“You will be the death of me,” I breathe, collapsing into his strength.
“It is my vow to be the making of you, Elyssara,” he counters, and gooseflesh rises on my skin in response to the truth. His arms curl around my lower back, and I relish the comfort.
“How do I sift through the parts of you that are real and the parts of you that are conjured?” I murmur into his tunic, asking him the question that I’m unable to answer.
“I’ll make new memories with you until who I really am is etched into your soul like scripture,” he promises, before lifting my chin so my eyes meet his. “My queen.”
My queen.
The words churn my stomach. The idea of being chained to another feels suffocating—and like a weakness that can be exploited.
“I am notyourqueen, Kael. I am no one’s queen,” I say with a coldness that stills his hands on my back.
He pauses, taking me in, reading me. I feel the prickle of his presence at my mind through the tether. Unlike Maldrak’s cold, bony fingertips that pried my mind open, Kael’s presence feels patient, respectful, curious. He removes his right hand from my back, drawing it slowly towards my face. I hold my breath, but he lands it so gently on my cheek it almost feels like the breeze.
“Elyssara, you are not my queen because you are bound to me, nor because you serve me,” the words come out disdainful, as if he’s sickened by the idea. “You are my queen becauseyouare the one I bow to. The one to whom I pledge my allegiance. My loyalty. My blood. I amyoursto command,” he says with reverence.
Oh.
“I can’t trust myself around you, Kael. I forget everything when I’m with you, and it’s terrifying,” my voice breaks, and I shake my head, wanting to push him away. Because he’s dangerous in the same way a blade is—it can maim, but it can also save, and with him, it feels like the same thing.
“Maybe youneedto forget for a while so you can create new memories, Duskae. Replace the ones you don’t want to carry forward,” he says, and the steady rhythm of his voice soothes me like a lullaby. “So, tell me, do you want a night to forget, Elyssara?” His loaded question hangs between us, and cracks open my memories in a heartbeat. Memories ofus.Skaedor’s Crest andthatnight in the tent ambushes my thoughts, and I stare up into those same dangerous eyes, and I know.
“With you, I only want nights to remember,” I breathe. Because with him, it is everything or nothing. All of me, or none of me. And despite everything, there is no time, space or reality where we are nothing.
I rise on my toes to claim his mouth in mine?—
But his hands swing behind my knees and back in less than a heartbeat.
He sweeps me into his arms, and cradles me to his chest.
His lips press into the top of my head, and muffled, he says, “Then I’ll give you what you need. I am yours to command.”
Kael carries me in silence through the night air that bites at my exposed skin like a warning. But warnings have never dissuaded me.
I’m reckless.
The veins in his neck strain under my weight; his chest swells with effort, but his breathing stays steady. His heart beats behind his ribs like a war drum—but is it the beginning or the end of war?
Without looking down at me, he says, “Rest into me, Duskae. You don’t have to fight anymore.”
The words press against the last threads keeping my strength intact. “I will always have to fight, Kael,” I whisper the words, too scared to embolden them. Because despite this fragile truce, I am still the Lightborne. I am still the prophesied savior or ruin of the known realms. I am still hunted for what I represent—a tipping point.
“Darling, this is love, not war. I am the one place where you don’t have to fight.” He pulls me in tighter to his chest, and the warmth of him sinks into my flesh, but doesn’t quite make it to my bones.
“With you, Kael. They’re the same thing,” I murmur, but I let myself take from him. I close my eyes, and let my body relax in his arms, because for now, this will do.
He climbs the steps to his room cradled in the trees of Thornewood, and I feel him kick the door open with the toe of his boot. The scent of vanilla and sandalwood awakens my senses, and I open my eyes to his simple, pared-back space. A four-poster bed adorned with blankets, furs and pillows presses against the far wall, and memories of Zak cut through my fragile peace like a blade through silk.
My breath hitches, my body tenses, and I bite down on the urge to revisit the night in graphic detail. I squeeze my eyes shut with the effort of blocking out Zak’s snarling mouth, his cold touch, his misguided assumptions. Kael feels me still.
“New memories, El. Stay here with me. He doesnotget to own your memories,” he grits out, venom on his tongue.
He places me down gently on the bed, the plush furs meeting my skin in an embrace.
“Incense, candles, furs—just like the night at Skaedor’s Crest. The night we chose each other, El. Come back to me,” he pleads, desperation splicing through his voice, making it raw.
Come back to me.
