Chapter Seventeen #2
I might have asked that of him. I really might; I’d gotten to a point in my life where I could be just that selfish when it came to the people I loved — and it wasn’t something I wanted to know about myself, either.
I said nothing, and Caelan’s sigh of resignation, the way he hung his head to stare at the ground beneath his feet – it was a spear to my heart.
“Do you remember,” he said, glancing up at me from beneath a furrowed brow, “when I told you that I’d wanted to take Brigid’s punishment? When she attacked that nobleman to protect herself?”
I nodded, throat too thick to speak.
“Well, that nobleman was, at the time, the Crowned Prince. His father, the man I pleaded with – that was the late King. And the punishment–”
He cut himself off with another sigh, and something flickered across his face – no.
Shimmered. I frowned; at first it was just Caelan’s face.
Handsome and bearded and – whole. No gap through his brow, no pinch at the corner of his lip.
He was entirely unscarred, as though it had healed between one blink and the next.
“The punishment was hers to bear. This reminder,” said Caelan, his scar shimmering back into place, “was mine.”
His eyes were green flame, simmering with decades of vicious rage. He lifted his chin high, steeling himself to go on.
“I couldn’t fail her again, Rosie. I couldn’t do that. So when she asked me to take her captor’s skin, I did. And when she asked me to stay, because she couldn’t bear to see his face when she looked in the mirror, I did that too. I stayed until she found someone to take my place.”
Take his place?
His eyes softened at my confusion, and the barest smile ghosted over his lips, his returned scar tugging as it always did.
“Word should reach Stormsby soon enough; the young King’s rule was tragically cut short. But not before he named an heir.”
“An heir,” I echoed faintly.
“An heir. A distant cousin, with values that align more closely with the new crown.” Another tug of his scar. “Doesn’t hurt that he’s rather smitten with Brigid, either.”
Caelan’s smile broadened, and the sight of it tugged at my Flame, letting it slip through my grasp just a touch. If he caught the sudden glow in my eyes, he didn’t comment, but he locked his gaze on mine and finally took another step toward me. This time, I didn’t move.
“And now you’re –”
Back.
“You’re here,” I said instead.
His face did not quite fall, but somehow I sensed the flicker of disappointment all the same. He paused, and the broad, beautiful smile faded to a smirk.
“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat, then tapped his chest. “Think I’ve got something that belongs to you.”
I felt my brow pitch, but he added quietly. “Your Flame, Rosie.”
“Oh, my – yes, of course, my Flame.”
Another surge through my grasp, and every ounce of fire I still held flooded into my face, my cheeks hot and blazing red.
Not his heart. Not after all this time.
I forced myself forward, stumbling into him with my determination and trying to play it off with a hand planted on his chest.
“I’ll just – I’ll call it back. And you can be on your way.”
I could feel his gaze on me from above, but I couldn’t meet it. If I had to watch the glow leave his eyes as I reeled my stubborn magic back in, I thought it might actually kill me.
“Alright,” was all he said.
I blinked fast, focusing on the hand splayed over his broad chest. Focusing on the warmth that was not just his, but my own.
The beat of his heart that I could feel in the rhythm of my Flame as it danced in my chest, so blissfully giddy to be reunited with him that it had not yet realised this was the end.
Its joy was too loud, too bright – I couldn’t call its attention, within my body or his.
Panic seeped into my veins and poisoned my already aching heart.
“I-I’m sorry,” I ground out. I ripped myself away from him, took several stumbling steps backward, staring at the ground.
A tear slipped free to roll down my cheek, and I hoped to the Dagda’s entire blessed pantheon that he did not see it – even if it was entirely obvious in my every shaking breath. “I can’t – it won’t come.”
His answer was far too soft.
“It’s alright, Rosie. Maybe it’s meant to be mine.”
Caelan loosed a long, shuddering sigh, and when I finally looked up, something in my face seemed to steel him. Vivid as his eyes were, it was strange to see the way they darkened in that moment. Stranger still how my heart seemed to somersault in response.
“Fuck ‘maybe’. It is meant to be mine. You’re meant to be mine, and I have been yours from the moment I saw you. I’ve been telling you that all along.”
He laughed, rough and with the barest hint of self-deprecation.
“Why am I pretending any differently now?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, just a little pathetically.
“Probably because I don’t want to look foolish,” he said, helpful as ever.
I couldn’t help my small watery laugh, and the sound seemed to buoy him. He smiled at me, so achingly gentle.
“I can make a fool of myself for you. If that’s what it takes. If that’s what you want from me.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“Then what do you want?” He took a tentative step closer; then a bold one. “Tell me.”
A flutter of warmth soared through me at that familiar command. So often whispered against my skin in the heat of passion; now a soul-baring plea. And gods, there were so many answers poised at the tip of my tongue, each of them pulsing fire from my heart until the air around me shimmered.
I want you to stay.
I want you to love me.
I want you for my family.
I want magic, and laughter, and stupid fights, and explosive sex.
I want to spend our lives together.
Only one answer said it at all in just three words. And I could say it. I could do this. It was easy, because he’d done the hard part, just as he always did. I could meet him halfway; he deserved that, and so much more.
“I love you.”
I was burning all over and Caelan looked at me as though I were the sun, parting the clouds just to grace him with golden warmth.
His brows lifted in the middle, eyes soft and reverent, a raw and honest response before he took two great strides and gathered me against him, flames and all.
Then, speaking so fiercely I knew it was as much statement as answer:
“I love you.”
And that was it. No grand speech, no further tears. Nothing more to say now that the duet between us was complete.
My soul sang to his, and in his kiss I found my answer. He answered me again and again.