Someday, when I was worthy.
When I had a house. When I had a future to offer.
But someday had never come, and now Quinn was here with only days to spare.
Branrir rose slowly, brushing off his hands. “She’s rare,” he said, glancing once more toward the sleeping shape across the fire. “And your window to find out if it could be real? It’s small. Don’t waste it.”
Forcing a swallow down my throat, I raked a hand through my hair. “I don’t suppose there’s a book on how to sort through feelings for a cursed woman you’ve known for less than a week?”
A chuckle rolled from him. “Chapter one: Accept that you’re doomed,” he said without lifting his head. “Chapter two: Try not to be stupid about it.”
Time had never been on love’s side.
And I didn’t know if I was brave enough to reach for something I knew I might lose.
But I was starting to think that not reaching might hurt worse.
“Branrir,” I began, catching him as he stood. “It’s the tether, right? All the…feelings?”
His face twisted in thought. “Mav, tethers can share emotions between bound souls, but the bond doesn’t create emotions.” A warm smile stretched his face. “If you have feelings for Quinn, the tether has nothing to do with it.”
He disappeared toward his bedroll, and I sat there a moment longer. Then I stood—slow, aching—and crossed back to Quinn. I sank onto my bedroll and lay facing her, a breath apart. I counted her freckles. Traced each lash in my mind, a line of poetry.
Saints.
Was it possible to fall for someone in less than a week?
The answer stared me in the face.
Of course it was.
I already had.
She wasn’t like any of the women I’d known before. They liked my smile but not the baggage behind it. They flirted with the idea of me, but bailed when reality showed up bruised, broke, and out of work. Those flings had been casual, forgettable as breath. We laughed, we drank, we danced, we made love, but no one got close. I’d made sure of it.
But Quinn?
Every time I looked at her, the world made more and somehow less sense. The spell bound us temporarily. She wasn’t mine by any stretch of the imagination, but I wanted her to be.
I wanted her to choose that.
To choose me.
A muscle jumped in my jaw.
You’re a fool, Bassiano.
For all the ways I wanted her—for all the ways I felt her winding herself around the inside of my chest—I couldn’t shake the needling voice in the back of my head.
The spell only broke if she returned the feelings. Which meant…if she didn’t? Then I was the idiot who’d fallen for a woman who might rather sleep for another hundred years than be with me.
I stared at the curve of her shoulder. The faint rise and fall of her breath. What if she woke up every century hoping for someone better? And this time, she got me instead. The thought hit deep, splintering inside me. I’d seen rejection. Had it handed to me in taverns, training grounds, and courtrooms. I’d heard the polite laughter, the gentle letdowns. No future. No potential. Too much baggage. No title or status to speak of. But this?
If she woke up, looked at me, and still chose the dark?
I wouldn’t know the first step in recovering from that kind of rejection. Because for the first time in my life, I wanted more than to be chosen. I wanted to be enough. Enough to make her stay awake. To make her want the life she kept losing. I wanted to be the reason she stopped waiting for the dark to take her back.
My gaze dropped to the bandage wrapped tight around my ribs, fingers brushing the edge where Thistle had tied it. The skin beneath throbbed in rhythm with my heartbeat. I’d nearly died today. And all I could think was I’d take a hundred wounds if it meant I could keep falling asleep next to her.
