Chapter 28 #2
His mouth retreated. He pulled back completely, half in the forest, his wary blue eyes stripped of all softness. I am darkness. I am the night. My pain shakes mountains and it will only hurt more when you leave again.
Everyone might have taken this for Declan at his strongest, but I saw his greatest fear. “I didn’t have my priorities straight. I’m sorry.”
It means nothing to me now.
My heart stuttered. The sheer enormity of how much I needed him hit me all at once. Who was going to nudge me into taking a break when work consumed me? Who would I ever trust to go through all those romance novels with me? Why hadn’t this hit before I left?
I failed you if I scared you enough to leave and I won’t be the wrong kind of mate for you.
My fear of opening up had really twisted up a man who would take on the problems of the world. I only added to that with my blindness. “I’m sorry about that, Dec. You didn’t have to go complete monster of the wood over me. I’m not worth it.”
You are worth my everything. Turning into this thing is better than holding you back, Honey. If it lets you be free, I can be alone.
“I am free with you, Dec. I’m so used to being afraid all the time I didn't understand how not to be. All my lists and planning just don’t cover this.”
You should go back to Evie. His growl shook the surrounding trees.
I wasn’t winning this with words. I gathered all of my magic and tried again.
Braised beef cheek, but the size of a Bakh Bull.
Slow-roasted in a moment, stewed with all the love I had a hard time saying.
The scent of grilled bread filled the clearing.
A paw hit my arm, but luckily it was a normal-sized one. I barely restrained an overeager Ned.
“He can’t have tomatoes, right?”
I sighed when Declan didn’t answer. More of him retreated into the mist and the forest. I gave Ned a whole loaf of bread instead and he happily laid down to pull it apart with his tiny front teeth before chomping on it.
The snuffling next to my meat was too loud to be Ned.
I let Declan drag a bit of it away and waited as the slurping sent waves of chills over me.
I was pretty used to all sorts of table manners, but what had to be an Ajak-Declan made me fear I had lost him forever.
More. He grumbled.
I pooled greater magic than I ever had before.
It was all or nothing to draw him back to me.
Even if I burned myself out. Ward wasn’t going to fix this.
Neither was Anise. As much as I loved them, Evie and Maggie weren’t here for me to hide behind.
My whole body heated with the effort of drawing more power.
“I will make you as much as you want, Declan. Because I love you.”
That spread a stillness over the clearing that made Ned twitch.
Declan edged more of himself out of the forest.
Do you?
I bit my lip to contain the pain from using my magic and that question.
Declan had every right to ask me that and every right to send me to the seven hells.
I might as well have been dead if I lost him.
Sweat slicked my palms as I made another cake, a bigger Locot.
My hands shook as I pulled more magic, more love into the cake.
I made him like this. I needed to fix it.
“Declan Thelonus Stormclaw. I love you more than cooking itself. You’re at the top of every one of my stupid lists because I’m ready to put you there.”
I held out the treat like it was an offering to a Godd, because maybe it was. The ground shook as he stepped closer. He looked down at his massive hands that could crush a dragon.
A bit of his old voice crept back in. I like your lists. It means I always know what you’re thinking about.
The creature above me shifted on its colossal paws, moving fully out of the forest. Muscle-bound arms came around the rock I was sitting on and a giant muzzle tipped up on the edge of the stone so I stared down at luminous blue eyes the size of the distant moon.
My hand met his wet nose and he inhaled a gust.
“I thought you were the darkness and the night?”
Half the cake left my hands while I ignored the blood I was going to think of as tomatoes still coating his teeth.
I am, but your bribe is working and you’re back at the moment. I feel better. Just so you know. I’m afraid too. Afraid I won’t be good enough for you, or that I will harm you without understanding why. But I'm mostly afraid that you have the power to break me completely.
“Why didn't you tell me we were mates when we first met?”
You didn't need a mate, only a friend, and that was part of what I loved about you. And..
He paused, but more life came back into his eyes as regret filled them.
We got so tangled up in me reclaiming the crown, in the Old Magic returning. I had to protect my people if you broke the bond completely.
That was understandable. I hadn’t exactly been an open book with my feelings but I knew without a doubt I needed to be.
Declan would always keep them safe. More than that, he would help me put my priorities in order.
Rest meant I would use my good days to my best advantage.
Opening my heart meant Declan would be mine, fully mine, in a way that I knew he could, but I never let him.
We were both jumping off an enormous cliff but we were doing it together.
I trusted him. I did. He would literally rather be a monster in the woods than control my life.
“I might not need a mate but I think I might want one. We can make this work, right? I'll find a way not to be a burden.”
The trees bent away from us as a growl came into his voice.
Stop!
The shift from him wrapped around the rock to wrapped around me was so sudden I almost threw up. He buried his human-sized face in my hair.
“You could never be a burden. Is Ned a burden?”
The weight of him spread bliss over my skin. Like home. I didn’t exactly comprehend how to be the mate he needed, but I was selfish. I couldn’t give this up.
“How dare you! Ned is everything.”
My hands shook as I stroked them through his hair. How did a few hours apart feel like a lifetime?
He sifted his hands through my curls in return. “He’s not out in the street or hunting the forest and the most he contributes are soulful looks. We take care of everyone in the pack, no matter how they contribute.”
“I can't be Ned. I need to do something with my life,” I said. Long stretches of idleness were beyond me.
“I get it. There is space somewhere in the middle. How about ruling Nightfell with me?”
“If you take ‘rule’ to mean ‘cook for an unruly pack of wolves’ then sure.” I shrugged, still uncomfortable, but I would try for him.
“They don’t expect us to be anything that we aren’t, Honey. We get to be King and Queen in our own way. If you need a break, you take one,” he said into my hair. “If you want to lounge in your wolf for a day, you can do that too.”
“I don’t know how to do that, but being able to pick apart scents with a better nose could be appealing.” Turning into the world’s most awkward wolf had to have benefits, right?
He drew back to look at me, his eyes filling with mischief. “You can practice with me. I’ll make you a list of what to do. No food in the forest will be safe from you.”
A laugh squeaked out of me because Declan said it with such genuine excitement that the idea pulled me in. Maybe retreating into a quieter mind on bad days wouldn’t be such a hardship. A fur coat fit this winter weather. My shiver shook us both.
“Thank you for choosing me.” His hugs were the best I’d ever had. “I’m so glad you came back.”
My face twitched. I was going to be terrible at this, but I would make the effort for him. “My life unfolded in such brilliance…” I mumbled, my strangled voice coming out flat. I cleared my throat and tried again, rushing through it. “My-life-unfolded-in-such-brilliance…”
Declan pulled back and put his thumbs under my chin to force me to look up at him.
I tried again. “The moment I met you I was blinded, stunned and perhaps…”
Tears formed in his sparkling eyes, the same that were rolling down my cheeks to his thumbs.
“That perhaps I forgot to tell you, you're my everything.”
His smooth tongue licked away my tears. I didn’t know who kissed whom first, but it hardly mattered. Our mouths came together to say: I’m sorry. Be with me.
“No more fear,” Declan said between pants.
“No more,” I assured him. “Except for–”
“Impossible woman,” he snarled and took my mouth again.
My everything melted into him, my body finally collapsing because I was safe. I would dedicate the rest of my life to making this man as happy as he made me.
“Only fun,” he said when he came up for air.
“And fucking. Just not today. That was more running than I’ve done in my entire life.”
“See? You’re already improving.”
“I'll greatly improve if you take me home. We can go home, right? The forest won’t die without you existing in it as a giant were-man-wolf?”
I could get used to being a Queen and putting my people first. I just needed to think about it like hosting a dinner party. Doing it right meant everyone had what they needed.
Declan ducked his head, his cheeks pink. “I don’t think anyone has gone Ajak for about two thousand years so I’m really not sure. We can come check on it tomorrow.”
My heart swelled because there would be plenty of tomorrows with Declan. I just had to get out of my own way.