“How many elves did you kill on the way out?”
He tips his head at me, as if he doesn’t want to tell me the answer.
“A lot?” I press.
“A lot.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, hanging my head, tearing at a piece of bread.
“What are you sorry for, Elysande?”
“It’s all my fault. Getting you guys involved. Getting… Meela involved. Getting you captured.”
Daegan sits up on his knees. He grabs my face with both hands, forcing me to look at him. “Elysande, none of this was your fault. We’d be nowhere near as close to breaking this thing if you hadn’t trusted us and let us in. We’d be lost without you. I’d be lost without you.”
I shake him off. I don’t deserve those words. “Stop it,” I say, shaking my head so his hands release me. “You didn’t see me on that island. I was fucking pathetic. I gave up. On myself, on you, on everyone.”
“That’s not true.”
“How would you know!” I’m on my feet now, my voice raised and shaky. He hops to his feet too. “You weren’t there.”
He dips his head, and I try to fight the tears that are burning in my eyes.
“I know you. You never gave up. Maybe you had a tough time for a while, but you never truly gave up, did you? I know you were out there swimming every day for months. I know you pretended to like a person you loathe because you were so desperate to get out. That doesn’t sound like a person who gave up to me.”
I shake my head. “I couldn’t get to you,” I whisper. The admission crushing me all over again.
“And I couldn’t get to you,” he adds, his voice nearly cracking at the end. “And it fucking killed me. Every. Single. Day. Every single day I woke up knowing that I made a promise to find you, and I was failing that promise.”
I hang my head again. “I hated myself for not being able to save any of us. And…” I take a deep breath. “I was mad at you for not coming either. I’m sorry. I know you were suffering, but I was in a dark fucking place. You tried. I know that now. Part of me was afraid that…”
I meet his eyes and find they’re swimming with pain and anguish. I hate myself for ever thinking that, but I want him to know everything. To know the ugliest parts of me, no matter how hard it is to admit. “That what? That I was mad at you? That I didn’t love you? And I just left you there?”
“Yes,” I whisper, unable to meet his gaze as I admit it to him.
He steps closer, reaching out to grab my hands. He holds them, pleading and desperate. “You are the one thing that got me through. All I used to care about was breaking the curse, but now I just want to spend whatever time I have with you. I thought of you, dreamed of you, every fucking day.” He reaches out and gently grabs my hair with two fingers. “I never stopped thinking about you for a moment,” he whispers, shifting his eyes from the piece of hair to my eyes. Time could freeze as he looks at me like that, like I’m the only important thing in the world.
He continues. “I’m so fucking sorry for how I reacted when I first showed up. I imagined that moment so many times, and I never pictured your lips being on another’s when I saw you again for the first time. It crushed me. Nothing I went through in the castle compared to that pain. But I was stupid for doubting you, for thinking you’d ever want to put your mouth on his again. And for that, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I breathe. “You were right to think the worst in that moment. I… hated every minute of being with—”
“Please don’t,” he says, shaking his head and cutting me off. “I’m glad you did whatever you could to get out, but I really don’t want to know the details.”
“I only kissed him,” I say anyway, because for some reason, I really need him to hear that. “You’re the only one I’ve thought about, the only one I would…”
The ghost of a smile touches his haunted expression. “Part of me wished you moved on when I saw it… I could’ve let you go. Let you live.”
“Don’t say that.”
His jaw ticks as he focuses his eyes on me again, and his mouth is tight as he nods. “It doesn’t matter now. You’re mine, and I’m a selfish bastard when it comes to you. Whatever you had to do to get out of there, I don’t care. It’s behind us now, and I’m never letting you go again. I tried to stay away before. I couldn’t.”
His arm reaches around me and his palm grabs onto my lower back as he pulls me closer. I’m still caught in his gaze that drinks me in like I’m water he hasn’t had in days. “Don’t,” I finally whisper.
“I won’t,” he murmurs as he leans in and places his lips on mine.
Sparks shoot through my entire body on impact. This world is so cruel for depriving me of this when I was just beginning to get a taste of it. I reach up and grab his hair with both hands, with no plans of setting him free anytime soon. I could live here, just him and me, as he runs his hands along my body, clutching onto me with an equal level of desperation.
He pulls back for a moment, resting his forehead against mine, and I breathe into him as I try to catch my breath. “Stay with me tonight,” I say against his lips.
