Chapter 65
Chapter Sixty-Five
Emmeline
Emmeline had been perched on the edge of devastation watching Roremar stand there, a man visibly breaking beneath the weight of what this Fatesforsaken realm was doing to them. But when his lips crashed against hers, taking without remorse, devastation ignited into euphoria.
She gasped as they met, a whimper slipping up her throat that said finally.
The door slammed closed behind Roremar, and a part of her feared it would shatter this moment, but the solitude only pulled the air tighter around them.
It made every panting breath audible, gave every tangle of his fingers in her hair the magnitude of crashing thunder.
Stitched her to him as he bowed her back and kissed her deeper, his tongue stroking hers.
Spirits, she couldn’t get enough of his taste, his body, the strength and surety with which he grasped her. A balance of delicate reverence and commanding need that weakened Emmeline’s knees.
She sank against him—into this kiss she’d been desperate for—boots scuffing over rubble as Roremar walked her backward. Relentless and commanding.
I’m tired of pretending you’re not mine.
Fates, she was, too. She was tired of giving this city every broken part of her and taking nothing for herself. She’d been growing more reckless with him for days, and this was her final straw.
“Roremar,” Emmeline gasped as his lips traced her jaw. He backed her against a pillar, the cold marble making her arch, pressing her closer to him. His length pressed against her stomach, and heat gathered in her core, needing him.
She couldn’t get enough. She was frenzied and aching. Magic hummed in her veins, cracking along her bones. Roremar nipped at her neck like he’d consume her.
“Oh, Fates,” she breathed, pulling his lips back to hers.
Roremar groaned into the kiss, hoisting her legs around his waist to get her closer. It was a kiss that turned her entire world inside out. It shattered stars, sent oceans crashing over moons.
It was the kiss they should have had so many weeks ago—the one she continued to run from because now…now Emmeline knew no matter what the Fates, Angel, or any greedy warrior said, she’d always belong to Roremar, and he to her.
There’d be no saving either of them if this was the ruin that waited.
Roremar kissed her with such demand, ownership. A belonging she’d searched for her entire life. She gripped his shoulders, tangled her arms around his neck, frantic and desperate to get closer, to breathe in that feeling and swallow it down.
Emmeline rolled her hips, gasping when he hit her clit.
“Fuck, Huntress,” he groaned.
Her head tipped back as he kissed down her throat, gripping her ass to grind her against him.
The air around them crackled with need, their desire a physical thing rippling along the marble—
No. Not just desire, she realized as she blinked dazed eyes. The rubble of the seeing chamber—the dust from whatever had torn this place apart—it trembled in the air, swirling storms glittering like stardust itself, sparking against her magic.
And overhead, through the stained-glass skylights, the stars flashed brighter in response.
To them.
Emmeline’s breaths came faster as she watched, afraid to say what it meant and unable to focus on anything except how Roremar’s body fit perfectly between her legs. She needed all of him, no more rules or barriers.
No more lying.
No more denying.
Before he’d turned up here, she’d stood in this seeing chamber remembering the last one they’d destroyed. The first kiss they’d shared. Her patience that had been slowly dwindling all week was poised to snap. All it needed was this final push from him.
The thread in her chest that beat for him thundered at the vow, glowing with the silvers of the stars. The silvers of his eyes when he looked at her, how dark they’d been when he’d shown up here—
“Wait,” Emmeline gasped, that thought of his pain sobering her.
“What?” Roremar breathed against her chest, teeth tracing the low neckline of her dress, hands gripping her and pulling her down against him.
Emmeline took a deep breath, trying to clear the lust from her mind as she remembered Roremar’s anger when he’d opened the door. Something wasn’t right.
“Roremar,” she panted, cupping his cheek and turning his gaze to hers. The seeing chamber still swirled, her magic vibrating, begging to combust. The entire room was feeding it. Giving into them, like they controlled it as much as they did all twelve Fates.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyes racing with so many emotions, she couldn’t catch them all. Even though she was pressed between him and the pillar, legs around his waist, his hands explored every inch of her body, like he’d been unleashed and needed to feel.
“You tell me, Reckless,” she said, thumb brushing his cheek. All the gentle touches she’d been so unfamiliar with before she met him felt so good, so right. “What happened before you came here?”
Roremar swallowed. “I spoke to my uncle.”
The words shocked her, but Roremar didn’t set her down.
“About?”
“About everything he knew. About my Fate tie and the ring my father gave me.” His gaze dropped to her chest, where the band rested between her breasts, her dress shifted enough to reveal the dark chain.
Roremar dragged one finger over it, and she shivered.
“About how I didn’t kill my father, but Falliare did. ”
Silence ricocheted through Emmeline’s ears.
Falliare did.
Falliare killed Deacon Silventa, and he allowed Roremar to think himself guilty all these years. No, not allowed. Framed him. Put that guilt on him and isolated him through the secret, then used it to control him. His own Fatesdamned nephew.
Emmeline knew there was no true love between them, but this? This was worse than she could have ever imagined.
Her limbs went slack as the words reverberated through her, but Roremar held her tighter.
“He. Did. What?” Her words were clipped and harsh, the stars above flaring with each.
Roremar shook his head, dark waves flopping in his eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about it now. I can’t.
” The dark fire he’d entered this room with swirled in his silver eyes again, a power that could incinerate the realm, the hues darkening as he tipped his head back to look at her.
“I’m so tired of all this star-fucked madness we’ve been tricked into and forced to obey.
Why should they get to control us like this? ”
“They shouldn’t,” she agreed.
Roremar swallowed. “That’s why I’m done with it.
I’m tired of you pulling away to save me from some untimely fate that could have been avoided if things had happened differently ten years ago.
I’m tired of there being a realm between us because of the games power-hungry men like Falliare and Rocarri want to play.
” He placed one hand at the base of her throat, thumb stroking her pulse point.
Her heart fluttered, her hips squirming as she felt it all the way to her core.
Roremar leaned closer. “And I am so fucking tired of acting like this tournament dictates a Fatesdamned thing about your future when you and I both know the Fates decided long ago that you’re mine. ”
The tether in her chest hummed feverishly.
Roremar said, “It’s not a matter of the Chancellor or his threats. You know it. You. Are. Mine.”
He couldn’t mean—no. She’d been so sure his disdain for the Fates would stop him from putting together the pieces she had long ago.
Back when he showed up for her as she cowered on the floor of her dormitory.
Back in an apartment above a tattoo parlor.
Back during that first kiss atop a ruined seeing chamber.
But it had only been denial. Roremar wasn’t just observant, he was made to collect her pieces. They fit into the ruined cavern of his heart the same way they did hers.
And there wasn’t a realm in which he hadn’t figured out what she had.
“That’s why I came here to find you.” He kissed her jaw softly. Her neck. The remnants of the seeing chamber spun faster with each. “I needed to be where I belong.”
There was that word again. Belong.
Warmth spread out from her chest, seeping along her limbs. It wasn’t lust this time. It was a security she’d never known. A comfort she’d been pushing away. One that was inevitable. It was a home, here in Roremar’s arms, a life drowning in silver irises and promises on the stars.
Her chest ached like a raw wound had been pressed in so many beautiful and terrifying ways.
“Why are you crying?” Hand still around her throat, Roremar kissed a tear from her cheek that she hadn’t realized had fallen. And it was that balance of intense passion and delicate tenderness that broke her.
“Because I’m so tired of pretending I don’t love you. And I’m so scared of what it will do.”
Roremar stilled. “You love me.”
Emmeline’s teeth sank into her bottom lip, her breath trembling. “I love you, Roremar.”
His lips slammed to hers, hand tightening around her throat with a soft pressure that had her gasping, her core clenching.
“Say it again,” Roremar panted against her lips.
“I love you,” she cried, rocking into him, needing all of him. The entire room buzzed, every inch of her skin sparking with magic like it was reacting to what lay between them.
“I don’t trust the Fates, Emmeline. Not for a starsdamned minute. But they gave me you, and for that, I believe in them, even if they’ve made me suffer so severely to reach you.”
It’s so rare.
I’m so scared of what it will do.
With us, it is so dangerous.
He huffed a laugh, brushing his mouth against hers. From right there, words against her lips, he whispered, “You wish I didn’t know.”
“Know what?” Her voice wavered over the whisper. The magic pulsing around them held its breath.
I’m so scared of what it will do.
I love you.
Roremar hoisted Emmeline higher so she had a perfect, unimpeded view of his starry silver eyes as he gazed up at her and declared, “That we’re Fatesworn, Huntress.”
She couldn’t look away from his decadent lips as that lethal word slipped between them, and she swore the realms poised to shatter.
Then, repairing and ruining everything within her in two simple syllables, the seeing chamber erupted.