“You’re asking me to live in the shadows.”
“I’m asking you to live with me.” Finn sighs, struggling. “The attack threw something into clarity for me. My parents have been pressuring me to finalize an engagement, but I’ve been dragging my feet and in denial about why. When Sebastian was hit…in that moment, I realized how much you mean to me, and how much I want to spend my life with you. I want a future together, Lyria. There is no one else I’d rather have at my side as my queen. But that requires you to stop running. We both have to fight to stay alive and stay together.”
I don’t know what to believe. Some of Finn’s words echo dreams that I’ve held for myself, my deepest hopes for companionship and influence.
I want to believe him. Gods, I wish it could be that simple. I want a future with him more than I’ve ever wanted anything—even freedom. But there are fundamental parts of me that can’t absorb his words as truth. I stare back at him for a long time.
“I told you I have something to show you.” Finn rushes to his desk, yanking open the top drawer. He procures a fist-size item, then returns to the bed.
My pulse rises to a sledgehammer intensity, pounding at my temples.
“This was my grandmother’s ring, and it belonged to her grandmother before that. It’s been passed down through my family for generations.” Finn opens the box. Inside lies a princess-cut diamond, set in a glittering band with smaller gems encircling it. When I meet his eyes, I can’t breathe. “I’ve already spoken with my mother and she’s given us her blessing. I’m going tomorrow morning to meet my father in Westgate and speak with him then.” Removing the ring from the box, he moves back a bit.
“Lyria.” He sinks onto one knee beside the bed.
Every voice inside my head screams to stop him.Not here. Not now. It’s not right.But I can’t bring myself to speak up. My chest is being torn in half.
“From the moment we met, you have made me reconsider everything about how I see the world,” Finn says, with earnestness that makes my heart ache. “I have never met anyone as brave or compassionate. If you would do me the honor of sharing your life with me, I would never stop working to become the man you deserve. I would protect and honor you with all that I have and all that I am.” His eyes burn with a thousand more declarations, an eternity of promises. His voice trembles when he asks, “Will you marry me?”
This is a moment when I wish I could make time stop. Because I can feel myself rent cleanly into two people: the girl who wants to say yes with a brimming heart, and the woman who needs to say anything else.
I’m at the fork in the road where one future has to die. I have to kill the dream now.
I do the only thing I can think of. I kiss him.
For the first instant, he’s frozen. I can feel Finn’s hesitation, his fingers still gripping the ring.
I pull back.
“Lyria?” he asks, searching my face.
Never before have I felt so uncertain about the world and my place in it. Never have I been so conflicted, euphoria and terror and hope and doubt all mingling in my constricted chest.
“Can I put it on?” I ask thickly.
My response is something like a maybe. But it’s enough to light his face and turn the corners of his lips up. Finn slides the ring on. It’s a perfect fit. I hold it up for examination, while Finn says appreciatively, “I could get used to seeing you in nothing but that.”
I kiss him again in response because I can’t say my true answer. I can’t choose his side in this war.
So I communicate without words. With my hands, I express how much I love him and how badly I wish I could be his wife. I put all of that into my movements, because those words will have to stay unspoken. But I can give Finn the only thing I have to offer him. I can give him tonight.
I don’t know whether Finn understands that I’m saying goodbye. He has yet to misread me. Maybe it’s shared understanding guiding us, but when we fall back together, there’s no hesitation. I’m driven by pain and desperate hopelessness, the weight of all I’m losing by losing him. Maybe Finn feels the same, because he dives into the kiss with unbridled intensity. As if he knows it will be our last night together.
I pull him back onto the bed. I can’t get close enough, once again. His hands move everywhere: in my hair, down my back, testing every curve. Our breathing gets heavier. It’s not enough.
“I need…” Finn swallows, pulling shakily away from me. “I need you to tell me to stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop.” I kiss him more fiercely.
He returns my kiss. At first. His hands rise, tracing up my stomach, moving higher, and then he pulls back again, groaning. “No.We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Why?”
“It’s not fair to you.”
“Why?”My hands move over his chest, then slip lower. Finding what I want.
He hisses through gritted teeth. I bring my lips to Finn’s throat, finding the hollow part between his shoulder and his neck. It takes great effort for him to ask, “Have you ever? Before?”
