“Sylvie? Can I speak with you for a moment?” Ronan asks before I leave. He leads me from the common room of his chambers into the receiving room where we spoke the night of the raid on the warehouse.
My chest tightens so much it leaves me breathless as I wait for him to speak. He looks absolutely drained, more exhausted than I’ve ever seen him. I want nothing more than to reach for him, but I don’t. I can’t, and it kills me.
“I know I’ve been distant since you told me, and I’m sorry about that—”
“Ronan, please. You don’t need to apologize to me.” For fuck’s sake. This is my mess.
“I do,” he says. He gestures for me to sit, and I take the seat across from his preferred spot. But rather than facing me, he sits next to me on the same bench. There’s a bit of cautious distance between us, but far less than there has been for the last two days.
“I wanted to say that I know what it cost you to come clean. I know what it meant to betray your family. I know how much trust you put in me. And I’m grateful for it. I’ll forever be grateful for it.”
It sounds like a goodbye. He’s letting me go, then. And I get it, of course I get it, butfuck.It hurts so much.
I want to beg him not to. I want to scream and cry and tell him how sorry I am, that I’ll never keep anything from him again as long as I live if he’ll just give me a chance to earn back his trust.
But I don’t.
“But?” I ask, knowing the word is coming, feeling it shake in my mouth as I say it.
“But—and it doesn’t seem fair of me to ask this of you—I have to know if any of it was real. I know you were faking it in the beginning. And I know you changed your mind about killing me, and I’m so glad you’re helping us, but—godsdammit, this is selfish of me. Is it just because you’ve realized that this is the right thing to do? Or is there any part of you, however small, that truly feels something for me? That ever felt something for me?”
I’m shocked. He isn’t angry with me? He’s upset not because of what I kept from him, but because he isn’t sure if my feelings were real? Can’t he feel me anymore? Doesn’t he know that I did this not just because it’s right, but because I love him? I did it because I love him, and I want him to survive this. I want that more than anything else. I should have seen the truth earlier, I should have turned on my family earlier, but I didn’t. And the only reason I did in the end, regardless of what I’ve been telling myself, was because I love him. And that makes me a coward, and it makes me selfish. But about this one thing, I did not lie. “Ronan, I know you believe all of these wonderful things about me, but the truth is, I didn’t do this just because it’s right. I did it because I love you. I’m in love with you.” Each word wrenches itself painfully from me. An agonizing confession, and all because it came too late. “I love youso much,” I say, my words barely a whisper. “I thought you knew that. Couldn’t you feel it?”
He freezes, his expression unreadable. He’s still for so long, I begin to worry about him. Then his eyebrows furrow, and he shakes his head, leaning forward and clutching it with his hands.
Fuck, I hurt him so badly.He looks up at me, and the war that plays out on his face is the worst one yet. Hewants to believe me, desperately, but he knows he shouldn’t. And that damn near breaks my heart. “I could feel your guilt and your determination to make things right, but…you love me? It wasn’t just part of the plan?”
“It wasn’t part of the planat all. Getting close to you was. But developing real feelings? If Adria knew, she would have killed me for that already.” I’d thought it before, but saying it out loud now, I know it to be true. My own sister would kill me for loving Ronan, even if I had never told him what we were planning.
He looks so fragile in front of me. I did this to him. I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought I was protecting my family, but this is what I did, and I hate it so much.
I need him. I need to touch him, need to hold him and to comfort him. I need to take this pain away from him, this pain I caused him.
I can’t stop myself from trying. Gently, cautiously, I reach for him. Painstakingly slowly, I take Ronan’s hands and pull them to me, holding them in my lap.
He inhales sharply but doesn’t fight me, doesn’t move.
I hold his hands there for a long moment, stroking his strong fingers, feeling his smooth skin. There are no cuts here, none of the marks my mother’s people made, but there are callouses. I can feel where he holds his sword from the layers of rough skin, and I hate more than anything that he’s going to have to raise it again on the battlefield.
He doesn’t deserve this.
“You love me?” he asks me again. There’s a bit of hope in his voice this time.
I lift one of his hands to my cheek and kiss his palm. It’s so warm and soft, so comforting. “I love you, Ronan. I don’t deserve you. I don’t blame you if you hate me. But I love you.”
I close my eyes.
He could do anything to me right now. He could kill me as easily as kiss me, and I’m not certain which he’ll do. I’m completely vulnerable, completely at his mercy.
I wait for him to react, holding my breath. Not daring to move.
And then, he strokes my cheek with his thumb. I let his hand go as he grazes his fingertips over my freckles, tapping them, counting them. Memorizing them.
And then, so suddenly it feels as though a dam has burst, I feel him again—the love and longing he’s been holding back from me. It pours out from him, white hot and as radiant as the sun. “I love you,” I whisper to him as I bathe in the glow of it. “I love you. I love you. I love you…”
“Sylvie.” He pulls me into his lap and kisses me as I repeat it over and over, the words becoming a chant, an oath.
The unspoken words have finally been spoken between us, the secrets and lies all revealed, my magic be damned. I don’t care about the shadows, not when his light is here for me to claim as my own. I claim it and him, taking charge, kissing him with the same passion he gives to me. He lets me take what I want from him, lets me kiss his neck, lets me push myself against him, rocking my body against his until I feel his desire beneath me. “I love you,” he whispers against my neck, nuzzling into me, wrapping his arms around my back, holding me tight to him.
