I rise onto my tiptoes to kiss him, but he places his hands on my shoulders to stop me.
“Wait. There’s something I … I need to tell you something.” He swallows, glancing away from me. “Desmond did not send me back to resume my duties. I snuck off on my own. He has no idea I’m with you.”
My breath stalls. There he goes, breaking rules for me yet again.
“Is he … Will he be angry? Why would you do such a thing?”
I am not upset that Lachlan defied his duke; more afraid of what Desmond might do in retaliation.
“Because I had to see you again before the Hunt. I wanted you to know about my next chapter.”
His next chapter? What does that even matter now? What an odd thing to?—
“You,” he says, and my heart seizes.
“You were supposed to be my next chapter, Charlotte.”
Chapter
Fifty
Iblink up at him, confused.
“What are you talking about? Since when? Surely not the night I arrived in the Otherworld.”
“No.” He shakes his head, his lips softly curving. “No, little queen, I’ve known you a bit longer than that. Well, known you might be a bit of a stretch. I knew what I wanted you to be.”
He nudges me backward, encouraging me to sit on a shimmering rock before kneeling at my feet and taking my hand.
“It’s all Desmond’s fault, really. Why I fell …” He swallows. Restarts. “After last year’s Hunting Season in the Otherworld, when his candidate failed, yet again, to survive the presentation ceremony, he was furious. Said we needed to try something different with the ring this year. He remembered something your grandmother mentioned when she was the candidate, something about your king selecting a Favourite each Season. Desmond asked me to find out if it was true. I couldn’t come over in my true form, as you know. But there was a clever solutionin the shape of a tiny creature who can easily walk between worlds.”
A vanguard moth flutters over his head.
“I used thediamrhánto make connections with them. Penetrating their simple minds is far easier than forming the connection with a human or another faerie. No blood is required, and I’m able to influence them, guide them where to fly. The first time I visited the woods behind Stillwater Hall in the mind of a moth was about a year ago. Seven for you. I still remember the first time I saw you, as clear as if it were yesterday.”
He closes his eyes. “You were leaned against a log, sketchbook propped on your knees, drawing yellow irises growing along a stream bed. You looked carefree. Content. And so devastatingly beautiful that I thought I must have been dreaming.”
I know which day that was. It was shortly after Granny had sent me down to Stillwater for my first Season to placate Aunt Teddy. I was nervous, but excited. Of course, I didn’t make Favourite that year—not that I expected to—but I was hopeful about making a match someday. I remember feeling solightabout my future, about everything.
Lachlan reopens his eyes and continues, “Up until that moment, I hadn’t wanted anything for myself in a long time. I’d been in Desmond’s service for nearly eight years, content in my ascetic existence as I helped him build his life. But the moment I laid eyes upon you, I started to wonder—what would it be like to build myownlife? To be in control of my choices again? Maybe I’d decide to spend an afternoon watching a lovely young woman—mywoman—sketch in the woods. A simple peace where neither of us had another soul to answer to except each other.”
I nearly snort. He has no idea how mired I was in the restrictive rules of Bretonnic society at the time. How muchworse they were going to get for me. But I do not want to sully his lovely dream with an ugly dose of reality.
“To me, you represented freedom. A treasure I’d once possessed but had carelessly tossed aside for power and prestige. After that day, I … Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Every time I returned via a new vanguard moth, I’d wait for you in the woods before I went on my intelligence gathering expeditions for Desmond. You didn’t show up every time, but when you did, I’d watch you from the branches. Pretty sure you drew me a few times.”
He chuckles, and I return a watery little laugh. He’s right, of course.
“After a few months on my end, several years on yours, I came to the woods one morning and you were … you were with a man. You looked radiantly happy, and I was so jealous I could barely breathe. It was for the best though, I thought at the time. You’d reminded me how much joy there could be in simplywantingsomething. Even something you’ll never possess. I mean, what exactly had I been planning to do? Lure you to the Otherworld? Seek a way into the human realm in my real form so I could lightly stalk you until either your man or the time compression killed me?”
He laughs at himself, hanging his head and placing a warm hand on my thigh, his touch grounding. I need it now more than ever. “When you showed up in the royal tomb in Tír na Strelle claiming to be the Favourite … You know this part of the story already. I told myself you were never meant to be mine anyway. That I’d already given you up once, and I could do it again. I promised myself I would help you, befriend you, but wouldn’t cross any lines. I broke all my own rules, of course. And once we became lovers, I thought perhaps the gods had given me another gift after all. Even if it was only for a short period of time. I was infatuated with the woman I’d seen drawing in the woods, butthe reality of you … Gods, Charlotte, it’s been excruciating. I’ve lied to myself so many times over these past months. Swore that I wasn’t falling for you, that my heart was safe. That I’d be able to let you go when the time came, and now?—”
“The time has come.” I can barely choke out the words, my voice breaking on every syllable.
He offers me a rueful smile. “I wasn’t going to tell you. It was a burden I thought to bear alone. But I want … No, Ineedyou to know that no matter what happens during the Wild Hunt, that there’s at least one man in the Otherworld who chose you for you. Before any of this. One who has no chance at power or a crown by claiming you.”
He cups my face, strokes his thumb along my cheekbone. “I love you. Deeply. Irrevocably. Pitifully. I swear I tried to stop.”
They’re the words I’ve longed to hear my entire life. From the only man I’ve ever truly wanted to hear them.
