A vital part.
Thebestpart.
Cameron watched Kalder’s features as he pulled back from their kiss to look down at her. He stared at her as if trying to memorize her face.
There was a dark, deep sadness in his glowing eyes. One even more intense than it’d been before.
“What is on your mind that you look as if the Second Coming is upon you?”
“Wishing that I was a simple human peasant who’d stumbled into your tavern for an ale. Do you think you’d have found me as alluring then?”
Her eyes twinkled with humor. “If I said nay, would you toss me aside?”
“Nay?”
She wrinkled her nose playfully. “Given that I would have assumed you were after me as a lad? I’d be a bit offended.”
Laughing, he ran his forefinger over the arch of her brow and studied her face as if he were trying to discern the truth. “And if I made sure you knew that I knew the truth of your gender?”
“Then the truth is that it wouldn’t have mattered. Peasant or king matters naught to me. All I see is the heart of the man.”
“And if I said that I had no heart?”
“I’d never believe that. I know you better, Mr. Dupree. I’ve seen your heart. Felt it the night you fought so hard and determined to save me from the demons what were determined to drag me to me doom.”
Kalder trembled at her words. He trembled at the warmth of her soft body contoured to the hardness of his own. Her stomach was feather soft against his erection. Her hands tender on his shoulders.
He stared into her ever-curious gaze and lost himself there. What would it be like to spend the rest of his life staring into those light, sea hazel eyes?
To hold her like this for decades?
And in this moment, he could imagine her plump with his child. See her warm and welcoming in his bed forever.
The thought both terrified and thrilled him.
How could he even think of allowing himself such a weakness? To curse their children so? Her brother would forbid such a thing. And what could he offer her really?
I’m nothing.
Everything he touched, he ruined.
Even now, he could see the day Muerig had died. Because of his neglect.
Even worse than his brother’s fate, he could see her being sweptover the ship and ripped from his hands by their enemies, and all because he’d started to care for her. Because of his curse…
He wasn’t allowed to love. He knew that.
Yet how could he live without her?
You have to. Otherwise she’ll pay for your folly. And so will your children.
Kalder couldn’t bear to lose her again. Even now he could feel that day deep inside his soul. The winds had been fierce and cold. The water dark and choppy. He’d looked out across the waves, his heart sickened as he saw her vanish beneath the water, while he was helpless to stop it. Taken by enemies he couldn’t fight.
His soul was forever burdened by the unending grief and self-hatred that came from knowing the fault of it all was solely his own.
Just as it’d been the day Muerig had died because he’d failed to meet his brother on time.
“I will never again take any pleasure in me life. I will spend the rest of eternity paying penance for me stupidity.”
