Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
ALLETTE
Senan’s starlit eyes find mine and do not stray, as if he doesn’t even notice the paradise surrounding us. When he takes a step forward, my heart leaps and stomach swoops.
“You’re here,” he says, a little breathless. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
The guard remains in the doorway, watching us. While I would love nothing more than to run to my love, my slippers remain firmly planted. “Who am I to refuse a request from Prince Senan himself?”
His lips flatten. “Indeed.” He takes another step closer, seeming oblivious to our audience.
“You shouldn’t have sent a royal guard to collect me,” I say quietly.
“Bilson is a steel trap, aren’t you Bilson?” Senan murmurs, his gaze dipping to my mouth even as his tongue wets his own lips.
The guard’s deep voice rumbles from the doorway. “Yes, sire.”
“Won’t tell a soul, will you, Bilson?”
“Not a soul, sire.”
As if that matters when the entire canteen watched a member of the royal guard come for me and overheard him mention the prince’s name. Mari and Del saw me in this gown that must’ve cost a fortune, and I’m certain the entire staff will hear about my run-in with Senan last night.
Senan inches closer, eyes locked with mine, like we’re both caught in each other’s thrall, loath to look away. “You can go now, Bilson.”
The guard turns on his heel and slips silently through the glass door.
“Why am I here?” I ask.
Senan holds out a hand. “Because I want to show you something.”
My fingers find his, and it feels like coming home. He leads me through a maze of vibrant blooms, past a burbling stream, over a small wooden bridge, to a patch of grass in front of a wall of climbing moonflowers. The snow-white blooms are only open a fraction, waiting for the sun beating through the glass to fall and the moon to awaken from its slumber. I touch the soft petals, so delicate and ethereal.
“Moonflowers are my favorite.” They were my mother’s favorite as well.
Senan plucks a bud from the vine, twirling the stem between his tattooed fingers. “I remember.” He steps closer and tucks the flower behind my ear.
My lips lift. “Liar.” Long ago, I mentioned it in passing, and he did give me that paperweight, but so much has happened since those moments we shared.
His fingers catch the buttons of his white shirt, and he begins to unfasten them one by one. I’m about to ask what he is doing when I notice the intricate tattoo curving across his tanned shoulder.
Moonflowers climb on vines, silently claiming his skin. My throat locks up as I take a hesitant step closer. There, on his chest, is a name. My name. As if he’d branded himself for me. I can’t help but trace the delicate letters. Senan’s hand folds over mine. His heart beats strong and steady beneath my palm. “Do you believe me now?”
“I believe you now.”
Senan’s free hand skims along my jaw, applying the slightest pressure, until I’m no longer studying his tattoos but his face.
He isn’t yours .
I give myself a mental shake, somehow managing to look away. Behind him, a basket sits on a plaid blanket stretched between two bushes. “Is that a picnic?”
He glances over his shoulder, his brow furrowing, as if he hadn’t remembered the picnic at all. “Perhaps.”
“But you hate picnics.” I remember him ranting about having to go on one with his brothers back when we were first together. Went on and on about it for hours.
“I only hated picnics because none of them were with you.”
Still as charming as ever. Silver-eyed and silver-tongued. A threat to any woman’s willpower. “And by a burbling brook, no less. For a man who is scared of fish, you certainly are pulling out all the stops.”
Although he grimaces at the water, he holds up a finger and says, “I am not scared of fish. They simply disgust me.”
What a liar. He’d told me he used to hate baths as a child because he was afraid a fish would get into the tub and “nibble his bits.” His words, not mine.
I kneel on the bank and dip my fingers into the cool water.
“What are you doing?” He drops down next to me at the same time a small goldfish darts from beneath a lily pad.
“I am catching a fish to prove my point.”
“Come now. You don’t want to get slime all over your fingers, do you?” He inches closer, peering into the stream. A little closer. A little closer…
I catch a handful of water and throw it in his face. The sound he makes is somewhere between a yelp and a squeal, although it’s difficult to hear him over my own laughter. The righteous indignation on his face as he swipes a hand to clear the drops clinging to his chin only makes me laugh harder.
“Not scared of fish, my arse,” I manage between gasps. Stars, my sides are starting to hurt.
His teeth gleam when his lips curve into a mischievous grin. “You will pay for that.”
“Save your idle threats, sire,” I tease. Drying my hands on my skirts, I push to my feet and start for that picnic basket.
Senan leaps in front of me and snags the basket, clutching the thing protectively against his chest. “Ah, ah. No food for you. I do not dine with monsters.” Still holding the basket, he sits cross-legged on the blanket.
“But I’m hungry.” I ease down next to him, giving my most pleading look. The food in the canteen tasted like chalk. I want what he brought.
“You should’ve thought of that before you covered me in fish urine.”
“It’s clean water.”
Senan arches a dark brow. “So you’re telling me they defecate elsewhere?”
He does have a point. Not that I will ever admit it. I clasp my hands beneath my chin, prepared to beg for one of the plump strawberries in the bowl he withdraws from the basket. “Please, Senan.”
A bowl of grapes still on the vine, a wheel of orange cheese, and crusty bread follows. “First, you must apologize for acting like a heathen. And then you must tell me how fearless I am.”
“I am dreadfully sorry. And you are so fearless—and so strong as well. You could fight a hundred goldfish and come out the victor.”
“That is much better.” His lips twitch as he pours two glasses of wine and hands the first to me. “It’s a good thing you apologized. I would’ve hated to keep you from having some of this.” He withdraws a silver tray with what looks like?—
“Is that cheesecake?”
“Still your favorite, I hope?”
“It is.” First the moonflowers and now this? “I can’t believe you remember.”
His head tilts, sending a lock of onyx hair falling across his furrowed brow. “I remember everything about you, Allette.”
And I remember everything about him as well.
The problem is, the people we were back then are not the same people we are today.
This Senan is shrouded in four years of mystery.
And me?
He doesn’t know the woman I’ve become. I’m not sure I want him to. It would be better for us both if he forgot me entirely.
So instead of asking what else he remembers as my heart yearns for me to do, I switch to a safer topic. “Thank you for letting Jeston go.”
His soft smile slips into something sad, and he looks away, toward the feast he brought. “I had no right to attack your friend.” He takes a deep drink from his glass, glancing up at me for a split second before plucking a grape free to roll between his fingers. “Do you think the two of you will keep in touch when you leave?”
I set down the wine in favor of a plump strawberry. Ripe, juicy, and oh so sweet. “Why would I leave?”
He blinks at me. “Despite your monstrous behavior with the stream, you are a member of the Scathian nobility. You don’t belong in the caverns, cleaning up after others.”
That was before. Back when I was whole. Now, I don’t know where I belong. All I know is that I need to be able to take care of myself because, in the end, there is only one person I can rely on. And unfortunately, it isn’t the prince sitting across from me. “Maybe I like my job.”
“Do you?”
No, but that isn’t the point. “I like the people I work with. And it’s nice having a purpose.”
“Did you not have a purpose before?”
Oh, I had a purpose, all right. One I loathed with the fire of a thousand suns. “You mean to marry and become some rich man’s wife? I’d rather scrub toilets than tie myself to someone I do not love.” If there is one positive outcome to the disaster that is my life, it’s that I will be able to choose my own path.
The muscles in his jaw flex and pulse. “You already have a husband.”
“You and I both know those vows we exchanged aren’t legally binding.” No one would believe that a prince of the realm would marry the orphaned daughter of a lowly lord.
“They’re binding to me.”
My mind immediately jumps to Darcy. “And yet you’ve been with other women.”
He looks away, his jaw still working beneath his stubble. “I was faithful to my vows for the first year. When I found that body…” He scrubs a hand down his face. “If I’d known you still drew breath, I never would’ve sought the company of other women.”
Given the circumstances, it’s unfair of me to hold him to his promises, but knowing he has been with others kills me all the same. That they’ve been lucky enough to hold him—to love him—while I was so far away.
He clears his throat. “Have you…um… Have you been with anyone else?”
I hate the truth, and yet I tell him all the same. “Yes.”
His breath hitches, and devastation paints his handsome face. It takes him a few moments to respond. When he does, his question is no more than a trembling whisper. “Did you love him?”
At least I can say with absolute certainty, “I have only ever loved you.”
Our love isn’t the kind you read about in sonnets. Our love doesn’t bring light and happiness. It brings pain and devastation. And yet I wouldn’t change it for the world because as tragic as it is, this love is ours.
He falls onto his back and presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. “We truly are cursed, aren’t we?”
I ease down beside him, resting my weight on my elbow, drinking in the way the golden sun plays on his form. “I don’t know what we are.” We are two lovers who share a haunted past and dreams of a future that will never come true.
His hands lower, and he rolls to face me.
That is the reality of us, and no amount of wishing will ever change it.
His fingers slip around my wrist, and he brings my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to my pulse. My heart beats a little faster.
Looking into his hypnotic eyes is like staring into liquid moonlight. A portal into his thoughts and desires. And from the way his gaze rakes down to my mouth, it’s clear his desires match my own.
“Cursed or not, we are two halves of the same whole,” he says. “Two souls made to dance among the stars. Two hearts that beat as one. We are mates.”
We may be all of those things, but the world insists that none of it matters. That the plans and whims of others will always win over our own.
His fingers lightly graze my cheek as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. The flower he placed there drifts to the blanket, wilted like the heart in my chest. “Did you kiss me last night, or was that a dream?”
It does feel like a dream. A beautiful, tragic dream. “I thought you were gone and didn’t know how else to bring you back.”
He flops onto his back and falls still.
A startled laugh bubbles up inside me. What is he doing? When I nudge his shoulder, he doesn’t budge. “Get up, you loon.” When I poke his ribs, nothing happens. I even threaten to throw fish on him, but Senan refuses to acknowledge me.
He has lost his mind.
I didn’t know how else to bring you back.
“Oh, dear. The prince is clearly unconscious. How will I ever revive him?” The smile on my face feels foreign as I lean down and let my lips whisper against his. His hands lock around my waist, lifting and tugging until my knees fall to either side of his hips, mirroring our position from the night before.
“Much better,” he murmurs, sliding his hands up my spine, tangling in my messy hair, keeping me in place until his breath becomes my breath.
“Senan,” I whisper. A warning. A plea.
He adds the slightest pressure to the back of my neck, urging me down until our foreheads brush. “Before you protest, hear me out. I don’t want you to remember me like that—for our last kiss to be tainted. I want your memories of me to be fond. To replace all the bad with good. To make you smile for as long as I’m able.” His thumb presses against my mouth, dragging down, toying with my lower lip. “Say you’ll let me.”