If only I dared dream.
I stroked the tears off her face, hating that she cried for me, while torturously loving that she did.
“I will end it. I promise, Lore. There’s a reason I’m here. The fates wouldn’t bring me to you only to steal you away. I love you. All you were and all you are today. I married you. You. Lorant was right to call me wife, just as Merrick was. I didn’t know it then, but in my heart and on that day on the ship, I was marrying all you are and all you will ever be.”
“You have no idea what it meant to me when you stood on the deck and agreed to be my wife,” I said, my voice low and gutted. “It was so much more than you being a willing bride who could—” I swallowed back the tightening of my throat. “You know.”
“Break the curse.”
I blinked. “All I could see was you. Only you from that moment on. I didn’t care if I was only given six weeks with you. It would be enough.”
“Never enough. We deserve more. We should have a fulllifetime.” She tilted her head, a tendril of her moonlit hair spilling over her shoulder. Her lips curved in that knowing smile she reserved for us. “Tell me what you felt then. I know whatIfelt.”
“Irritation at the part of me who couldn’t help but snarl.”
“Irritation is much too light a word formyfeelings back then.”
My laugh snorted out. “I could tell.” I tapped her cute nose. “I knew how much I infuriated you, but I couldn’t stop from pushing you to flame, over and over again.” I held her face, staring into her eyes. “But thewedding. Standing beside you on the ship. Watching you say vows you thought were meant for someone else.”
She blinked, a flicker of confusion mingling with curiosity in her eyes. “I was stunned already, falling for the proxy when I knew I was marrying another man.”
“You were falling already?”
Biting down on her lower lip, she nodded. “I couldn’t help it, though I tried.”
I grinned. “I sensed that as well.”
“You made sure to remind me of that more than once.”
I held her gaze. “I was falling for you already too.”
“Not the snarly part of you,” she said in a mocking tone.
“All of me.” I pressed my fist to my chest. “I could not stay away. Like the tide surging up the shore, my love for you never ends. Our wedding was the most wonderful thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Her brows lifted, her lips parting, and I almost smiled at how easily she could appear disarmed by my words.
I brushed my fingers along the column of her throat. “You thought I crafted that dress and those jewels for no reason at all? It was not done out of duty.”
“Such an embarrassing moment for me. Tempest gave me a nice dress, and I stuffed it into my bag. I tried to spell it smooth,but my magic is more inconsistent than I'd like. I felt wretched, but mostly I was worried about disappointing my husband.”
“Let me tell you whatIsaw. The Reyla standing in front of me was fierce enough to challenge me and brave enough to defy me. But when I saw you that evening, dressed in a gown too simple and rumpled to match your fire, I knew I—” I paused. “I knew I couldn’t keep myself from giving you something worthy. Something that might only somewhat come close to showing you the way I already saw you.”
Her breathing halted. Her fingers squeezed mine, and tears shimmered in her eyes.
I pushed on, the words spilling out faster. “That moonlight… It was all I could control when standing in front of you. Creating that dress meant giving you a piece of the night itself, the same night I’ve always drawn my strength from.” I grazed her jaw with one fingertip, tilting her head to drink in the love in her gorgeous brown eyes. “Not once did you thank me for how luminous the dress made you look.” I was such a tease.
Her laugh came out soft. “I think I managed to fumble out something to that effect before you barked at me about wasting time.”
A rumble escaped my throat. “I had to say that, had to thrust the wall back up between us. Do you have any idea what it did to me to watch you wearing the dress and jewels I’d crafted only for you while knowing I had no right to touch you the way I longed to? I couldn’t expose that weakness. Not then.”
“You tucked flower petals into my hair.” She grinned now, bright and teasing, and I was so grateful she was no longer crying. “That doesn’t exactly scream untouchable bodyguard to me.”
I exhaled, dropping my forehead to hers before speaking. “That was a selfish thing on my part. Completely, irrevocably selfish. Those petals? They were nothing but excuses. A reason tostand closer to you, to pretend, even for a stolen moment, that I was more than the shadow trailing your light.”
“Lore,” she whispered, her tone full of emotion. “Youwerefalling for me then.”
“I didn’t know what the feeling was.” My voice roughened, my grip tightening enough to betray the feelings that had lashed through me from the moment I met her. “All that part of me knew was that the idea of anyone else standing beside you, speaking vows I would kill to say for myself, was unbearable. When we repeated the words together, everything else—the curse—” I choked off but continued, shoving the words up my throat. “The lies, my divided soul—they all disappeared. For the first time, I felt whole. It wasn’t duty or honor or even fate that kept me beside you on that deck. It was the beginning of love.”
