Chapter Forty-Eight Irian #2
“Yes,” she whispered. “Irian, please.”
Her words broke him. Or perhaps remade him.
She rolled onto her stomach, lifted her hips once more to his.
He twined his fingers in her short tresses.
Kissed down her neck, kissed the length of her shivering, quivering spine.
Kissed over the curve of her perfect rear.
His need was an unflagging press against her tenderest spaces.
He was reduced to sensation. Or, perhaps, elevated beyond thought.
There was nothing but her earlobe in his mouth.
His chest between her shoulder blades. Her skin, molded to his.
His hard cock moving inside her. His palm over her stomach; the ecstatic glide of his hand between her thighs, moving in rhythm to his unfaltering thrusts.
He climbed toward the sublime, his movements turning relentless.
Stars burst behind his eyelids as his climax struck him like a blow to the chest—insistent, insatiable.
He bowed over Fia as if in prayer, clinging to the sanctity of this joining.
An apotheosis of all that they were to each other.
All they had been. All they might never be again.
And in the end, it was just him and her. Them. Gasping and pleasure racked as they lay in the easy circles of each other’s arms. Beyond their circle of light, the garden had run riot, resplendent in the night. Above, stars wheeled like the gateway to eternity.
At last, Fia turned to him. Irian pillowed his head upon one arm as he slid the other over her waist and tugged her close, until their faces were inches apart.
He glanced at her ring—it had begun to dim.
They did not have much time left. Something in his gaze betrayed him—Fia’s eyes shifted, her lingering pleasure melting away beneath something akin to dread.
“Irian, please.” The repetition of the earlier plea that had brought him such pleasure now brought him only pain—a reckless spill of rage and sorrow. Fia blinked, as if to quell tears. “What did I say about bitterness? I do not wish tonight to be a goodbye.”
His hand tightened, his fingertips digging divots into her waist. “Then you are indeed to be torn from me.”
She swallowed—he could not bear the trembling bob of her throat. She leaned forward until her forehead was pressed to his chest. His heartbeat thundered, too fast and too loud.
“No—do not tell me how. For then I will be forced to try to stop it. Only tell me how I am meant to bear it.”
“This is how.” Her lips inscribed the words upon his skin. When she drew back, her expression was composed. “On the Longest Night, I forced a promise from you. Tonight, in exchange for our wedding vows, I release you from it. Irian, my heart—it is time to let me go.”
Abruptly, the pressure in the air shifted, popping his ears.
Briefly, a great weight was lifted from Irian’s shoulders, and he felt impossibly free.
The livid scars of all the nights shielding himself against scales or claws smoothed away; the ragged bruises of holding Talah off as she writhed silver-eyed above him faded.
All that remained was the wonderful lightness of Fia’s nowness—her smooth softness in his arms, her sweet glow in the wake of their lovemaking, her threadbare strength in the face of looming tragedy. He savored it—he savored her.
And then he reached up and settled the familiar weight back down upon his shoulders.
He was strong enough to bear it.
“No.” Gently, he tilted her head back, forcing her eyes to his.
Fia had once called him a poet, but he suddenly found words the poorest weapon in his arsenal.
How did he express to her that no force in the universe could keep him from his oaths to her?
He would throttle the stars, destroy destiny, defeat death itself if it meant he could but hold her like this.
Forever. “Would you unbind me from every promise I have made you, mo chroí? For I have sworn to love you for all your sharp thorns and churning shadows. I have vowed to adore you through all the seasons of our lives. And I have pledged not to let you wander alone—I care not whether that means I walk beside you or carry you in my arms or yearn for you from a distance.”
Fia bit her lip, as if to hold in words she feared to speak. In the flickering lantern light, her mismatched eyes were glazed with unshed tears.
“No, Fia. I will never let you go.” Irian’s hands cupped the nape of her neck, the curve of her cheek.
“Rather, I will make you one more promise: Even if you must go where I cannot follow, I will find you. Even if I cannot see you, I will yearn for the sight of your face. Even if I cannot hear you, I will long for the sound of your voice. Even if I cannot remember you, I will still love you with every throb of my heart. And when at last we find our way back to each other—and we will, whether in this life or the next, in this form or another, as sifting ash or distant starlight—I will revel in the chance to relearn your name. Colleen.” He cupped the back of her head and kissed her, long and slow.
“Mo chroí.” He kissed her again, deeply. “Fia.”
The air shimmered with the force of his geas. His lips tasted of the salt of her tears. The darks of her pupils shone with the choices she would reckon, the sacrifices she would make, the lives she would save.
If it had been up to him, he would have let both worlds burn.
It was not.
Irian was not a good man. But he thought he finally understood what it meant to love a good woman.
Carefully, deliberately, he disentangled himself from his brave, beautiful wife. Her hair uncurled from his cheeks. Her arms unlooped from his chest. Her fingers unhinged from his.
Gently, Irian let Fia go.
The stone on her finger audibly cracked, falling free from its casing.
All her starshine came rushing back, heat and light flooding the space between them.
Irian fisted his hands, then forced himself to relax.
He rose to his feet, draping his mantle around his nakedness.
When Fia, too, moved to dress, he raised a forestalling hand.
“You should sleep,” he told her softly. “I will keep vigil.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes shone up at him like stars. “Nothing could ever make me forget tonight.”
“Come, mo chroí.” He summoned a smile. “You said we must not speak of goodbyes.”
He pulled on his boots and buckled his armor. By the time he was finished, Fia had fallen asleep nestled in her cloak, soothed by the violet scents of lavender and eglantine.
He crouched beside her, ghosting a hand above her rumpled hair and wishing he could savor her dreams. Did she dream of something sweet, as he so rarely did, like a cottage garden and the taste of blackberry wine? Or did she dream, as he so often did, of violence and death and regret?
He stood. The Sky-Sword murmured a little lullaby as he drew it from its scabbard—it knew as well as he that no blood would be spilled here tonight. Still, he held it before him as he stood watch, examining the glittering stars etched into its inky blackness.
As midnight turned toward dawn, Irian made a bargain with the night. He drew his thumb along the blade of his claíomh, then smeared silver along the bevel.
“Let her live.” The arcane metal swiftly drank his blood, leaving only darkness behind. “In return, I will endure any torments. Give me her pain so I may hurt; give me her death so I may die. I am strong enough to bear it. Only do not make me bear losing her again. Let her live.”
The breeze picked up his words and carried them toward the horizon. Over the land, down the cliffs, across the sea. Into the dark, and the brightness beyond. Carried them so far he dared hope someone heard them.
Dawn came hard and leaden as battle metal. Fia stirred awake to the distant sounds of war drums mingling with the bugling of carnyxes upon the lofting wind. She glanced up at him with a desperate, doleful question.
“I asked for a day. ” Irian smiled so he would not be tempted to weep. “One perfect day. And now it is done.”