I steadied myself against the sill.
“He liked me to shave him, in the mornings after I spent the night in his bed.” I forced myself to maintain eye contact, even as Rogan’s gaze darkened. “I think it made him feel powerful, to have me serve him.”
“You are the foster daughter of a queen.” He took one last step toward me. Barely an inch of sunlight separated us. My heart beat a wild pattern in my chest, and I tasted violets in the back of my throat. Rogan’s bare chest rose and fell with the pulse of my heart. Beneath the scent of soap, he smelled like sunlight on grass, warm as the memory of a long-lost summer’s day. “You were not made for blacksmiths.”
“Oh?” I kept my voice light. “What was I made for, then? Not princes.”
“Why not?”
His words stirred up old pains, old desires. I forced my tone to remain flippant. “What can a prince do for me that a blacksmith cannot?”
The words sounded less a joke than achallenge. The outragein Rogan’s eyes blurred toward something more provocative. His pupils blew wide with want, and the hands that had been clenched at his sides reached out to circle my waist, to jerk my hips flush against his. An aching flare of heat painted my spine in marigold and rose. His face lowered toward mine. My eyes dropped to his parted lips.
“Many,manythings, changeling.”
His hands smoothed down my waist, over the curve of my rear. He lifted me up onto the windowsill like I weighed nothing. The chill of the stone through my frock shocked me, and I gasped. Rogan caught the sound with his lips, sliding his mouth over mine and dragging his tongue across my teeth.
I froze. Self-loathing pulsed through me, warring with the desire now burning an unquenchable path toward my core.
I shouldn’t still want this. I shouldn’t still wanthim.
Perhaps his confessions at Imbolc had softened me toward him. But regardless of anything that had come before, he was still Eala’s betrothed. Once we broke her geas and returned her to Rath na Mara, they would be wed. Which left me with a choice—to have nothing of him… or to give up the last piece of my pride to havesomethingof him.
To be his mistress. His whore. His shadow.
But in this moment—with his hands on my hips and his mouth on mine—I didn’t want to think about that choice. In this moment, I wanted what I wanted.
I rocked forward, arching my back as I slid my arms around Rogan’s neck and opened my mouth under his. His lips were somehow both hard and very, very soft. I closed my eyes, cupping his clean-shaven face and reveling in the movement of his mouth on mine. My fingernails traced the line of his jaw to the top of his spine and tangled in his damp golden hair. His shoulders flexed beneath my hands, and he groaned, digging his fingertips into my hip bones and dragging me to the edge of the windowsill. I molded myself against him—my breasts against his chest, my stomachagainst his firm torso, my core against the hard line of his belt. The buckle bit into the tender skin of my inner thigh, and I shifted to relieve the pressure.
Rogan’s palm flexed tighter on my rear, and when he pulled me back against him, I felt his hard arousal. Fire unfurled within me. I trailed a finger down the sculpted planes of his stomach and reached for the waistband of his breeches, wanting to touch him. To feel his length and weight. To make him burn, the way I burned.
Breaking the kiss, he caught my hand at the wrist and pushed it behind me. His eyes—bruised dark with lust—stayed fixed on mine as he found the hem of my kirtle and dragged it up over my knees. I shivered at the sensation of sunlight on my bare skin. His fingertips grazed my ankle, then traveled upward, skating up the inside of my calf, skimming along my knee, gliding against the soft skin of my thigh. His hand lingered at the edge of my undergarment. Then he pushed the flimsy fabric aside to caress me between my legs.
I sucked in a breath, leaned back on one arm, and rocked against his touch. He slipped one finger inside my wetness, then another, even as his thumb drew teasing circles that stoked the bonfire burning away my self-control. Vines of heat writhed toward my center, throbbing and wild. My hands flexed on the windowsill—runnels of moss jeweled with phlox spilled unbidden from my fingertips. My breath quickened as I danced along the edge of the seething, aching sensation growing inside me. And finally, there was nothing to do but surrender to it.
The world splintered into shards of gold and green. I fractured with it, breathing Rogan’s name in a helpless moan. He caught the sound with his lips, kissing me fiercely as I came apart at the seams. I shuddered against him, but even as the wildness between my thighs calmed, it wasn’t enough. I’d had him—allof him—before, and I wanted it now. Wanted his velvet thickness between my palms, wanted his length sheathed inside me. Wanted to rise with him toward the next peak and fall with him as we crested together.
I grappled for the buckle of his belt. He gripped my hips, fingers digging almost painfully into my skin. His mouth dropped from my lips to my neck. He dragged his teeth down my throat, over my collarbone, and nipped lightly at the skin above my breast. Then paused.
Uncertainty blew dark clouds over the blue sky of his gaze. I followed his eyes. Behind me, moss had climbed halfway up the window casement. Tiny white flowers studded the green, shining like diamonds. Motes of glittering dust scented the air with a delicate, earthy perfume.
I turned toward Rogan, fumbling for some explanation about why I’d lost control over my Greenmark. But my eyes caught instead on the far wall, illuminated suddenly by the lowering sun. Stark outlines—scorched patterns twisting dark against chipped plaster—seized my gaze.
My heated blood cooled to dark sludge.
I instantly recognized the drawings as scenes from Tír na nÓg. Cold, jagged branches. Ethereal castles. Leering faces with mouths full of hawthorn leaves and acorns for eyes.
Andher.
It wasn’t hard to recognize the face, because it was my face. Almost.
Eala was everywhere—sketched small, in corners, with painstaking detail. Large, in savage sweeps of charcoal. Each drawing was a desperate prayer, an unspoken wish, a choking need. Those imperious brows lifted over pale eyes. That even, elegant smile. The delicate, dimpled chin. The—
“Changeling?” Rogan’s hands trembled at my waist. I flinched and pushed him away. Hurt pooled in his eyes, followed a moment later by dawning comprehension when he followed my gaze to the wall. He whipped his head back to me a second later, and his gaze was urgent, pleading. “It’s not what you think.”
I barely heard him. The swell of confusion and distress I’d felt when I first saw the drawings was swept away by a vicious wave ofshame. Behind me, the moss began to dry out, crumbling to a fine dust that scattered on the breeze. I lowered my eyes, slid off the windowsill, and straightened my clothes with shaking fingers.
Morrigan, I wasso stupid.
