Chapter 50
Chapter
Fifty
Iblink up at him, confused.
“What are you talking about? Since when? Surely not the night I arrived in the Otherworld.”
“No.” He shakes his head, his lips softly curving. “No, little queen, I’ve known you a bit longer than that. Well, known you might be a bit of a stretch. I knew what I wanted you to be.”
He nudges me backward, encouraging me to sit on a shimmering rock before kneeling at my feet and taking my hand.
“It’s all Desmond’s fault, really. Why I fell …
” He swallows. Restarts. “After last year’s Hunting Season in the Otherworld, when his candidate failed, yet again, to survive the presentation ceremony, he was furious.
Said we needed to try something different with the ring this year.
He remembered something your grandmother mentioned when she was the candidate, something about your king selecting a Favourite each Season.
Desmond asked me to find out if it was true.
I couldn’t come over in my true form, as you know.
But there was a clever solution in the shape of a tiny creature who can easily walk between worlds. ”
A vanguard moth flutters over his head.
“I used the diamrhán to make connections with them. Penetrating their simple minds is far easier than forming the connection with a human or another faerie. No blood is required, and I’m able to influence them, guide them where to fly.
The first time I visited the woods behind Stillwater Hall in the mind of a moth was about a year ago.
Seven for you. I still remember the first time I saw you, as clear as if it were yesterday. ”
He closes his eyes. “You were leaned against a log, sketchbook propped on your knees, drawing yellow irises growing along a stream bed. You looked carefree. Content. And so devastatingly beautiful that I thought I must have been dreaming.”
I know which day that was. It was shortly after Granny had sent me down to Stillwater for my first Season to placate Aunt Teddy.
I was nervous, but excited. Of course, I didn’t make Favourite that year—not that I expected to—but I was hopeful about making a match someday.
I remember feeling so light about my future, about everything.
Lachlan reopens his eyes and continues, “Up until that moment, I hadn’t wanted anything for myself in a long time.
I’d been in Desmond’s service for nearly eight years, content in my ascetic existence as I helped him build his life.
But the moment I laid eyes upon you, I started to wonder—what would it be like to build my own life?
To be in control of my choices again? Maybe I’d decide to spend an afternoon watching a lovely young woman—my woman—sketch in the woods.
A simple peace where neither of us had another soul to answer to except each other. ”
I nearly snort. He has no idea how mired I was in the restrictive rules of Bretonnic society at the time. How much worse they were going to get for me. But I do not want to sully his lovely dream with an ugly dose of reality.
“To me, you represented freedom. A treasure I’d once possessed but had carelessly tossed aside for power and prestige.
After that day, I … Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
Every time I returned via a new vanguard moth, I’d wait for you in the woods before I went on my intelligence gathering expeditions for Desmond.
You didn’t show up every time, but when you did, I’d watch you from the branches. Pretty sure you drew me a few times.”
He chuckles, and I return a watery little laugh. He’s right, of course.
“After a few months on my end, several years on yours, I came to the woods one morning and you were … you were with a man. You looked radiantly happy, and I was so jealous I could barely breathe. It was for the best though, I thought at the time. You’d reminded me how much joy there could be in simply wanting something.
Even something you’ll never possess. I mean, what exactly had I been planning to do?
Lure you to the Otherworld? Seek a way into the human realm in my real form so I could lightly stalk you until either your man or the time compression killed me? ”
He laughs at himself, hanging his head and placing a warm hand on my thigh, his touch grounding.
I need it now more than ever. “When you showed up in the royal tomb in Tír na Strelle claiming to be the Favourite … You know this part of the story already. I told myself you were never meant to be mine anyway. That I’d already given you up once, and I could do it again.
I promised myself I would help you, befriend you, but wouldn’t cross any lines.
I broke all my own rules, of course. And once we became lovers, I thought perhaps the gods had given me another gift after all.
Even if it was only for a short period of time.
I was infatuated with the woman I’d seen drawing in the woods, but the reality of you …
Gods, Charlotte, it’s been excruciating.
I’ve lied to myself so many times over these past months.
Swore that I wasn’t falling for you, that my heart was safe.
That I’d be able to let you go when the time came, and now—”
“The time has come.” I can barely choke out the words, my voice breaking on every syllable.
He offers me a rueful smile. “I wasn’t going to tell you.
It was a burden I thought to bear alone.
But I want … No, I need you to know that no matter what happens during the Wild Hunt, that there’s at least one man in the Otherworld who chose you for you.
Before any of this. One who has no chance at power or a crown by claiming you. ”
He cups my face, strokes his thumb along my cheekbone. “I love you. Deeply. Irrevocably. Pitifully. I swear I tried to stop.”
They’re the words I’ve longed to hear my entire life. From the only man I’ve ever truly wanted to hear them.
And it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
Tears drip from my chin, and I place my hand over his heart. It drums madly beneath his warm skin as I whisper, “I love you, too. What the hell are we going to do?”
He sputters out a ragged laugh, then looks away. “You will be queen, and I will … deal with it.”
When his gaze returns, it’s so raw and desperate that all I want to do is fling myself into his lap, kiss him a thousand times, and tell him I’d choose him always. Forever. In either world.
“What do you want, Charlotte?”
I sit up straighter. It’s a question no one save Granny Maggie has ever asked me.
What do I want?
I have no good options, not a single one where no one gets hurt.
Let’s say Lachlan and I stay here in the human realm.
I let the ring fall off and forget all about him and my time in the Otherworld.
How long would it take him to convince me what we are to each other?
There is a very real risk that he would literally die trying.
Not to mention, where does that leave the celestial kingdom?
“I … I want to do the right thing. I will make Desmond king.”
“And after?” He squeezes my hand, clinging. “I could stay in his service. He’d be ecstatic. We wouldn’t … We don’t have to end. It could be our secret.”
I bite my lip, sending my cloudy vision skyward. It’s so tempting.
But I remember what Garred said. About Lachlan giving too much and never asking for anything in return.
“I cannot”—my chest is fracturing, my heart spilling through the cracks; I swallow—“cannot do that to you. I won’t.”
“I don’t want anyone else.” He pushes in closer, kneeling between my spread legs, gripping my hand and clutching my face like he’ll die if he lets go.
“You think you’d be doing me a favor by setting me loose, but I tell you, it will kill me.
I’d rather suffer seeing you in his arms in public, knowing you were mine behind closed doors, than lose you completely. ”
It’s the same arrangement George offered me. Which is why I know, deep in Lachlan’s and my mirrored souls, that it would chip away at him until nothing but misery and emptiness remained.
“You are the best man I’ve ever known.” I curl my fingers around his palm, lower his hand from my face. “You deserve to be loved out loud, Lachlan.”
He tilts his head, lips parting to expose the tips of his fangs, and more than anything he looks confused. Like he’s taking me apart in his mind. Reconfiguring me. He knows I’m right. But it is unbearable to watch him dismantle his dream of us in real time.
He rubs a palm over his mouth, then stands and holds it out to me. “I understand.”
“As soon as we return—” My voice splinters. I just need to get through this request without breaking. “As soon as we return, I’d like you to dissolve the diamrhán. Please.”
He bows stiffly. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”
Chivalrous to the end. Chivalrous to a fault.
I want to crumble into a million pieces. Let the moths scatter me across the soil.
The ring burns my flesh, the crossed arrows glowing bright. Sabre’s proposal.
Our time is officially over.
I grasp the hand of my friend, my knight, the love of my life in a kinder version of this faerie tale, and we’re whisked back to the Otherworld.
So that I may crown a king.