Chapter Thirty-Nine #2
“But—and it doesn’t seem fair of me to ask this of you—I have to know if any of it was real.
I know you were faking it in the beginning.
And I know you changed your mind about killing me, and I’m so glad you’re helping us, but—godsdammit, this is selfish of me.
Is it just because you’ve realized that this is the right thing to do?
Or is there any part of you, however small, that truly feels something for me? That ever felt something for me?”
I’m shocked. He isn’t angry with me? He’s upset not because of what I kept from him, but because he isn’t sure if my feelings were real?
Can’t he feel me anymore? Doesn’t he know that I did this not just because it’s right, but because I love him?
I did it because I love him, and I want him to survive this.
I want that more than anything else. I should have seen the truth earlier, I should have turned on my family earlier, but I didn’t.
And the only reason I did in the end, regardless of what I’ve been telling myself, was because I love him.
And that makes me a coward, and it makes me selfish.
But about this one thing, I did not lie.
“Ronan, I know you believe all of these wonderful things about me, but the truth is, I didn’t do this just because it’s right.
I did it because I love you. I’m in love with you.
” Each word wrenches itself painfully from me.
An agonizing confession, and all because it came too late.
“I love you so much,” I say, my words barely a whisper.
“I thought you knew that. Couldn’t you feel it? ”
He freezes, his expression unreadable. He’s still for so long, I begin to worry about him. Then his eyebrows furrow, and he shakes his head, leaning forward and clutching it with his hands.
Fuck, I hurt him so badly. He looks up at me, and the war that plays out on his face is the worst one yet.
He wants to believe me, desperately, but he knows he shouldn’t.
And that damn near breaks my heart. “I could feel your guilt and your determination to make things right, but…you love me? It wasn’t just part of the plan? ”
“It wasn’t part of the plan at all. Getting close to you was.
But developing real feelings? If Adria knew, she would have killed me for that already.
” I’d thought it before, but saying it out loud now, I know it to be true.
My own sister would kill me for loving Ronan, even if I had never told him what we were planning.
He looks so fragile in front of me. I did this to him. I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought I was protecting my family, but this is what I did, and I hate it so much.
I need him. I need to touch him, need to hold him and to comfort him. I need to take this pain away from him, this pain I caused him.
I can’t stop myself from trying. Gently, cautiously, I reach for him. Painstakingly slowly, I take Ronan’s hands and pull them to me, holding them in my lap.
He inhales sharply but doesn’t fight me, doesn’t move.
I hold his hands there for a long moment, stroking his strong fingers, feeling his smooth skin.
There are no cuts here, none of the marks my mother’s people made, but there are callouses.
I can feel where he holds his sword from the layers of rough skin, and I hate more than anything that he’s going to have to raise it again on the battlefield.
He doesn’t deserve this.
“You love me?” he asks me again. There’s a bit of hope in his voice this time.
I lift one of his hands to my cheek and kiss his palm. It’s so warm and soft, so comforting. “I love you, Ronan. I don’t deserve you. I don’t blame you if you hate me. But I love you.”
I close my eyes.
He could do anything to me right now. He could kill me as easily as kiss me, and I’m not certain which he’ll do. I’m completely vulnerable, completely at his mercy.
I wait for him to react, holding my breath. Not daring to move.
And then, he strokes my cheek with his thumb. I let his hand go as he grazes his fingertips over my freckles, tapping them, counting them. Memorizing them.
And then, so suddenly it feels as though a dam has burst, I feel him again—the love and longing he’s been holding back from me. It pours out from him, white hot and as radiant as the sun. “I love you,” I whisper to him as I bathe in the glow of it. “I love you. I love you. I love you…”
“Sylvie.” He pulls me into his lap and kisses me as I repeat it over and over, the words becoming a chant, an oath.
The unspoken words have finally been spoken between us, the secrets and lies all revealed, my magic be damned.
I don’t care about the shadows, not when his light is here for me to claim as my own.
I claim it and him, taking charge, kissing him with the same passion he gives to me.
He lets me take what I want from him, lets me kiss his neck, lets me push myself against him, rocking my body against his until I feel his desire beneath me.
“I love you,” he whispers against my neck, nuzzling into me, wrapping his arms around my back, holding me tight to him.
“I need you,” I say because it’s true. “I need you right now.”
“Fuck,” he moans. “Can you keep quiet?”
“I don’t know.” As hot as it is to think of him taking me just on the other side of the door from everyone else, I don’t want to keep quiet. “I don’t think so.”
“Quinn’s gonna have my ass for this,” he says as he lifts me off of him and sets me down. He leads me back into the living room. “Everyone out. I’ll escort Sylvie to her quarters myself.”
Quinn gives Ronan the most scathing look I’ve ever seen as she does what he says. “When she kills you in your sleep, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. I can’t believe I serve a fucking moron.”
Everyone else leaves without question, but Queen Claudia winks at me as she goes.
I guess that’s where he got it from.
Ronan misses the moment, but I’ll have to tell him about it later. There are more pressing matters at hand.
The moment the door closes, Ronan picks me up, his hands digging into my hips as he shoves me against him, kissing me ferociously.
The last thread of his control snaps.
In all the times we’ve been together since the first, it’s never been like this.
It’s feral, animal, the need for each other almost violent.
Almost like we know it could be the last time, with a war on the horizon.
I cry out a “yes!” as he flings me against the living room wall, his magic healing me before I can feel any pain.
The paintings in their frames rattle around us as he kisses me within an inch of my life, his hands roaming savagely over my chest, my waist, my hips, tearing at the fabric there.
This is what I need. I don’t want gentle. I don’t want sweet. I need him to let go and give me the full force of his power, knowing that he would never, ever hurt me. Knowing that I’m safe with him, that he will keep me safe.
I take one of his wild hands and grab it, pulling it to my mouth and holding it over it.
“Fuck,” he says as he realizes what I’m doing. I want him to cover my mouth like Soren did in the alley.
He gives me what I want. He takes his starving kisses away from my covered mouth and moves them to my neck and then my breasts, ripping my shirt open with his other hand.
I moan against his hand as his lips lock around my nipple, sucking so hard it nearly hurts, and then he presses a bite into the sensitive flesh that makes me cry out.
He heals me again, the familiar light from his fingertips so welcome amidst all the new sensations.
It feels so good, the pain and then the pleasure.
It pulses in my core, soaking me as I grab him with my leg, hitching it around his and yanking him to me so hard he nearly hits his head on the wall behind me.
He grunts as I press against him. He lets go of my mouth and grabs my arms, pinning them over my head to the wall.
“Yes,” I say as he shoves a hand down my pants, the other one still holding my arms in place. He wrenches a kiss from my mouth as he pushes a finger inside my folds.
“You’re so fucking wet for me,” he moans. “You said you couldn’t be quiet. I want to hear you scream.”
“Please, Ronan,” I beg. “Fill me. Fill me, and I’ll scream for you.”
Ronan shudders at my words, and then he gives me what I asked for.
He plunges two of his fingers into me with no resistance, my body so wet and desperate for him that I open to him immediately.
He forces his fingers in and out of me wildly, the butt of his wrist against my clit, pressing hard.
I tighten my leg around him and grind into him, demanding he take me deeper and harder.
Heat floods my core as he works within me, stroking my walls rhythmically, building me towards my release. “I want you to come on my hand,” he says, his voice strained with desire. “I want you to come on my hand and my face and my tongue and my cock.”
Just the mention of his cock undoes me. My climax shakes my body as I yell out his name, my core tightening so much that I nearly force him from me, but he pushes against me and keeps working inside me until my shaking subsides.
I flop against the wall, barely able to stay upright, as he uses his legs and the hold he has on my arms to keep me in place.
“Not loud enough,” he says. “Tell me what you want. What will make you scream?”
I know he can feel it because it reverberates between us. “I need more. I need you inside me. Take me like this, then turn me against the wall and take me from behind.”
And fuck me, he does.
He lets go of my arms to undress himself.
I help him yank the tunic over his head, then I fumble with the laces of his breeches until he rips them off.
When I see his perfect cock fall out of his pants—rock hard, so red it’s purple, glistening with his arousal—I can’t stop myself from bending forward to take it into my mouth.