Chapter 9
Nine
Kaelan
Icouldn’t stay in that courtyard another second.
It was one thing for these people to judge me. But Hanna loved them, and they were judging her, and I despised it. There were too many people intent on deciding Hanna’s fate while she stood there, exhausted and shaking, the goddess’s shadow power still smoking off her skin.
“Come with me.” I took her hand.
She looked up at me, those ocean-blue eyes still distant. “Where?”
“Anywhere that isn’t here.” I glanced at the others. Honor watching with that careful queen’s expression, Jaik still gripping his weapon like he might need it, Branok and Lynx conferring in low voices. “You know this place. Where can we find privacy?”
Understanding flickered across her face. She tugged my hand, leading me away from the ruined courtyard.
We walked in silence through corridors still warm with the daytime heat though dusk had fallen, past servants rushing to secure the palace, past guards taking up positions at every entrance.
Hanna led me up a winding staircase, through a door that opened onto a narrow cliff path.
The ocean spread out before us, dark water meeting darker sky, waves crashing against rocks far below.
The wind was fierce up here, pulling at our clothes, carrying the salt-sharp scent of the sea, and Hanna’s long blond hair fluttered around us both.
Hanna dropped my hand as she turned to face me. “They want me to stay here. Are you going to leave me?”
Her words were blunt, but there was something vulnerable in her eyes.
“I’ve been calculating.” The words felt heavy.
“About me.”
“About you. About the goddess. About what happens next.”
She was quiet for a moment, her profile sharp against the starlight. “And what did you come up with?”
This was the moment. The blade I’d been turning over in my mind, trying to find a way to hold it that didn’t draw blood.
“There are two possible futures from here.” My voice came out rougher than I intended. “In the first one, you stay here. They conquer the Shadow Weaver. You’re safe. Protected.”
Contained. Controlled. I didn’t say the words ,but I felt them between us.
Hanna’s shoulders tensed, but she didn’t interrupt.
“In the second one, you come with me. Back to the Ice Kingdom. Into the war.” I forced myself to continue. “Your power could help us defeat his army. But at what cost?”
The wind pulled at my hair, and I wished it could pull away the truth as easily.
“I hate myself for seeing the second option so clearly,” I admitted. “For calculating how your shadow could help destroy my father. For knowing that if you came with me, we’d have a better chance of winning. For making your family right not to trust me.”
“Kaelan—”
“I don’t know which part of me to trust anymore.” The confession burst out of me, too raw, too honest. “The part that wants you safe? Or the part that knows you could end this war and save my people?”
Silence stretched between us. Below, waves crashed against the cliffs with rhythmic violence.
“You want me to stay here.” She sounded weary, resigned. Disappointed.
She thought she knew me. For some reason, the concern on Jaik’s face in that lab today rose to my mind. I hated him, most of the time.
And I saw myself in him.
“It doesn’t matter what I want, does it?” My voice was raw.
She stared up at me, her expression confused. I’d thrown her off balance for once.
“Whether you stay here or come with me is your decision, Hanna. I can’t choose for you. As much as I want to.”
“You can’t?” She sounded skeptical.
“Whatever I chose, I’d still be…the man I am at my worst.” The words tasted like ash. “Controlling. Commanding. Using the people I love like pieces on a board.”
“I’m your equal, Kaelan.” Her hand came up, hovering near my face but not quite touching. “You don’t have to be afraid of being the man you are at your worst, because I won’t let you be that man. Not with me.”
“I hate this.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid you might get hurt, and it will be because I trusted you instead of caging you.
I’ve never doubted my instincts,” I continued.
“Not about strategy, not about people, not about war. But with you, I second-guess everything. Is it love making me want to keep you safe? Or is it control disguised as protection? Is letting you fight beside me trusting you? Or is it using you? What if I bring you back with me and you die?”
“Kaelan.” Hanna’s hand finally made contact, her fingers cool against my jaw. “Look at me.”
I did. Those ocean-blue eyes were clear now, focused. The goddess’s influence had receded, leaving just Hanna. My Hanna.
“I want to fight.” There was no hesitation in her voice. “Not because you need me to. Not because the goddess makes me powerful. But because Edric tried to destroy both of us, and I want to be there when he falls.”
“The goddess will try to take control of you.”
“I know.”
“You could die.”
“So could you.” Her thumb brushed across my cheekbone. “So could Dare and Thorne. So could everyone I love. That doesn’t mean I hide while you fight for our future. For our kingdom.”
The last of my resistance crumbled.
My free hand came up, slowly enough that she could pull away if she wanted. When she didn’t, I curved it around her waist, feeling the way she fit against me. Not possession. Partnership.
“I want you with me,” I admitted.
“Then kiss me already, husband.”
Something in my chest released.
I kissed her.
My hand tightened on her waist, her fingers threaded into my hair, and everything else fell away. The war. The goddess. Honor’s concerns and my father’s cruelty and the impossible choices waiting for us.
When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Hanna’s eyes had gone dark, the iris nearly swallowed by dilated pupils.
“Tell me you mean it,” she said. “Tell me you’re not going to change your mind tomorrow when Honor argues with you. When Jaik makes good points about keeping me safe.”
I rested my forehead against hers, close enough to feel her breath on my lips. “I mean it. You’re coming home with me. We’re ending this together.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.” I pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. “But right now, I need you to come inside with me. Because if we stay out here any longer, I’m going to do things to you that would cause your brothers to cage us both.”
Her laugh was breathless and surprised. “Is that so?”
She kissed me again, brief and fierce. Her hand tangled in my hair, pulling my head down to whisper in my ear, “Why don’t you show me why we should be caged?”
I was kissing her, palming her ass, sliding my hand under her skirt, when she suddenly dropped to her knees.
“My turn,” she said, smiling up at me. She’d dragged my belt loose with her clever thieve’s fingers without me noticing, and now she drew me out of my trousers.
I raised my brows. “Are you trying to reward me for not being a dick?”
She laughed, the sound warming my chest, the way it always did. God, she really was the sunshine in my life. She was all I needed to warm the Ice Kingdom.
“Sometimes I just want to wrap my mouth around your cock,” she said lightly, mockingly, as she stroked her hand over my cock. “Is that so wrong?”
“No.” My voice came out thinner than I intended—quite telling—and she let out another one of those bubbly laughs.
Then she wrapped her mouth around me, so the last of that laugh vibrated around me, and I made a sound that I couldn’t hold back. She ran her tongue around my shaft, around the tip, before she pulled off so she could smile up at me.
“I love the way you look at me,” she murmured, knuckles ghosting my hip bones, and then the air was cold, and then her mouth was not.
It was never just her tongue or her lips or the cleverness of her teeth; it was the way she devoured me, eagerly, needily.
Before I ever met Hanna, there had been other girls, eager to please; Hanna seemed as if she just were pleased.
I rested my hand lightly on that bright hair, shining under the moonlight, and marveled at my luck to have this brilliant creature as my own.
She rode out my trembling with practiced patience. When I came, she stayed with me, one hand braced against my thigh so I couldn’t flinch away. The world contracted to the shape of her mouth.
After, she pressed her cheek to my stomach, arms looped around my waist. I heard her breathing through my shirt, steady and content. We stood like that until my knees steadied, and when she looked up, the reflected moon in her eyes was mine alone.
“Was that a thank you,” I said, voice rough, “or a challenge?”
“Yes,” she said, her hands sliding up my body as she rose to her feet again.
I gathered her in my arms and carried her to the nearest rock, claiming her clever mouth with my own, and set her down on the edge of it so we could continue.
She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and the crashing of the ocean, endless as it was, couldn’t have drowned out the power of her loving me.