Chapter 33
33
T he fabric of her wedding dress slicked across the marble floor, making no sound, liquid given physical form. Only the train moved fluidly. The rest of it had been starched into place so thoroughly it remained stationary no matter how she shifted.
Cillian walked a step ahead of her, leading the way down the unfamiliar halls of the private wing of the palace. The one place she hadn’t been in before. Her mouth had gone dry at the start of the ceremony and remained that way until now, no matter how many times she swallowed.
Long sleeves hid her scars from view, and her stomach flipped nervously.
She’d done it.
They’d stood at the altar together while the officiant offered words of praise about honoring their spouse for the rest of time.
Cillian gladly repeated the required phrases while Aven went through the motions. Roran stood there on Cillian’s other side. She felt him watching her, took it into her heart, and ignored it all. Her hands were steady when they slid a golden band onto Cillian’s ring finger, and she repeated the words without so much as a tremor.
Done. They were husband and wife, and she’d tied herself irrevocably to this man and his kingdom.
No going back.
Cillian stopped at the door to his room with his hand paused in the air above the handle and offered her a sweet smile. “This is the part where I sweep you over the threshold, isn’t it?”
Aven yelped when he grabbed her, one arm under her legs. The dress hardly wanted to move with her, and ribbons trailed from her hair all the way down to the ground.
“Cillian!”
She pressed her hand to his chest and felt his heart racing, a mirror of her own.
Although he didn’t look flustered, she might have called him nervous. It made her feel a fraction better.
“I’ve wanted to have you in here for a long time.” Cillian trailed kisses along the line of her jaw as he took them both into the room. She caught flashes of the space, the dark walls and the wide-open windows. No, doors. Glass doors leading out onto a large balcony glowing under the moonlight.
The space was large enough to fit an entire house and, from what she could make out, had been divided into sections. A desk in the corner, piled high with paperwork; a large wardrobe; and a full-length mirror against the opposite wall.
And the bed…
It made her own bed look like a crib for a newborn.
Her stomach rolled and shook with anticipation and nerves. Cillian’s lips found their way to hers. The kiss seared through her from front to back.
“We’re married,” he murmured against her skin when he broke contact. “We’re actually married. My wife.”
It felt crazy to hear him say it out loud. Somehow, the realization hadn’t sunk in yet, despite the dress and the ceremony and the heavy ring on her left hand.
“My husband.” Aven tried to say the words out loud, and they never made it past her teeth. Only a whisper of air leaked through. She panted, her chest tightening with every passing second.
Cillian set her gently on the edge of the bed and stood back to study her. With a hooked finger, he gently pried the ribbons from her hair by their looped front and let them drop to the ground. Gentle, reverent.
“For a second, I didn’t think you’d go through with it,” he whispered. “I thought you were going to back out.”
He noticed?
Of course he had.
Candlelight scattered across the room cast flickering pools of glowing light. Vases filled with freshly cut roses and spring flowers rested on flat surfaces throughout the space and added a gentle sweetness to the scene.
Maybe none of this had turned out the way she’d expected, but she was glad it was him. It was an arranged marriage, one she likely would have entered into sooner or later. She didn’t need love. Or passion. Cillian was more than enough—more than she had ever expected or deserved. His gentleness made all the difference.
And for once in her life, she wanted things to be sweet and gentle. She wanted them to be kind and compassionate without another ripple in the waters of her life.
No more death and no more drama.
Everything had been beautiful, even if it wasn’t what she planned for her future.
“I wasn’t going to back out,” she assured him as she reached up to draw him down to her. Not when she knew the press of his skin to hers would blot out any lingering nerves.
They were married.
The future she’d never wanted for herself came to pass, but she was grateful for Cillian.
Especially when he told her, “We can take things slow. As slow as you want it to be. We don’t need to rush into this if you’re not comfortable.”
“I don’t want to wait.”
Her voice was soft but steady, and her words made Cillian freeze, his eyes searching hers.
“Are you really sure?” he asked, his tone careful, almost uncertain. Thoughtful.
In answer to his kindness, she tugged at the lace across her chest, lace Nora assured her would be easy to remove when the time came. It drew apart, and the outer shell of the dress melted away from her. The silky piece underneath clung to her skin, cut low and enticing.
Cillian stared at her chest with his own heaving, marking Aven’s every movement.
She lifted off the mattress only long enough to kick the dress aside before pulling at her hair. It spiraled out of the bind and dropped in a wave to her shoulder. She maintained eye contact with Cillian, her husband, through it all.
He watched her in preternatural stillness as she fluffed out the strands of hair as much as she was able.
“You can finish undressing me. If you want,” she offered.
Something cracked in her chest at the tenderness in his gaze as he dropped to his knees in front of her. Pulling her further toward the end of the bed and resting his head on her lap.
Cillian groaned. “I love you. Aven, I need you to know that whatever happens, I do love you. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” His fingers dug into her flesh, desperate. “I wasn’t sure I would, but somehow you captured me.”
Another sweet phrase she’d adore being able to repeat to him. Love, yes. She cared about him greatly. She wanted to take care of him, she wanted them to take care of each other. She wanted him to be okay.
Those things were facets of love, weren’t they? In her life, she’d only experienced that kind of emotion for her family, and a different kind altogether for the army men she led.
Cillian was her best friend. Yes, she loved him. So why couldn’t she tell him?
“Look at me.” His soft demand drew her attention fully. He lifted his head to hers. “I’m sorry.”
Aven tilted her head toward her elbow, lips pursed. “What do you mean?”
He answered her with another kiss. This time there was no hiding the raging need and all-consuming hunger inside of him. Cillian kissed her the way a condemned man ate his last meal, and Aven opened for him.
He slid his tongue across hers in a raw glide and stole her breath with the same move.
It felt so good.
Her mind was suddenly distant from the whims of her body. She loved how absolutely freeing it felt to have him this way. For her alone.
They were doing this together, and although both of them had found their pleasures with other people before, this was new, and good, and real.
What a relief to know it was real.
Cillian drew his hands through her hair and tugged every curl free in a wild halo before he steadied her. Keeping her head in place between his palms while he tasted her. His teeth nipped at her bottom lip, and he sucked it into his mouth to soothe the slight sting of pain.
Was he sorry for not being the type of partner she envisioned for herself? Or for the vague sense they’d both been maneuvered and trapped in this situation?
There was no need to apologize.
Aven wanted more of him. She wanted everything from him, without thought to tomorrow. Tonight, there would be pleasure only. Only Cillian. She’d forget about seeing her father and the things they never got to say to each other. Or how Roran looked ready to stop the entire wedding for her. For them.
Cillian drove her back against the sheets, pinning her wrists above her head. The weight of him, the heat of his body against hers, made her arch up, seeking more contact.
“To our future, my King,” she murmured.
He kissed his way down the side of her neck, his hands bringing her wrists over her head and pinning her there while he took his time on her. Dominating her with his body. He settled nicely between her legs, and Aven arched against him and the hardness there.
“To our future,” he repeated.
His next kiss had her heart stumbling over its beat when he drew his tongue across hers. He drove it deep into her mouth. She wanted more, more than the light touch of his fingers on her wrist and palm, more than his chest to hers with layers of clothing separating them.
His fingers traveled down her forearms and idly stroked a path down her neck where he’d kissed before.
Cillian scraped his teeth against her chin. “You have no idea how sorry I am for this.”
Aven tensed, and then chuckled out, “For what?” She expected the pain that pleasure brought after so much time spent alone, but by the gods, stop apologizing.
She flashed him a wicked grin as Cillian stood abruptly. He walked over to the bedside table, the piece carved from a single living branch of a tree like the one in her room. He opened the drawer.
What—
The world slowed, reality warping around the edges. Cillian turned to face her, and the candlelight gilded the sharp wicked curve of the dagger, its handle made of gemstones. The tip of the blade caught the light and absorbed it even as the shaft reflected it back to her.
“What are you doing?”
His first step forward surprised her. The mattress turned to stone beneath her, and her legs with it. “What I have to do to ensure my people survive,” he said miserably. “This is the only real way to end the war. I wish it weren’t.”
This couldn’t be real. It had to be a nightmare.
The cold pit in her stomach, what she’d thought was just nerves about tonight, grew with every passing second. Cillian’s body blocked the only real exit. Unless she threw herself off the balcony. Fight-or-flight instincts screamed at her.
She forced a grin, praying this was some sick joke. “Stop joking. This isn’t funny.”
His eyes were solemn, humorless. Dead.
A boundary dropped down between him and her, and something real had been cut off. “It’s not meant to be funny. If there was another way around this, I would have found it by now. I’ve tried my hardest. Don’t you understand? Yet here we are. The sacrifice begins.”
The what?
Nerves at being in bed with Cillian disappeared in an instant, replaced by a flash of fiery alarm when he turned to her with the knife in his hands. The dagger glinted, hungry for her blood.
She had to move. MOVE!
Aven scrambled off the bed. Cillian lunged, grabbing her ankle and hauling her back toward him.
Aven screamed and turned around on her back to face him, her hands unable to find purchase in anything other than her discarded dress.
Cillian drew her with unmatched strength and a rippling wave of his fae power. She had just enough room to draw up her free leg before he was on top of her. She ignored the punishing hold on her ankle and the way the dagger glinted in the glow of the overhead chandelier.
She pushed every thought aside that had nothing to do with getting the hell out of here. Despite the black panic rushing in, she kicked out, managing to land a blow against Cillian’s chest.
No.
This wasn’t happening.
Not today.
Not at the hands of the man who claimed to love her.
Lies. It was all lies.
Her chest tightened, each breath a struggle. Cillian’s nails bit into her flesh as he pulled again. If she didn’t get out, he’d flay her alive.
Aven kicked repeatedly. “Stop it!” she screamed. “You have to stop it now!”
He only came closer and swiped in a downward arc with the dagger. She managed to twitch to the right and slammed against the sharp corner of the bedside table.
Cillian might have considerable strength, but so did she. She blinked away the pain. The questions. The emotions. Tightening her abdomen, she lifted and smashed her fist against his cheek.
She was a survivor. No matter what happened, she’d make it out of this room.
Aven tightened her abs and smashed her fist into Cillian’s cheek. The sides of her ring cut deep, blood welling from the wound. He roared in pain, but she didn’t stop. She rammed her elbow into his ribs, again and again, until his grip loosened.
Cillian growled, ignoring the gash on his cheek. He sliced down, the dagger burying itself in the nightstand.
Aven wrenched free, scrambling for the door. Cillian swore, one hand on his cheek, the other wrapped around the dagger’s hilt. He turned to her with his eyes lit in a glare.
“There’s nowhere for you to run. This has to happen, Aven.” He drew it free from where it embedded in the wood. “Everything is going according to plan.”
She crawled, desperate to put distance between them. “No! Please stop!”
In a heartbeat, Cillian was on her, the wicked blade pressed to her throat. The cold metal bit into her skin.
“Don’t you understand?” he panted. “You’re the entire reason this war ends, Aven. With your death.”