He sighs and straightens, eyes clouded with memory.“I don’t control him,”Keiren continues quietly. “Though I sometimes wish I could. Who he spares is his choice. But he listens. He bargains.” His gaze flicks to me. “Like someone else I know.”
He spins me gently, drawing me back in.
We don’t speak for a while. The dance becomes easier.So does breathing.
Softly, he asks, “Have you ever been in love?”
I trip on his toes. He steadies me with a grin.
“I—” The words vanish from my mind.
“I mean,” he presses, “is there anyone waiting for you back home?”
Torchlight flickers over his face, over the question he’s afraid to voice:Will you leave me if, by some miracle, we survive all this?
I smile, small but true. “Yes.”
His energy falters, pain flashing through his eyes.
I let him linger there a heartbeat before I explain, “My sister. My horses. My mother’s rose garden—though it isn’t quite as lovely as yours. I didn’t inherit her green thumb.”
His relief is visible, blooming like sunlight after a storm.
As we glide back into our rhythm, I lean in until my lips brush his ear. “My turn. Of all the brides you’ve met in six centuries, surely one captured your heart?”
“All of them,” he says lightly with a wink. “I’m a king—what’s not to love?”
Startled laughter bubbles out of me. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Indeed.” His voice dips to a whisper as his lips trail down my shoulder,planting a soft kiss on the exposed skin that makes me gasp.
“You’re avoiding the question, Your Highness,” I tease, tilting my head up.
He stares back at me steadily, gaze dark and unguarded. “Once,” he admits, voice rough. “But she—” He dips his head, sorrow softening his features.
I press my forehead to his chest, feeling his heart drum steadily beneath my palms. “Is that what you fear most?” I whisper. “Falling for someone, only to lose them?”
Without a word, he sweeps me into a low dip, arms firm around me. “No,” he murmurs, fierce and intimate. “I fear losing you.”
Heat floods my chest. My thoughts scatter like embers, but all I feel is his heartbeat against mine.
We move in silence, our bodies speaking what words can’t.
As the moon crests the hedgeline, the flowers at our feet stir. One by one, pale petals unfurl—slow, deliberate—each bloom catching moonlight and holding it, glowing softly as if lit from within. Silver spreads across the garden in quiet waves, petals breathing open in reverent silence. The air seems to hush around us, as though the night itself has paused to watch.
“It’s so beautiful,”I whisper, awed.
Fatigue curls around my limbs, but his arms hold me steady—every step a quiet vow:You’re safe here.
After a while, we just sway. My eyelids are heavy, my mind weary from a day of reading. When Keiren guides me back to the chair by the dying embers, my legs tremble with exhaustion. Heslips his heavy blanket around my shoulders and tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
I sit down on the cushioned couch by the hearth, the sharp scent of leather and mint mingling with smoke as Keiren settles behind me. His arms slide around my waist, anchoring me and pulling me in to rest between his legs. I lean back into him, watching the crackle of flame.
He opens the battered fairy tale. His voice, rich and low, weaves through the story. Each turn of the page eases me toward peace.
“You’ve read this one before?” he murmurs, tracing a dog-eared corner.
“Yes, many times,” I whisper, looping a finger through his. “But never like this. Don’t I owe you some questions?”
