She thought about the bruises on her wrists, the ache in her skull where Cecily’s soldiers had struck her, the torch-burned palm she hadn’t even noticed until now. None of it mattered.
“I’m fine. I’m?—”
She stopped. Her hands dropped to her sides. There was something she needed to say, something she’d promised herself in the darkness of that cell.
“I love you,” she said. “I should have said it a hundred times. I was scared and stupid and—” She laughed, a sound that was half sob. “And I’m done being scared. I’m done pretending I might leave. I’m staying. Here. With you. If you’ll have me.”
Gareth stared at her. His face was still unreadable, but something was shifting beneath it—something warm and bright and terrifying in its intensity. He reached for her. Cupped her face in his bloody, calloused hands. Drew her close until their foreheads touched, until she could feel his breath warm against her lips, until the whole world narrowed to the space between them.
And then he spoke.
One word. Forced through a throat scarred by violence and years of silence. Rough and broken and raw—more growl than speech.
“Mine.”
The sound of it undid her completely. Elodie laughed and cried and threw her arms around his neck. “Yours,” she managed against his lips. “Always. In any century. In any?—”
He kissed her. Not gently, certainly not the careful, questioning kiss of a man unsure of his welcome. This was a claiming—fierce and desperate. His mouth slanted over hers like he was drowning and she was air, like he’d been starving for this single moment since the day she’d fallen out of the sky at his feet.
Elodie melted into him. There were no other words for it. Her bones turned to honey, her thoughts scattered like startled birds, and all that remained wassensation. The rough scrape of his stubble against her chin, the taste of him (salt and copper and something darker, something that was justGareth), the way his hands trembled where they cradled her face like she was something precious, something breakable, something he couldn’t quite believe was real.
She made a sound against his mouth, a half gasp, half whimper, and felt his breath hitch in response. His fingers slid into her hair, tangling in the wild mess of curls, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. His other hand splayed across her lower back, pressing her closer until there was no space left between them, until she could feel his heart hammering against her chest in a rhythm that matched her own.
This, she thought dizzily.This is what the poems are about. This is what people die for.
She’d been kissed before. Forgettable fumbles at university parties, a few disappointing relationships that had fizzled before they’d properly begun. Nothing, nothing had prepared her for this. For the way his mouth moved against hers like a conversation, like a promise, like every word he’d been unable to speak for three years poured into a single point of connection.
When his teeth caught her lower lip, she gasped. When his tongue swept against hers, she forgot her own name. When he finally pulled back just far enough to breathe, she chased his mouth without meaning to, and the low, broken sound he made in response sent heat pooling through her entire body.
“Gareth.” His name came out ragged, wrecked. “I?—”
He kissed her again. Softer this time, but no less consuming. A gentle brush of lips that turned into something deeper, something slower, something that felt less like desperation and more like devotion. Like he was memorizing the shape of her.Like he intended to spend the rest of his life learning every way there was to kiss her, and this was only the beginning.
Around them, the world existed in distant fragments—the scrape of soldiers’ boots on stone, the crackle of dying torches, the first golden rays of sunlight spilling over the courtyard walls. None of it mattered. None of it was real. There was only his mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, his heart beating against her palm where she’d pressed it to his chest without remembering how it got there.
When they finally broke apart, both of them breathing hard, his eyes were still wet—but he was smiling. Actuallysmiling, a real smile that transformed his scarred face into something beautiful. Something radiant. Something that made her chest ache with a sweetness that bordered on pain.
She reached up and touched his face. Traced the edge of his scar with trembling fingers. Felt the smile widen beneath her touch.
“You kissed me,” she whispered, because apparently she’d lost the ability to say anything intelligent.
His shoulders shook with silent laughter. He signed one-handed, the other still tangled in her hair.You kissed me back.
“I did.” She was grinning now, helpless to stop. “I very much did.”
Somewhere behind them, she heard the distinct sound of coins changing hands and Miles’s voice muttering something about “finally” and “about bloody time.” She didn’t care. Let them watch. Let the whole kingdom watch. She’d just been kissed senseless by the man she loved, and she intended to do it again at the earliest opportunity.
Gareth must have had the same thought, because he leaned down and pressed one more kiss to her lips, quick and sweet, a promise of more to come, before pulling back with visible reluctance.
We should go home, he signed.
“Home.” The word tasted different now. Fuller. Warmer. A word that meant grey stone walls and roaring fires and this man’s arms around her. A word that meantforever.
His arm came around her shoulders, solid and warm. She leaned into him, fitting herself against his side like she’d been made to go there. They walked together through the courtyard, past the body of the man who’d tried to destroy them, past the soldiers who’d fought to save her, past the wreckage of a battle finally won.
CHAPTER 27
Two days had passed since Dunharrow, and the castle had thrown itself into celebration with an enthusiasm that bordered on desperate. Cook had roasted a pig. Miles had composed seventeen verses of a victory ballad that made Gareth visibly suffer. And when the travelling merchants arrived for the annual Samhain fair, Bertram had declared the gates open to all. A show of strength and normalcy after Alaric’s shadow had hung over them for so long.
