I want it. And for once, I let myself have it.
The ceiling above us is old timber, warm with the morning light sneaking through the curtain cracks. I can smell the faintest mix of cedar, dust, and horses—the ghost of the stable’s past life—wrapped in the softer scent ofhim.
Cillian’s arm is still around me. We’re tangled, our legs knotted like we never learned how to sleep apart. This bed is rough-hewn. Sturdy. Made by his own hands, probably. I can picture it—twenty-something Cillian, angry at the world and aching for something soft, carving this place out of the storm. And still… he made it for me.
I press my palm to his chest, feel the steady rhythm beneath it. “Did you ever… stop?”
“Loving you?” His voice is gravel and sleep and velvet all at once. “Not even for a second.”
I close my eyes. “Even when I was with someone else?”
His breath hitches. Then, softly—toosoftly. “I figured that was my penance.”
It shatters something inside me. The quiet stretches. He kisses the top of my head. Then my temple. Then the tip of my nose like he used to when we were young and stupid and thought love could fix everything.
“So you saw the rooms upstairs,” he murmurs.
“I did.”
“For the kids we were gonna have. Remember?” My throat tightens. He brushes my hair back, his eyes steady on mine. “You said you wanted two girls, and I said we’d end up with four boys who’d drive us mad. So I built four rooms.”
“Cillian…” I whisper, barely breathing.
He cups my face like I’m the most fragile thing he’s ever touched. “Everything in this place, Siobhán… it’s always been for you. Even when you weren’t here.”
Tears spill over before I can stop them. I don’t even bother wiping them away. I just bury myself against his chest and whisper the truth that’s been clawing its way up my throat since the moment I walked through that door.
“I love you.”
“I know.” His lips brush my hairline. “You always did. Even when you hated me.”
I lift my face and find him smiling—thatsmile, the crooked one I haven’t seen in years.
“Tá tú fós ag caoineadh dom,1” he says, low and teasing.
“I’ll cry for you forever,” I murmur. “If it means you’re still here when I wake up.”
