“I care because it affects you,” I say. “You said they could take away your lands. Your title.”
He grins. “Ah. You worry I would become some homeless pauper?”
“No.” My voice tightens. “I worry about what would happen to me if you were sent away.”
He stills, then shrugs, a little too coldly for my liking. “Your debt would become the concern of the new lord.”
My teeth grit, my nails digging into his skin hard enough to draw a wince.
“Not the debt,” I say tersely. “Me.” I trail my fingers down his arm until I find his hand and lace my fingers through his. “Us.”
His thumb moves slowly, thoughtfully, tracing circles over my hand while his mouth presses soft kisses along the bridge of my nose, up to my brow.
“If I were sent away,” he says at last, “perhaps you would come with me.”
“Do not say things you do not mean,” I whisper.
“If I were not a lord,” he continues evenly. “If I did not carry the weight of the Aurevault. Of the Elarium. Then I would be a male free to choose.” His gaze holds mine. “Free to choose whom I please.”
I do not believe him.
I cannot believe him.
Nothing in this world is that simple. Not when the Fae rule with such cruelty and indifference. Not when he was one of them long before generations of my family were ever born. A farmer’s daughter does not undo centuries of history between our kinds.
And yet, in the quiet of the moment, beneath moonlight and falling snow, safe in his arms while his lips worship my skin, I speak the words I know will change nothing, and yet mean everything to say aloud.
“I am falling in love with you, Luceran.”
I do not regret it.
Not in the way I thought I might.
If anything, the release feels like exactly what my heart, my soul, needed. To speak it aloud. To give it shape. To tell someone, him, the moon, the quiet world beyond this cave, that what I feel for this Fae has moved far beyond the need for his body or the taste of his mouth.
I don’t flinch or flush with shame when he doesn’t answer at once. That isn’t why I said it. He lifts my chin with the crook of his knuckle, and for a moment I lose myself in the impossible beauty of his eyes, the way they seem to hold entire winters and lost summers within them.
“Then it seems I am at a disadvantage,” he says softly. “Because I fell in love with you long before tonight.”
The smile that breaks across my face feels unstoppable. Tears sting at the corners of my eyes, relief and happiness swelling beneath my skin until it is almost too much to contain. He draws my chin closer and presses his lips to mine.
Our fingers untangle as he pulls himself over me, sliding between my legs, dragging my thigh high over his hip. The weight of him pressing down sends heat coiling low in my belly, the throbbing ache returning as the hard planes of his stomach slide against me. I feel him grow hard and thick almost instantly as the kiss deepens, turns hungry, his tongue claiming mine while his canines scrape against my bottom lip.
He draws back slightly, just enough to look me in the eye.
“There will be no going back after this,” he warns. “You will be mine.”
I gulp, gripping the hair at the back of his head, kissing his open mouth as he breathes.
“Good,” I whisper. “Then take me, Luceran. Please.”
He growls, lifting my thigh higher on his hip, adjusting himself while his other hand settles low on my stomach. He spreads my legs so wide that once I might have blushed, but now I am far too desperate to care. His tip brushes my entrance, rubs against me for torturous seconds, and then my breath hitches as he pushes inside me. My eyes squeeze shut as the stretch of him sends pleasure rippling through me all over again. His hand presses lightly to my stomach while the other keeps my leg lifted, angling himself deeper.
My back arches, my fingers claw at the stone, my body trembling as he moves inside me. Each thrust pulls low sounds from his chest, vibrations that travel straight through me. He grips my thigh tighter, fingers biting into my flesh as his pale skin slicks with sweat, gleaming like melting ice. The way he grinds against me as he thrusts, the way he fills me, claims every inch, leaves me barely able to breathe. My vision blurs as sensation overtakes me.
I reach my release far sooner than I want to.
I want to draw it out. I want it to crest and fall again and again instead of crashing through me all at once. I don’t want to know what it feels like to have him leave me empty. I don’t want him to ever stop.
