Chapter 58
Emrys
The curse went so still I hoped it had expired. Though I might as well, considering the divine sight before me.
Through my eyes, the beast watched as she stood in the moonlight, her uncovered skin shimmering like liquid silver everywhere it touched her.
I’d imagined this countless times, in vivid detail, but seeing her bare still left me breathless.
She was perfection. Like a statue made by a grandmaster come to life.
The part of me worn down by fear and guilt still didn’t know what to do with the trust she was showing.
My fingers tightened around the bar of soap until it warped.
The river murmured beside us, urging me to move, but I stood rooted, drinking in every detail.
If I could memorize the moment, I could keep it from slipping away, have it with me forever.
The curse whispered its demands—claim, bind, keep—but beneath that was something softer, a pull that was all my own. She was here, whole, and looking at me like I was worth walking into the cold water for. Like I was a man, not the monster I carried.
That look was the most dangerous thing of all. That look had undone kings before they’d even stepped onto the battlefield. It held hope. It held the kind of belief you could build a life around. Nothing could destroy me faster than seeing that belief fade from her eyes.
“Emrys?“ she asked, her voice wavering slightly, betraying the confidence she’d just shown. She began to cover her breasts with her arms.
My fault.
I couldn’t bear to see this queen of a woman question herself. To keep her waiting a moment longer was a crime.
In three strides, I was by her side again—close enough to feel the heat radiating off her bare skin but still too afraid to touch. A single silent gasp escaped her at how quickly I’d moved. I was a trembling mess, barely holding myself together.
“Isca…” My heart was beating faster than any war drum. “There’s never been a moment I haven’t wanted you. I simply…” I laughed, a ragged, nervous sound. “Cannot believe that a creature as low as me is able to look upon you.”
A look of grim determination settled across her face. The faint tremor of her fingertips told me she was holding herself still for my sake. “Not this again… I’m not perfect, Emrys.”
I wanted to reach out, to pull her to me, to feel every inch of her soft skin, but that was dangerous. “Isca, if I touch you now, stopping will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
It came out as a warning, but it was a prayer for all the things I lacked and all the things I wanted. How could I do anything less than worship her?
For a heartbeat, the only sound was the river.
Then she stepped forward, closing the last inch between us. Her bare breasts pressed into my chainmail-covered chest in a silent answer that devastated me.
I stopped breathing as I battled the monster for control. It wanted to pin her down right there on that rocky bank and take her until she was covered, filled with my scent.
But I wanted so much more. Isca had become my reason for living beyond surviving for the sake of my kingdom. My own hunger was quieter, deeper. I wanted her laughter safe in Tir Darreth. I wanted to walk through the castle corridors and smell lavender on the air.
I wanted to deserve her.
Her hands moved up and down my back in a caress. That small movement pushed life back into me. I fought to breathe, acutely aware of each gasp, hoping she wouldn’t see my struggle. I still hadn’t dared wrap my arms around her bare back. It was too tempting.
“First we have to get you washed,” she said, still scalding me through my chainmail. “Then it’s my turn to touch you.”
I had never been more certain in my life—and my lung had been pierced by a sword—that I would perish the moment she touched me in the way she was suggesting. I started to shake my head, but Isca was having none of it.
“You’ve already denied me that pleasure twice,” she argued, her voice soft but firm. “Will you make this a third?” Now she was teasing.
It was a miracle I remained upright as my entire being threatened to fall apart. I couldn’t put her in danger. If I failed to keep my magic in check… It wasn’t worth the risk…
But as I looked down again, she was peering up at me through long eyelashes. One eyebrow raised in clear challenge. If she could be so bold, maybe I’d retreated too deep into the shadows of my fear.
And as I met her eyes, I knew, as I truly always had, that I couldn’t deny her anything.
I didn’t even try to conceal my groan as I turned my face to the heavens, begging for restraint.
I wanted nothing more than to drop to my knees and take one pert pink bud into my mouth then the other, and trail kisses all the way down until I heard her moan.
I was daydreaming when her next words almost broke me. “Your bath, my touching. Yes?”
Vivid images of what could be danced across my thoughts.
Cursed gods. I would explode.
The plan to save her from it was solidifying in my mind with each passing moment. When I inevitably lost control, I would jump through the mists of magic to get far enough away from her before being completely consumed by my own fire.
In the present, all I could manage was a nod. Some of the rocks lining the banks were sharp and shifting, difficult to see in the dark. So I scooped her up and carried her into the water.
The water was cold around us, but her body burned with magic to defy it. When we were hip deep, I gently lowered her feet into the lazy current.
Weighed down by my armor, I started to unbuckle my pauldrons.
“No.” Her voice was quiet but firm.
She cupped water in her palm and let it spill over the metal, washing away some of the grit still stuck to it. Her gaze never left mine. The cold shocked me through the layers, but her closeness heated me more than any spell.
“It’s my turn,” she murmured. “Please let me. I can’t see you properly like this.”
I could’ve argued that I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of undressing her, but I wisely held my tongue. Warm, deft fingers unlaced the leather strips holding both pauldrons in place. I whisked each piece aside, metal catching the moonlight as they landed on the riverbank, awaiting later cleaning.
Leather slid away and chainmail whispered in afterthought.
Piece by piece, she stripped me down to my bloodstained undertunic and trousers.
As she reached for the hem of my tunic, the sudden contact of her skin on my bare flesh sent a shiver through me.
I hissed in a breath through clenched teeth, praying for patience.
I ducked, allowing her to pull it off over my head. It joined my armor on the riverbank.
One small hand traced the puffy pink scar on my side as she washed my skin.
“This is new,” she breathed, the sound barely disturbing the quiet murmur of the river.
I stifled a growl deep in my throat. “I was sloppy.”
“How is it already healed?”
Explaining just how much the curse had changed about me didn’t take long. The confession brought a sense of lightness, as if a dark secret had been set free.
Isca responded with the surprise I’d expected, but something else too. “So you did break your ribs when you were sparring with Owain!”
A grimace tugged at the edges of my lips. “I apologize for lying to you. I didn’t want you to worry.”
Another quietly exasperated sigh escaped her, now as familiar to me as my own breath. It was all I needed to hear to know that she truly understood.
And then Isca was there, pressing first her bare skin against my armor of scars then her lips.
She traced the largest with her fingers and mouth, as if willing even more healing into them through her tender touch.
I’d been hard for some time, but with each touch I became more and more lost in the sensation of her soft body against mine.
Isca reached up with both hands, tugging lightly on my neck. “Kiss me.”
Another command I was only too happy to obey.
I was under her spell—in body, mind, and inner darkness. The curse dragged itself along the bars of its cage, hoping, begging for more contact.
We stood there, mouths tangled up in each other for some time, soap forgotten, until she abruptly pulled away.
“Emrys,” she said, voice filled with humor, “are you…purring?”
I hung my head, shutting my eyes with such force that a throb echoed behind my eyelids. “Yes. Sor—”
“No, no. I…like it. I know the curse will always be there, Emrys. I’ve already accepted it. Even with it, you’re still you.”
All these months I’d been worried about how the curse would affect me when I was around Isca. All this time I’d feared that I would hurt her, or that she’d see the dark truth of the monster I was.
I’d already slaughtered a regiment of men for her. Yet in that moment, I would’ve burned the entire world just to make her happy—though she’d never want that. She’d just handed me the greatest gift I could possibly receive: her trust and acceptance.
And didn’t she deserve the same from me? I’d promised her while she slept that I’d become the man she needed me to be. I’d stumbled in rescuing her, but I hadn’t stopped trying. I never would.
Again and again, she’d proven how reasonable she was. So who was I to decide for her what she wanted?
And for the first time, I thought that what she said might actually be true. If she still saw Emrys when she looked at me, after everything I’d done, maybe I was still him underneath it all.
Before I could aim, the words flew from my mouth like an arrow, piercing the air. “I love you.”
And there was no way to take them back. We hadn’t even known each other for half a year yet, but I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it.
She put me out of misery quickly. “I love you too.”
I couldn’t give her the reaction those words deserved because her fingers skimmed down my torso, pausing at my waistband. I thought she might use them to draw me closer again, but instead, she started unlacing them.
My hand whipped out, grasping her wrist gently but firmly. “Are you certain this is what you want, cariad? I would’ve come for you in Tir Gelida even if you swore you would never speak to me again.”
Her heated gaze lifted from her work, locking on mine. I saw the answer there before she said the one word that unleashed the chains I’d placed around my heart.
“Yes.”
And then we were two bodies, exposed and vulnerable, with nothing to hide behind, nothing to separate us.
I gave her the soap, and she explored as she washed.
Isca started with the muscles of my lower back, massaging as she moved like she could smooth the violence out of me with her fingertips.
Each stroke was a quiet declaration that she wasn’t afraid.
She was so patient, even as my body simmered with pent-up tension.
The monster’s presence chased the path of her touches, as if its claws followed her every move from beneath my skin. Then her fingers traced the taut line of muscle descending from my hips, brushing my cock.
I groaned low, and it came out laced with a growl. The sound of man on the verge of dying—or living for the first time in a very long time.
Isca’s fingers trailed over the shaft then tightened ever so slightly around my head. Bliss wracked my body as I fought to control my shudder.
For the second time, the monster froze—but this time in reverence.
As if even it had learned that she was not to be taken, only received.
And just like that, its impatience dissipated.
And instead of leaping at the cage I’d placed around it, it reached out for Isca’s magic.
Her power and the dark thing inside me joined hands to beat a low thrum against my chest, as steady as a second heartbeat.
Before we’d fallen through the eroded section of the glacis, she’d suggested that we find a new way to feed my curse that didn’t involve killing or destruction.
All this time I’d been pushing her away, running from the effect she had on me, on it.
I was too blind to see that it had been seeking her affection, her and her magic’s companionship, the whole time.
As her hand worked up and down, still exploring, the beast still didn’t stir. It waited with a quiet intensity that matched my own.
How had I, more monster than man, ever gotten so lucky?
“Isca,” I breathed, entire body trembling with passion. “I want you with a desperation that borders on insanity, but I will not take you in a freezing river.”
Her arms reached up, and her hands clasped around my neck. “Then take me to bed, Emrys.”