Claim me. Be mine.
I got the hell away from her. Stalking to the rails, I clenched the barrier while focusing on the woods. Her boots padded to the space beside me, and her fingers clasped the ledge.
How I wanted to see this world through her eyes. How I longed for much more.
Distress filled her voice. “Why did you take my hand?”
I could not stand it anymore. “Why did you let me?”
We spoke while viewing the forest, our questions floating into the darkness. The fire burned my back, I tasted smoke on my tongue, and the world went silent. An eternity passed like this, my stomach in knots, her scent too near. My wrist shuddered and then—fuck it—brushed against hers. And Seasons’ help me, she reciprocated, nudging her fingers closer.
I broke into motion. Spinning to cup her face, I hissed, “Aspen.”
“Aire,” she warned, my name teetering on her lips like something about to fall and crash. “Aire, don’t.”
“I must say this,” I rushed out. “I need you to know.”
“Wait. Please. I have to tell you something too.”
But before she could verbalize another thought, two words flew from my mouth. “I lied.”
41
Aspen
My stomach dove. I couldn’t have heard this man right.
The speech I’d been planning, drafting, and rehearsing dangled on my tongue with no place to go. Trapped by the adamant expression wringing across Aire’s face, I stood wedged between my confession and this knight’s declaration.
Aire, who didn’t have a corrupt bone in his body.
Aire, whose surly exterior had been sanded down over time, the layers smoothing out.
Aire, who kept his premonition from me, who was fallible after all, human like the rest of us imperfect souls.
Aire, who still hadn’t kept as many lies as I did.
Aire, my one exception, who I ached to know the truth.
Aire, who thumbed my cheeks, immobilizing me.
“I believed I could get past this,” he admitted. “I believed I could not read you. I believed my duty stronger than my heart. I believed this was lust, then desire, then endearment. I believed it could be nothing more. I believed I would accept that.” His expression caved in on itself. “But I can’t.”
One of his palms left my face and gathered my fingers. “I can read you, yet not from some mystic power. Only now do I understand,” he rasped. “I can read you the way you read me, because it’s natural. It is a bond, a closeness I haven’t felt with anyone. It started when I returned home.”
His hand cradled me, while the other balled our digits to his chest. “That’s why I sensed your essence on the castle grounds, on the night you left with Nicu. It is not magic. It’s simply us.”
He stepped nearer, impossible to stop, to interrupt. “My heart beats for you, my breath stalls when you smile, and my body kindles to life when you step into a room. You provoke me. You intimidate me. You inspire me. And yet, my feelings don’t matter. Not as much as pleasing you, consoling you, supporting you.”
His forehead dipped to my own. “You are the source of every dream and fear I have. No matter where I look, I picture your face. No matter the distraction, my thoughts return to you. I see a branch with a unique shape and think, ‘She would admire that.’ I train with my swords and wonder, ‘Would she move this way or differently? What can I do for her? How the fuck can I let her go?’”
Aire’s ragged exhale scuffed my lips. “I thought I could step away. I thought I could recover from kissing you, holding you, fucking you. I thought I could stop myself from wanting to give you more. But I cannot. I fucking can’t. And so, I’ve lied to myself. For you have claimed me. Mind, body, and soul.”
Those twilit eyes pleaded with mine. “Please. End this for good. Order me to stand down.”
The plea shattered me. The final thread of resistance snapped. Beyond the sex, the rush of his mouth clamping onto my own, of his body pistoning inside me, watching him come undone on a violent shout, this was the reciprocated scene I wanted most.
A pledge. An oath that I could match.
