Butterflies take flight in my stomach. Not good. My determination to retire wavers like it always does. I don’t want to leave him. Ever.
He holds out a hand, but I pretend not to see it. Instead, I scoot along my seat toward the wet bar in the back corner of the limo.
“I missed Amy’s bachelorette party,” I say, scrutinizing the label on every bottle, one by one. “It’s a human tradition, basically an excuse to go out and get wasted. I promised Paige I’d be there.”
“McKenzie—”
“I think she’s forgiven me, though,” I continue, refusing to look at him. “She was worried when I didn’t return her calls.”
Kyol moves to sit beside me. I grab an individual-sized bottle of wine, twist the top off, and pour it into a glass. My hand shakes, mostly from the motion of the limo, but partly from nerves. I’m usually more together than this, more in control, but I’m tired of . . . of everything.
Kyol puts his hand over the glass before I raise it to my lips.
“McKenzie.” His edarratae quiver across his skin. “Talk to me. I need to know you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“Look at me.” He lifts my chin, forcing me to meet his silver eyes.
“Kyol.” I draw in a breath. “I can’t do this. I can’t go back to the way things were, sneaking touches when no one is looking.” I won’t live like that. Not anymore.
“Okay.”
“I know Radath and the king will—What?”
He runs his hands down my arms, then back up, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. “These last couple of weeks . . . they’ve been the worst of my life. Jorreb sent a fae with your clothes. They were stained red and . . .” He swallows. “I thought you were dead. I thought I’d never see you again, and I hated myself for holding back when we were together. I remembered every time I told you no, and all I wanted was the chance to tell you yes. I have that chance now.” His hands tighten on my shoulders. “I’ll talk to Atroth, McKenzie. If you’ll forgive me, if you still want me, I’ll talk to him. I’ll convince him you and I should be together.”
Really? I want to ask, but I can’t form the question. This is what I’ve always wanted, the hope I’ve been clinging to for a decade, and now, I’m terrified I might be trapped in a dream. Maybe Aren killed me when he cut my throat. Something has to be up because this is too simple, too easy, to be real.
“What about you?” I ask when I find my voice. “Won’t Atroth want you to be with someone else? Someone like Jacia?” Even though Lorn said Kyol refused the life-bond, it hurts to say her name.
He frowns. “How . . . Who told you that?”
My lips tighten into a thin, apologetic smile.
“Jorreb,” he says. He lets go of my shoulders. “Atroth wants that—the daughter of Srillan is a good match for me—but I will never make a bond. Never, McKenzie.”
“The king knows why?” If Atroth knows Kyol loves me, why hasn’t he done something? Why hasn’t he changed the law, made an exception to it, or assigned me to another fae?
Kyol lets out a sigh. “I’m sure he suspects it, but if I don’t say anything and there’s no evidence to support it, I think he’ll continue to ignore us.”
But if he does say something . . .
“Will you lose your position?” I ask.
“There is a chance of that. I would like . . .” He stops, closes his eyes. When he opens them again, there’s an apology there. “I need a few days. You’ll need to tell us what you know about the rebellion. We’ll find its leaders and take them out. When the war is over, Atroth will be more willing to listen. If he doesn’t . . . if he won’t allow us to be together, I’ll leave the Court. I’ll stay with you.”
Everything I want, dangled in front of me like a carrot.
“And if the war doesn’t end?” I ask, my voice quiet.
“If we take out the son of Jorreb, it will.”
I have the means to kill Aren, hanging around my neck. My heart constricts. I love Kyol—always have, always will—but I can still feel Aren’s lips, desperate against mine. I hear his last words to me, making a promise to come for me, a promise that, somehow, I know he would keep. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to get away from him, and now that I’m free . . .
Isn’t this so freaking fantastic? I’ve spent ten years searching for someone to fill the spot in my heart meant for Kyol, and when I finally find a contender, he’s an enemy and he’s fae.
Why the hell can’t I fall in love with a human?
I suck in a breath. No. No way. I don’t love Aren. I can’t because, damn it, I’m not one of those girls, the ones who have two men chasing after them but can’t make up their minds who to choose. If you can’t decide who you love more, you don’t love either of them enough. So I don’t have feelings for Aren. I won’t.
But I don’t want him to die.
I close my eyes. I don’t know which is the bigger betrayaclass="underline" giving the imprinted necklace to Kyol or keeping it to myself?
“McKenzie?”
“I want this to be over,” I say.
Kyol lets out an audible sigh and tension drains from his shoulders. “I know. Come here, kaesha.”
He sets my glass of wine aside and pulls me into his arms. Edarratae flicker across his skin. His fingertips trace up my back to the nape of my neck. Lightning tickles the tiny hairs there before shimmying down my spine.
“I’ve missed this,” he murmurs. “I didn’t realize how much I would.” His thumbs move to the heartbeat on either side of my throat, and he gives me a rare smile, the one he reserves just for me.
“You should get some rest,” he says, pressing a kiss to my forehead. A chaos luster strikes down the side of my face. His lips trail it, then hover millimeters away from mine.
I won’t be able to sleep, not with this heat pulsing in my veins. I close the distance between us. He doesn’t resist. His lips slant hard across mine, pouring lightning into me. My heart thumps, startled by the intensity of the kiss. I half expect him to stop. This is the point when he usually pulls back, unwilling to get carried away, so I brace myself, waiting for a cold rush of air.
He doesn’t stop. His silver eyes turn stormy, and it sinks in that he really means what he said. When the war’s over, we’ll be together, with the king’s blessing or without it.
Finally.
My dress hikes up to my hips when he pulls me into his lap. I press against him, and his chest rumbles with a low growl. A smile finds its way to my lips. I love him like this, when all his self-control shatters and he becomes vulnerable to my touch.
There’s desperation in his movements when he lays me down on the long bench-seat, capturing me between the soft leather and his hard body. He lowers his mouth to my jaw, guides his lips slowly to my ear. I moan and he moves to the hollow of my throat and—oh, shit. The imprinted necklace. His lips brush over it, then stop, lingering on the scar on the side of my neck. I tense, but he only presses a kiss there. He doesn’t notice the extra heat of the stone.
Slowly, his hand slides down my silk-covered side, over my hip and lower, until he finds my bare thigh. He draws patterns on my skin, tiny circles that send a bolt of edarratae up my leg.
His hands are tantalizingly hot. I kiss him brutally, knowing Naito was right. Being with a human will never compare to this.
Ah, hell.
“Naito.”
Kyol’s hands still, but his chest heaves with his breaths. “What?”
I close my eyes. I’m a friggin’ moron for breaking this moment.
“Naito,” I say, forcing myself to meet Kyol’s gaze. “The shadow-reader you took through the gate in Lyechaban. Is he okay?”
A line creases his brow. “You’re thinking about Naito?”
“No, not really. I just . . . I didn’t see you give him an anchor-stone and, well, I was worried.”
“I gave him an anchor-stone,” he says after a moment, removing his hand from my thigh. “I didn’t know you were there.”