“No—”
“If that’s what you need?—”
“I won’t?—”
“I don’t want to hold you back!” Aderyn squeezed his eyes shut tight. His legs bent up, like he meant to curl into a ball, and he pulled his arm—not quite enough to pull himself free of me, but that was clearly the direction he was headed.
I held on tight.
If he’d come back, all this way, there was no way I was letting him go again.
“That’s what you’re worried about?” I asked, reaching for his face. I brushed my fingers across his cheek, and he stared at me with wide, shining eyes.
“I’m not weak,” he said plaintively.
I shook my head. I wanted to laugh, but bit my tongue. How could he possibly think that?
“No,” I agreed. “You aren’t.”
“So I can do it.”
I drew him in, slow and by his arm at first. When he was close enough, I reached out and wrapped my arm around his waist. With him kneeling in my lap, I stretched up and up until my lips brushed his.
“I know you can. Youcan. Aderyn, you’re the strongest person I know.” All he’d survived, all he’d come back from—no, there was no one more outstanding in all of Llangard or beyondit. “I have never, for even one second, thought you were weak. I worry that—” I flinched. I wished I could be done with this conversation, all of it. If I pulled back the shroud and revealed myself to be as flawed as I really was, had always been, what next?
I should know better than to think poorly of Aderyn, and I didn’t, but I was still afraid?—
Well, I was afraid that I wasn’t worth loving if I wasn’t a perfect prince, a perfect king, a perfect man. After my father had forgotten me, nothing had ever quite filled that hole.
Yes, I had my family.
I didn’t even doubt that I was loved.
But surely there was a limit to it. If I failed, I risked losing everyone I cared for, so it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, to admit my mistakes.
“I worry thatI’mweak,” I whispered. “All I want to do is make you happy, but I’m afraid I’ll hurt you, and you’ll—you’ll stay anyway, to care for me, and I’ll be nothing but a burden. A drain. I’m afraid I’ll use you. I’ll be just like my father. Like Vidar. Another Cavendish king who demands everything of everyone around him. I want to be better than that. I wish I were worthy of—” My breath hitched. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Youare,” Aderyn insisted. His hands cupped my face.
I scoffed, the sound muffled and choked with feeling. “I’m ruined.”
“Roland—” Aderyn tipped my face up and I blinked my eyes open. They stung, but the sight of him allowed me to draw in a long, shaky breath. “You’re not. There’s no such thing. Not for anyone, but especially not for you.”
I searched his face for any sign that he was simply being kind. He couldn’t mean that. Surely there were lines that couldn’t be crossed, ones that I’d blown to bits.
But Aderyn simply stared at me, beseeching and serious. Even the pucker of his brow said he—he loved me, just as I was, even there on the ground, delirious.
I kissed him then, holding him gently. He deserved all the tenderness in the world, and I’d give it to him, if only?—
“Please stay,” I begged into his soft lips. It was selfish and pitiful, yes, but right then, it didn’t matter. I was a better man with him at my side, or at least I wanted to be one, and it felt a little easier knowing half my heart was close at hand. “I miss you so much when you’re gone. I want to see you every morning, kiss you every night. My heart aches when you aren’t with me.”
I felt Aderyn’s nod against my lips, the soft curve of his smile before I slipped my tongue into his mouth.
Perfect.
“I’d give you my crown,” I promised.
Aderyn snorted, shaking his head. “I don’t want it.”
