Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
“Things are…complicated under the mountain right now.”
Leo took a deep breath, as if he were steeling himself. “Complicated how?”
“My marriage has been…contested.”
Leo frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Tem barely understood it herself. “There’s going to be a…” She physically couldn’t bear to say the word tournament, settling instead on “…fight.”
Leo shifted. “Are you in danger?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Well. Not…immediate danger.”
“I’d rather you weren’t in any danger at all, Tem. Immediate or otherwise.”
She had to smile at that. “I’m not in danger. Caspen has to fight another basilisk for me.”
“Why?”
Tem sighed. “In order to explain it, you need to know that basilisks belong to quivers.”
“Quivers?”
“They’re sort of like clans or groups.”
Leo nodded, and she continued.
“Caspen and I are from different quivers.”
“I see.”
“And the basilisk contesting my marriage is from my quiver.”
“So your quiver…”
“The Senecas,” Tem offered.
“The Senecas…they don’t want you and Caspen to be married?”
“Yes.”
Leo looked down at his whiskey. “That’s ridiculous, Tem.”
That was certainly true. But it didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. “It’s complicated, Leo. Basilisks have all sorts of rules—”
“Who gives a fuck about their rules? You can’t just marry some other basilisk.”
“I can if he wins the fight.”
The look on Leo’s face was one of pure horror. And Tem couldn’t blame him. When she spelled out this situation like this, it sounded absolutely unhinged. But that was the basilisks for you. Nothing they did was even remotely normal.
“It’s not within my control, Leo,” she said quietly. “I can’t predict the outcome. Caspen is the one fighting for me.”
“Well,” Leo said through clenched teeth, “he’d better win.”
Tem raised an eyebrow. “Do you want him to?”
Leo ran a reckless hand through his hair. “It’s bad enough you’re with him, Tem. But it would be even worse if you were with someone else. At least I know he loves you.”
His words shocked her. They were extremely candid—almost accidentally so. She doubted he’d meant to reveal so much to her. But now that she’d heard it, she had to know: “Do…you love me?”
His jaw clenched. “If you have to ask that, you don’t know me at all.”
“I know you,” she whispered.
“Do you?”
Yes. She knew Leo. She knew him so well.
She knew that he could never stop loving her, just as she could never stop loving him.
She knew that it was torture for him to be standing this close to her, unable to touch her.
Just as it was torture for her. She knew that if they had their way, they would both be naked in his bed right now.
“Then tell me, Tem,” he looked straight at her. “Do I love you?”
Her answer came as easily as breathing. “You love me. You always will.”
Leo was hers. They belonged to each other.
He was standing too close. They were breathing the same air.
The predator in her screamed for release.
In another world, they would kiss. In another world, they would get in his bed and never leave it.
But in this one, they simply stared at each other, both of them bound by promises they had made to the people they loved.
The problem was they also loved each other.
“Is there no chance for us?” Leo whispered.
Tem couldn’t answer. She didn’t dare.
“Answer me, Tem.”
An order. One she couldn’t obey.
“You promised,” Leo whispered, his lips inches from hers. “Remember? You promised you wouldn’t lie to me.”
Tem closed her eyes because she couldn’t look at him anymore.
Of course she remembered. She remembered it like it was yesterday.
But she could no longer keep that promise.
If she told Leo the truth, that they had a chance—that they would always have a chance—it would destroy him. She couldn’t do that to him. Not again.
Tem opened her eyes. “Your future wife is waiting for you, Leo.”
Darkness passed over him. “And your husband is waiting for you. Although depending on this fight, I suppose he might not be your husband for long.”
Tem hated how right he was. “Caspen will win,” she whispered.
This time, Leo didn’t say he wanted him to. “It doesn’t matter, Tem. Just fix this so we can move forward.”
Tem pursed her lips. It wasn’t so simple, and Leo knew it. Things were delicate under the mountain. If one tinder flickered into flame, it could set the entire kingdom on fire.
“I’m trying to fix it,” she whispered. “You know I am.”
He shook his head. “Don’t try. Just do it.” Leo slammed his whiskey down on the desk. A moment later he was gone.
Caspen was asleep in their bed when Tem returned. Dirt was smeared on his neck, along with blood. He’d been hunting.
“Caspen,” she whispered. He didn’t stir. She felt for the corridor between their minds, but it was closed.
“Caspen,” she said again, louder this time.
His eyes opened slowly. “Tem,” he murmured.
“I’m sorry,” she said immediately.
Caspen rose an expectant brow. He sat up slowly, holding her gaze. “For?”
“For…”
There was so much to be sorry for. It wasn’t just the evening’s events that warranted an apology—it was everything that had happened since Tem got married to Leo. Everything had gone wrong, and she was running out of ideas on how to fix it.
“I’m sorry Evelyn called you a snake.” It was the least she could say.
Caspen lifted his chin. “She is the snake.”
Tem had no response for that. Evelyn was duplicitous and scheming and cruel. She moved quietly in the darkness, then lied when she was exposed. He was right; Evelyn was a snake.
There was a long pause, and Tem wondered whether she should also apologize for staying behind to talk to Leo. Before she could decide, Caspen said, “The Senecas will arrive tonight.”
Dread twisted Tem’s stomach. “For the tournament?”
“Yes. There will be a celebration, at the lake. The tournament will begin tomorrow.”
She nodded. A couple days. That’s how much longer they had to go without touching each other. She could survive that. Couldn’t she?
“Tem,” murmured Caspen. “What is on your mind?”
There was only one thing on her mind. “I miss you,” she whispered.
“I am right here.”
But that was barely true. Physically, he was right in front of her. But in reality, he may as well have been a thousand miles away. It was torture not to touch him—torture to see what she couldn’t have. It was the exact same feeling she had every Sunday night when she watched Leo with Evelyn.
“I need you, Caspen.”
His expression softened. He shifted closer, his body angled toward hers. “You have me, Tem. You will always have me.”
She stared into his golden eyes, trying to find the truth in them. Did she really have him? Would they survive the tournament—would her heart call to his? Tem had no idea what to expect from herself anymore. All she knew was that right here, right now, she missed him.
“Lie down,” Caspen said quietly. “We should rest.”
Tem lay down. But instead of resting, they talked—about everything and nothing, anything but their current circumstances.
Tem told him about her childhood, how the schoolchildren had teased her.
Caspen told her about his family and how difficult it was to grow up with Bastian as a father.
It was the first time they’d talked like this.
Their connection had always been physical.
But it was beautiful to connect with him this way as well, on an emotional level.
Tem wondered if they ever would have had such a conversation if their marriage hadn’t been contested and they hadn’t been able to touch.
She found it remarkable that the very thing pulling them apart now drew them together.
Tem drank Caspen in: his beautiful body, his dark hair, his sharp jaw.
She memorized every inch of him as if it were the last time she was ever going to see him.
Caspen did the same, his gaze lingering on every part of her.
When they were finally done talking, Tem touched herself, and he watched.
Then he touched himself too. When he came, he formed his essence into a claw and set it on her stomach.
This, at least, he could still give her.
Tem savored its weight. Then she inserted it slowly, her legs wide open so he could see it disappear into her inch by smooth inch.
Caspen watched every moment of it, his eyes completely black.
Eventually, they headed to the lake. By the time they arrived, the celebration had already begun.
The cavern was even bigger than Tem remembered it, the lake going on for what seemed like miles before disappearing into the horizon.
The sloping shore was already packed with basilisks, all of them naked.
Tem stared out over the chaos. She shook her head in wonder.
I’ll never get used to this.
Yes, you will. It is a part of you.
They walked to the edge of the lake together.
“Do you remember your first time here?” Caspen asked.
“Of course,” Tem said.
She remembered it well, how it felt to stand in the lake where Kora had bathed, to feel the same water she had felt. It was a wondrous thing, and Tem did not take it lightly. The same energy she’d felt the last time she was here pricked again within her now: something otherworldly. Divine.
Caspen turned to her. “I was so proud of you that day,” he murmured. “You were brave.”
“I didn’t even transition.”
“But you tried. That is what made you brave.”
It was typical of Caspen to praise her for accomplishing the bare minimum. But Tem found that she appreciated it, and for a moment, she allowed herself to be proud too. There was something to be said for simply trying. Many people were too afraid to even do that.
They looked out over the water together. The claw pulsed.
“How is it that we were able to transition here?” Tem asked. “Shouldn’t the reflection have killed me?”