Chapter Thirty One
Daphne
The moon inches across the sky, shifting the shadows gathered around the chamber.
I stare at the ceiling, wide awake, sandwiched between the twins.
I was too wound up trying to figure out what the Blazes Nash is hiding to enjoy any naked time with my knights.
But they didn’t press me, just snuggled up against me to rest and keep me safe.
The door slides open, and Theo pokes his head through, beckoning me to join him.
I slip out of the bed, careful not to wake the others, and tiptoe over to him.
He takes my hand, pulling me out into the corridor and closing the door behind us with a soft click.
I glare at Gwyneth’s closed door and consider using my accidental stabbing habit to rid the realm of Charming and his bloodline. Ugh. Priorities.
“Where are we going?” I whisper. Since we’re being sneaky, I have to use my quiet voice.
He points at the wall I was staring at before the meal. The same one I swore Nash disappeared into.
“He’s been in there for about a turn. I have it on good authority that you can walk through the wall and find him in bed asleep.”
“Whose authority?” I wonder.
“Mine,” the All Knowing drawls. “Don’t come out until you’ve patched up this divide.”
I huff. It’s not me causing the damn divide.
All I can do is show him that I am his, and he is mine, no matter what.
That nothing could ruin our love, apart from another woman.
But I’m fairly confident that isn’t the issue.
If it is, I can always refer back to my stabbing solution.
I could perhaps angle it just right, so that it looks like Charming knifed her, and she in return mortally wounded him. Two problems solved. Perfect.
“Are you quite done murdering fictitious females?” Theo drawls.
“I think I scared her away with my threats of violence. Don’t come between a resurrected murderous maiden and her knights.”
“A motto the kingdom should cling to,” the All Knowing mutters.
“How do I—”
Theo pushes me. I squeeze my eyes shut, throw my hands up in front of my face, and suck in a breath, but nothing hits me.
I blink, finding myself standing inside a shady bedchamber, smaller than the one I just left.
An open window lets in a warm breeze, the drapes billowing around it like waves on the sea.
A four-poster bed with its blankets made up neat and tidy sits against the wall, but it’s missing a knight-shaped lump beneath the sheets.
There’s nowhere for him to hide, so where is he?
It seems remiss of the All Knowing and Theo to put me in a room without the object of my meddling.
I spin on my heel and press my hand against the wall, expecting…
Well, not this. Not hard, immovable stone.
I sigh in resignation. Maybe I’m in the wrong super-secret bedchamber?
I’m sure they’ll realize their mistake shortly, so I may as well make the most of it while I’m here.
I move toward the window. There are windows in the Living Library, but they move with scenes from stories, and I’m convinced if I opened one, it wouldn’t lead anywhere.
I gaze at the blanket of stars twinkling from above, the only light source from the half moon that appears to be bigger and slightly red.
“Wow,” I whisper. The hair on my nape prickles, and goosebumps erupt down my arms. It seems my dark knight is here after all.
“Why are you here, Daphne?” he growls in my ear as his fingers skim my arm.
“I’m rescuing you from whatever illusion you have in your head that you’re dangerous.”
“I am dangerous,” Nash points out.
I smile at the stars. “Not to me.”
“Most of all to you.”
I shake my head. “No, Nash. Never me.”
I turn, coming face to face with the eldest knight. His shadows are free, whipping in irritation around the room. His eyes are as black as the night sky, but whereas I can see a scattering of stars above us, within his eyes are constellations and wonders too vast to comprehend.
He tucks one of my curls behind my ear. “Go back to the twins, Daphne. Stay safe and warm in your bed.”
“Our bed,” I correct.
His lips curl, but he doesn’t even entertain the conversation.
I cup his chin and hold his gaze. “Ours includes yours. You don’t belong here. You belong with me.”
“I belong to you, not with you.”
“Stop playing word games with me, Nash Stirling. You’ve never been cruel, so don’t begin now. It doesn’t suit you, and I see it for what it is—a technique to push me away. It won’t work. I’ve seen your true heart.”
His eyes flutter closed, and he releases a breath. “You see what you want to see, which are only the best parts. I have many more parts.”
“We all have those parts. The key is how we use them.”
“I want to be alone.”
“Nope.”
“Daphne.”
I put my hand on his chest and push. His eyes flip open, and he scowls as I walk him backward.
“No, you don’t get to disappear whenever you think you might risk others.
Damn, if I did that, I would constantly be alone.
My every turn is a disaster waiting to happen. Do you see me running off and hiding?”
“It’s not the same.”
“No?”
“No. You don’t wake up knowing you are being driven by forces greater than us all to hurt the ones you love.”
I shake my head as he hits the bed and drops back in surprise. I climb onto his lap and put my hands on either side of his head. “It doesn’t matter how great those forces are, because you already answered them with the greatest weapon ever known.”
“Which is?”
“Love.”
I crush my lips to his, holding nothing back.
Not the way I feel when I’m in his arms or the loss I feel when I walk into a room and he’s not there.
I pour the heartache of watching him mourn me from the stars and the tightness I get from knowing he’s still hiding things from me even now.
I don’t demand those secrets, but when I sweep my tongue against his, I tell him I will always be here—through the fire, during the storm, and when he’s drowning and adrift. I am his anchor.
His hands tangle in my hair while arguing with everything I say without using words.
But I break each argument with the most powerful thing to exist. The one thing that binds us all, whether sisters, friends, or partners.
He can snarl and glare and beat his chest if he wishes, but I’m not going anywhere.
He flips us, and my body bounces on the bed. He jumps up and moves toward the wall I came through earlier. “Let me out,” he growls.
“Not going to happen,” I say as I stand and strip off my nightgown.
“What do you mean?”
“The All Knowing isn’t going to release you until I say.”
“Then tell him to.”
I shake my head. Nash eyes the window, but it slams shut with a kind of finality that makes him flinch. There’s no escape now.
Naked, I climb back onto the bed and kneel in the center with my arms outstretched.
“I can’t. I need Theo,” he growls.
“No, you don’t. You never did.”
“If I lose control—”
“Then you’ll be joining me, because I am already hopelessly gone for you.”
He paces around the edge of the bed, eyes never leaving mine. “That’s not the same, and you know it.”
“Actually, on account of you telling me very little, I know exactly that.”
I widen my knees and let my hands drift between the valley of my breasts. He glares at me and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. The shadows in the room inch closer, reluctant voyeurs excited by what’s to come. Both of us, hopefully.
“Come here,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “Let me free.”
“I’m doing exactly that by breaking these self-imposed ropes you bind yourself with.”
“I can’t.” The words are hoarse, desperate, a plea for understanding.
“That’s fine. You can stay over there. I can entertain myself.”
My eyes shutter as my hand slides between my thighs. I’m a little clumsy as I figure out what feels good, even though my knights make it seem so easy. I’m hot and wet, but I need him in whatever combination he wants. I just need him.
He’s so still, it’s almost as if he’s not there. But I can feel his gaze on me. I press a finger inside and blow out a breath. That feels good.
“Taste yourself,” he growls in my ear.
My eyes snap open to find him hovering in front of me, fully levitating. He’s a knight of many, many talents.
His hand wraps around my wrist, and he tugs until my fingers are at my mouth. Oh, taste myself. I do, with a small moan.
He pins me down and pushes inside me a split tempo later.
I cry out at the slight sting that turns into delicious heat within a few strokes.
He’s relentless in his single-minded determination to make me drown in pleasure as he pushes me higher.
By some miracle, I manage not to give in because he’s still holding back.
He flips us so I’m straddling him, his hands on my hips while he guides my movements, helping me find an angle that drives me crazy. “You’re so fucking beautiful. Let go, Daphne.”
“You first,” I breathe as I circle my hips.
“That’s not the order of things.”
“I changed the order,” I whisper as he pinches my nipple in warning. I return the favor, which makes his cock jerk inside me. Just the one right now. That’s okay; we’ll have many lifetimes to play with the many combinations on offer. “You need to feel me.”
“I’m feeling you just fine.”
I grab his hand and press it against my thundering heart. “Feel me here. Alive. Breathing. You don’t scare me, Nash Stirling, because you love me.”
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Feel me,” I urge.
His hand spreads over my chest, his eyes widening as my heart beats and his thumps in return. Two hearts, but no longer apart. Forever and always together.
“I feel you,” he says with awe. “I feel you, Daphne Stone, and it damn near terrifies me as much as it floors me.”
I lean down and give him the most soul-searching kiss I’ve ever known. We move as one, no longer chasing pleasure but languishing in the feeling of being as one. My back touches something hard, and I raise my head and glance around. Wait, that’s a strange view. “Um, Nash?”
“Yes?”
“I think we’re floating.”
“No, we aren’t,” he grumbles with a thrust that makes sparks ignite down my spine.
“No? So what do you call this?”
“Flying, Daphne. We’re flying. You wanted all of me, so you’ve got it. Even the bits that should scare you.”
I couldn’t care less where we are, so long as we are together. I’ve claimed my dark knight, and I proved to him something fundamental—he could never hurt me, not in this life or whatever might come in the next.
“I love you,” he murmurs. “I love you so much it hurts. I love you like I didn’t think was possible, and for some unfathomable reason, you love me too.”
“I do,” I agree.
“Two words to hold on to, because I think you’ll be needing them a lot.”
Wait, what? Was that another proposal? Did I miss it again?
He does something very naughty with my ass, and I can’t hold back anymore as I come around him.
Tempos, or maybe a turn or two later, I find myself buried beneath the comforter, my body curled around his. I sigh with contentment.
He holds me closer. “What am I going to do with you?”
“All the things, hopefully.”
He laughs, and all seems right in the realm. Well, for the night, anyway. I’m sure there will be a fresh wave of chaos waiting for us on the other side of that wall. But for now, I nestle in close and sigh.
Finally, we are all together in our hearts. Nothing is stronger than love. Not an army of Idols or a tomb of fate.
I’m rewriting destiny, and it includes me living happily ever after with my four knights. Gwyneth... needs an upgrade. But one problem at a time, and all that.
“Sleep,” Nash drawls. “I can hear you thinking.”
“Only if you dream of me and I dream of you.”
“Deal.”
I smile and give into sleep.
But it’s not knights I dream of. It’s war.