“No, he won’t.” I didn’t know how I’d stop him, but I needed to stop him.
“You don’t hear all the things he says to me. He despises everything I am—everything I say.”
“How could he?” I fought against every bit of fury I felt. She wasn’t just marrying a man that couldn’t love her like I would. She was marrying one that would seek to destroy her. “Your radiance can’t be ignored.”
“Don’t say things like that to me, because then on my wedding day, I will just wish it was you instead.”
“Do you wish that?” If she wished that, it might break me.
“Why must you make me say it?” Her head tilted so she could see around me.
I glanced back at the empty hall before I looked into her eyes. “Because I love you and even if I can never have you… I want to know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
ASHLYN
Maybe I knew it before he uttered it. Maybe I just wanted it to be true. “You love me?”
“Yes, Princess Ashlyn of Bailoc, I love every impossible bit of you.” His jade-green eyes held mine.
“I wish that, Lord Fyn of Lythira. I will wish it on my wedding day and every day after. Because no man could ever take your place—it is only you.” It would only ever be him.
His thumb swiped my tears the moment they fell.
I needed him—wanted him. It didn’t matter that it couldn’t be. Fyn was the piece of me I had been missing, the one that made me feel like I was home as long as he was with me.
This must be what love feels like—to be staring at the only person in the world you know with complete certainty that you’re never meant to spend your days without.
There wouldn’t be many chances to tell him how I felt. There wouldn’t be many more tomorrows with him looking down at me as if I was the only person he could ever want.
“I love you. I wish every night to your stars that you could steal me still.”
“I want to steal you still.” His hand folded around mine.
“Do you believe in another lifetime? One beyond this one?” I had heard the fae speak of lives they would have after this.
“I do,” he said.
“Maybe in that life we could be together.” I tugged on his tunic until our lips intertwined for the briefest moment. It would never be enough. “No one is here.” I peered around him. “You can kiss me.”
Fyn stepped back from me. “When have you not seen a guard outside your chambers?”
There were no footsteps or guards in their usual places, but this alcove had never been guarded.
“I haven’t.”
“Me neither. I don’t have a good feeling about this.” He slid back further into the alcove, watching the sunlight path and then me. “Would you leave with me if you still could?”
“I would,” I whispered back.
“Then we leave tonight.” In the shadows, his gaze glowed.
They would try to find me and drag me back. “I don’t have my sword and you don’t have yours.”
His mouth lifted ever so slightly at the corner. “I told you.” He motioned me closer. “I will steal one if I have to. I can easily steal two.”
“Are you trying to tempt me with a good time?”
