Chapter Thirty-Two
I didn’t wait for him to agree as I tugged him toward the exit, afraid I would lose my nerve. But as soon as we were in the corridor outside the ballroom, I paused, uncertain where I should take him. I’d spent more time at the Avalon than in the actual court, and this place was a veritable labyrinth.
“I might get us lost,” I warned him.
He laughed—not quite warmly, but it was a good sign. “Come on.”
My heart pounded as our footsteps echoed through the hall, and I wondered where he was taking me; if he’d had enough of waiting, too; if I would find myself in his bed. But he led us through the winding passages and down a set of spiraling stairs, into a conservatory crowded with towering plants and vines and riotous blooms. Its greenhouse walls were rounded, curving into a glass dome overhead. Moonlight glimmered through it, reflecting off the glass like a celestial crown and casting its sparkling light over the velvet petals and dappled flora surrounding us. The scent of damp soil and florid perfume hung in the warm air, so sultry that I felt sweat bead along my forehead.
Lach continued forward, through the plants, and led us out a set of doors at the far end. He released my hand as we stepped onto a stone balcony. Night wrapped around us, the sky overhead a sheet of inky black without a star in sight, making the sliver of moon at its center all the brighter. He walked to the railing and looked into the endless dark stretching before us.
I moved next to him, curling my fingers over the stone balustrade as he had done. He stared into the darkness with haunted eyes. This was more than brooding. His mind was somewhere else, even though he was right in front of me.
“I’m sorry that I overstepped with Channing.”
Surprise turned my head, and I studied him. The ethereal light caught the sharp angles and soft curves of his face, leaching the color from his skin. He looked like a masterpiece carved from the night, a man as constant and ever-changing as the moon itself. My mouth went dry as I considered how much more of him there was to discover, but I forced myself to swallow. “I let Channing down.”
“By being involved with me.” I knew he didn’t mean the bargain but rather the undeniable attraction we’d been fighting since the beginning.
“By not keeping my word,” I corrected him. “Channing and I promised to stay away from your family, but that promise was based on fear and gossip and hate.” I brushed my pinky along his. It twitched, but his hand didn’t move to take mine.
“And actions,” he gritted out. “You made a promise based on my reputation.”
“I didn’t know you.”
He cast a glance at me. “And you do now?”
Yes, but I wanted to know more. I wanted to hear the stories that shadowed his face. I wanted to memorize his body at night and wake up to his thoughts. I didn’t want stolen nights. I wanted every day.
I braced myself and nodded. “I think I know why you helped Channing.”
“I wanted to make something easier for you,” he said after a moment.
Something fluttered in my stomach. “I don’t need things to be easy.”
He finally laughed, even if it sounded mildly irritated. He peered across his shoulder, eyes softening. “I know that, princess. I know you don’t need things to be that way, but I want that for you. I want something to be easy. I know it never has been.” He swiveled slowly as though afraid he might spook me. A shaft of moonlight caught his hair, but his face fell into shadow. “I want to take care of you. I know you don’t need that,” he added, preempting my usual arguments. “But someone should take care of you. You take care of everyone else.”
Lach and I weren’t so different after all. We gave everything—every ounce of ourselves—for the people we cared about. The realization curled through my body, warm and real and unexpected but not unwanted.
He cared about me. It wasn’t just a bargain. It wasn’t just a trick. And, in that moment, I realized that at some point I’d started caring about him, too. I drew a trembling breath.
I brushed another finger along his, something electric bolting through my skin. His eyes flashed to mine, his chest rising slightly. But still, he didn’t take my hand.
“Why don’t you like handfasting?” I asked.
“That’s a long story.” He tilted his head—an offer to tell that story. I’d spent the last few weeks wanting him, craving him, but resisting. Next to him, I couldn’t remember why I’d fought those feelings. And when that resistance had vanished, so had the desperate, frantic urgency I’d felt after the Midnight Feast. I didn’t have to steal as much of him as I could before he demanded the same of me. Not that the craving had dissipated. It was still there. The moment he touched me, it would return, as forceful and undeniable as ever. But I no longer wanted pieces of him. I wanted all of him.
The night had cooled, and I shivered slightly. Lach frowned and waved a hand. Instantly, the air around us warmed, as though he’d placed us within our own private, perfect bubble.
“Thank you,” I murmured softly. He blinked, relief flashing across his face, as if he’d half expected me to argue to freeze to death.
“I’m really hard to put up with, aren’t I?” I asked with a laugh.
“No.” He answered too quickly.
“That’s a yes.” I took a deep breath and offered a confession of my own, hoping it would encourage the same. “It’s hard for me to depend on people.”
“Yeah, I get that.” His smile was careful, like perhaps he also sensed we were on the brink of change. “I tend to decide what other people need on their behalf.”
“You don’t say?” I teased lightly, playfully. Not to pick a fight, but rather to reassure him.
“My parents made me promise to never handfast without meaning it.”
My breath caught at the sudden shift in conversation.
He continued, “They believed in the old meaning of it.” He paused as if realizing I didn’t know about the custom.
“I asked Roark about it. He mentioned it was a mating thing.”
He nodded, looking relieved that I already knew. “They were handfasted.”
“Were they…mates?” I recalled what Roark had said about that magic being dead.
“I think so.” Lach’s eyes clouded. “There was no mark, no proof that magic had sealed them as mates. Sometimes I could swear I remember seeing one, but maybe I’m only imagining it. Maybe I just want it to be true.” His brittle smile broke something inside me. “People say that it doesn’t happen anymore, that mating bonds are dead, but a glamour could hide it. Sometimes I think they hid their mating bond but that I did see it.”
I frowned. “Why?” Everyone in that ballroom had seemed overly enthusiastic about the handfasting, save for the people being joined together. “Why would they keep it a secret?”
“I suppose it’s only necessary if you have something to hide, and my parents always had secrets. But I think for them, it was about keeping some small piece of their love to themselves. My father was the heir of the Nether Court and my mother the heir of the Terra Court until they were married. She abdicated her throne.”
“Terra Court?” I searched my brain, trying to remember this. The Nether Court, the Astral Court, the Infernal Court, the Hallow Court. Those were the ones I’d been told about, the ones in attendance tonight. Four courts in total. No one had ever mentioned a fifth.
“It’s gone now. Destroyed in the war.” He fell silent again, ghosts moving in his eyes, and I resisted the urge to ask more questions.
I had time to get my answers. Every night for the rest of my life.
Because standing with him in the moonlight, I knew that I would never break the bargain—even if I had the answer to his riddle.
I didn’t care what Lach wanted as long as it was me.
“Sometimes the war feels like yesterday,” he said after a moment.
I stared at him as what he was saying sank in. Despite the warming magic surrounding us, I clutched my arms tightly around my waist as I processed this. “You fought in the Second World War?”
His eyes lifted, set with grim determination. “Wouldn’t you?”
I knew I didn’t need to answer.
“My parents had moved their court to America long before it started, but when it did… The Terra Court was an earth court—the only one—and it was right in the middle of the fighting.” I reached for his hand as he stared into the night. “We were all at the front, except Shaw. He was a kid. But even though my mother had abdicated, she couldn’t stand by and do nothing, so my parents went to help.”
“Good,” I muttered.
A genuine smile ghosted across his face. “She would have liked you. They summoned Fiona home to stay with Shaw. I was stationed in France. I’d taken a bullet during a skirmish with German forces.”
Another layer peeled back as I realized the scar on his shoulder was a brand not of iniquity but of bravery.
“I was recuperating at what doctors believed was a miraculous rate when the telegram arrived that Warsaw had fallen, along with every member of the Terra Court’s royal bloodline and my father. I was called home to the Nether Court immediately, the throne passing to me in an instant. I never returned to the war.”
“But you’re of the Terra Court’s royal bloodline.”
“That’s complicated.” He grimaced, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “When I arrived at court, there was a letter from my father, cautioning me to be careful if something happened to them, and…” Lach hesitated as if the memory was too painful to bear. I knew there was more to this story. He would share in time, and until then, I wouldn’t push him for details. “The others wasted no time. Aurora wasn’t there. She lost her parents at Terra, too.”
Sirius had told me as much, but I merely nodded.
“No one had been happy about two heirs marrying each other. I guess they thought my parents might try to restore the titles of High King and High Queen and rule over every court. I’d barely read my dad’s letter when Bain and Oberon showed up and demanded I choose a throne—the Nether Court or the Terra Court—and renounce the other bloodline.”
Another impossible choice. No wonder he hated them.
“The Terra Court was in ruins. Everyone was dead. So, I took the Nether Court throne, and I decided I would rule by keeping emotions out of it. I would make the decision that was right for those under my protection.” He raked a hand through his hair and released a heavy sigh. “And I’ve been fucking up that policy ever since. Fiona left because she had too much Terran in her. She never felt comfortable in the shadows. But Ciara and Shaw stuck around, which I’ve never understood.”
Lach drank in the night air. “I’ve tried to keep them out of things, mostly because it’s easier to make emotionless decisions when you don’t care. But since I met you, since you begged for your brother’s life, I’ve had to face the truth.”
I raised my brows. “And what is that?”
“You fought for him, and I understood that. I felt the same—something I’d ignored for so long.” He dragged a slow breath into his lungs. “I told myself that I listened to your plea because of the Equinox or because my mother would have wanted me to. None of that was it. I listened because you fucking cared, and gods, I’d forgotten what that looked like, what it felt like.”
“But it’s not why you made the bargain?” I guessed.
The corner of his mouth lifted, but he sounded hollow when he spoke. “Looking for the key to your freedom, princess?”
“No.” I meant it.
“I made the bargain because I liked you and because you had something I needed.” His eyes darted to mine. “And within fifteen minutes of knowing you, I thought I’d made a terrible mistake.”
Laughter burst out of me. “The feeling was mutual.” Our relationship had started based on trickery, but that didn’t have to continue. It couldn’t if this was going anywhere. So I made a confession of my own. “I spent all week thinking about you. I’ve never let a man get close to me. I mean, I’ve had sex,” I added quickly, biting back a smile when he growled a little. “I kept telling myself that was all this was between us, and when Channing showed up today and called me out, I panicked. Because if it was just something physical, I wouldn’t have cared. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m new to this.”
Whatever this was.
He held my gaze. “I’ve been dealing with a similar problem since the day we met.”
I arched a brow, my heart pounding too hard for me to dare speak.
“I like you more than I planned,” he confided.
I braced my hands on the railing to keep my legs from giving out. “That feeling is mutual, too.”
“Cate, there’s a reason I keep a distance from people. It’s safer for them. Not everyone believes I won’t go after the Terra Court, even all these years later.” His eyes skirted to the darkness, looking past it to that faraway place where he had lost some piece of himself. “I can’t. I shouldn’t. We shouldn’t. I’m sorry that I made that bargain, that I dragged you into this for my own selfish reasons.”
“I don’t want you to stay away from me.”
He turned to me, something unreadable on his face. Tattoos flashed across his neck, his jaw, as if his thoughts were racing as rapidly as my heart. His throat slid, something desperate and hungry etched in his eyes. We were on very dangerous ground now. One wrong step and…
“You have no idea what you’re saying,” he murmured.
But I did. I took a step closer to him, and another, until there was no more distance between us. He sucked in a ragged breath, those green eyes searching mine for permission to cross that final line. Not just from me but from himself.
“How many times do I have to tell you I can take care of myself?” My hand fisted in his shirt. If he wouldn’t cross the line, I would. “Now take me to bed.”