A gilded cage was still a cage.
And I couldn’t go find my father.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on,” Cillian said, kneeling next to the bed. He grasped my hands in his, a pleading in his eyes that pierced through some of the panic.
“My father,” I choked out. “He sent me a message…that he’s in trouble.”
Cillian heaved out a heavy sigh, and my chest caved in on itself. Of course. He hated my father. Didn’t trust him in the slightest. There was no way he would let me go. My eyes burned again, and I gripped the sheets tightly in my fists, hard enough that my nails bit into skin.
“I know,” I spat out. “I can’t do a damn thing to help him.”
Cillian stared at me unflinchingly, and he rested a palm over my fist. “This is killing you, isn’t it?”
“What, being trapped and unable to help my father? Knowing when I’m free from here in a decade, that all I’ll have to visit is a grave? He’s the only parent I have left, my only support in the outside world.” A tear slipped down my cheek as the words tumbled from me.
The silence reigned between us, thick and tense and impossible. This was the barrier keeping us apart, the one hurdle that remained preventing me from falling for him completely. The freedom to choose to remain by his side. The knowledge that at the end of the day, I was tied to him by a pact not by choice.
My throat tightened, and I met his gaze. His golden eyes held a mourning that pierced through me. Neither of us brokethe quiet, as if something profound shifted between us, a transmutation of the relationship we’d held.
His palm tightened over my fist as he gripped hard. “Give me one more night.”
I blinked. I couldn’t have heard him correctly.
“Give me tonight, Beau,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly scrape. “And tomorrow morning, you’re free.”
My heart thumped hard. “What about the time I’m supposed to serve?”
Cillian shook his head, the vulnerability in his gaze scoring me in the chest. “Mere months with you was worth a decade.”
Oh.
I swallowed hard, my eyes glossing over. The immense emotion that swept over me was unlike any I’d ever experienced before. My heart soared and broke in the same breath, and fuck, this hurt. He was…letting me go.
Cillian was setting me free.
I free-fell for him in that moment, surrendered what little remained of my heart.
This man who pretended to be harsh, callous, and cruel had currents deeper than anyone I’d met. His actions spoke louder, the way he tried to better the world around him rather than bring it to ruin like so many others in his position.
“Can I return?” I asked, a tremble in my voice. “If I go to try and find my father, can I come back?”
Cillian nodded, even though he didn’t voice the words at first. His eyes held a melancholy to them that made me ache, as if he didn’t believe I would. “Always.”
“What about Thorin?” I asked, the realization striking me. I wasn’t safe out there in the world now, marked by Glass Industries.
“I’ll keep him occupied while you search for your father,” Cillian promised. “And if…you decide you don’t want to return, I’ll make it clear we no longer have an association.”
I leaned in and rested my palm against his cheek. “That willneverhappen. I’m coming back, Cillian. I promise.”
Before he could respond, I closed the distance between us and claimed his lips.
I kissed Cillian with a desperation that ached in my bones.
I kissed him with the yearning for a future where we would be reunited. Where this wouldn’t be the end.
I kissed him because tonight, I would give him all of myself.
He tasted like brimstone and promise, like the long-sought hope that had begun to unfurl in me lately. Tomorrow, I would set out to try to find my father. But tonight, Cillian was the only thing on my mind. His lips claimed mine again and again, and I savored the moment before it slipped from my fingers. This was a man who’d transformed my entire world, and I didn’t want to leave him.
