41
Aspen
My stomach dove. I couldn’t have heard this man right.
The speech I’d been planning, drafting, and rehearsing dangled on my tongue with no place to go. Trapped by the adamant expression wringing across Aire’s face, I stood wedged between my confession and this knight’s declaration.
Aire, who didn’t have a corrupt bone in his body.
Aire, whose surly exterior had been sanded down over time, the layers smoothing out.
Aire, who kept his premonition from me, who was fallible after all, human like the rest of us imperfect souls.
Aire, who still hadn’t kept as many lies as I did.
Aire, my one exception, who I ached to know the truth.
Aire, who thumbed my cheeks, immobilizing me.
“I believed I could get past this,” he admitted.
“I believed I could not read you. I believed my duty stronger than my heart. I believed this was lust, then desire, then endearment. I believed it could be nothing more. I believed I would accept that.” His expression caved in on itself. “But I can’t.”
One of his palms left my face and gathered my fingers. “I can read you, yet not from some mystic power. Only now do I understand,” he rasped. “I can read you the way you read me, because it’s natural. It is a bond, a closeness I haven’t felt with anyone. It started when I returned home.”
His hand cradled me, while the other balled our digits to his chest. “That’s why I sensed your essence on the castle grounds, on the night you left with Nicu. It is not magic. It’s simply us.”
He stepped nearer, impossible to stop, to interrupt.
“My heart beats for you, my breath stalls when you smile, and my body kindles to life when you step into a room. You provoke me. You intimidate me. You inspire me. And yet, my feelings don’t matter.
Not as much as pleasing you, consoling you, supporting you. ”
His forehead dipped to my own. “You are the source of every dream and fear I have. No matter where I look, I picture your face. No matter the distraction, my thoughts return to you. I see a branch with a unique shape and think, ‘She would admire that.’ I train with my swords and wonder, ‘Would she move this way or differently? What can I do for her? How the fuck can I let her go?’”
Aire’s ragged exhale scuffed my lips. “I thought I could step away. I thought I could recover from kissing you, holding you, fucking you. I thought I could stop myself from wanting to give you more. But I cannot. I fucking can’t.
And so, I’ve lied to myself. For you have claimed me. Mind, body, and soul.”
Those twilit eyes pleaded with mine. “Please. End this for good. Order me to stand down.”
The plea shattered me. The final thread of resistance snapped. Beyond the sex, the rush of his mouth clamping onto my own, of his body pistoning inside me, watching him come undone on a violent shout, this was the reciprocated scene I wanted most.
A pledge. An oath that I could match.
Only the reality was harsher. Poor timing. Traitorous stakes. Painfully bittersweet.
There was a straightforward way to let him down.
A direct reply to ensure keeping his distance would be easier.
The confession I’d been about to drop, which would guarantee his disgust, replacing devotion with hatred.
It wouldn’t be gentle or benevolent. Instead, it would stab him through.
And if I cared for him at all, I would do as he bade.
My fingers wiggled, and Aire released them. His brow crimped as I traced their shape. Like this, I memorized that look before it vanished three minutes from now, when I finally said what I came here to say.
The hour closed in around us, lathering the sky in dark shades. The instant my fingers touched the margins of his lips, Aire clutched my hips and hoisted me against his chest. Then he went still, a mountain carved into the shape of man, with countless summits to fall from.
My mouth trembled, and his hooded eyes landed there. Despite our fucking—in the tree, on the swing, up in the watchtower—we had only kissed twice.
Once in The Pumpkin Wood. Then after Aire’s fingers made me come.
Our lips halted a forbidden breath away. My breasts dragged over his pecs, and the fabric of our clothes rustled. A haggard sigh tore from Aire’s throat, the sound traveling down to my bones.
We had started with a kiss. That was how I would end it.
As I twined my fingers into the ends of his hair and rolled my hips into him, Aire made another drastic noise, while something similar peeled from my tongue.
Seasons, the length of his cock brushed my clit. Mechanisms low in my belly lurched to life in seconds.
Keeping one hand on my hip, Aire caressed his knuckles over my profile. He stared in wonder until I nipped his digit, causing his pupils to swallow those irises whole, and goddammit, my head and heart were about to combust.
My chin angled, my lips diving to the underside of his chin.
His head fell back, facing the stars as I planted open-mouthed kisses along his skin, tasting the slope of his jaw, the column of his throat, the ravine between his collarbone.
I feasted on his throat, licking along the edge, plying him with shivers.
At the side of his neck, I drew in his flesh, sucking on the pulse point. On a groan, Aire’s hands soared to my scalp and craned my head, forcing us to make eye contact. I understood. This devastating sequence of events was happening out of order.
But neither of us stopped, because this precious moment wasn’t going to last. He had asked, and I would answer, and it wouldn’t be the reply either of us hoped for.
“You will hate me after this,” I warned.
“I could never hate you,” Aire vowed. “Even now, I accept that risk. If you’re about to break from me, I’ll take this last moment.”
Leaning forward, he placed a tender peck on the tip of my nose. And my heart dissolved.
Cradling my face, he tugged me into him and whispered, “I want to kiss you.”
Tell him no. Tell him no!
Refuse him. Reject him.
Seasons strike me, the pleading on his face. The downfall of my unforgivable soul.
“Then kiss me,” I coaxed.
Aire’s chest jolted as if someone had drilled a notch there. His desolate face trenched, and a fragmented noise carved from his lungs.
Yet he moved carefully, treating this moment like something fleeting. And then I knew. If he could sense my thoughts purely out of closeness, this man anticipated a tragic conclusion. He knew I had something destructive to share.
Even so, Aire swooped down. And our mouths grazed. Again, and again, and again. His lips skimmed mine, feathering over my skin, which pebbled down to my calves.
I kept my eyes trained on him, while his own eyelids fell shut. Humming, Aire slanted his jaw. Our lips parted and folded, then once more, twice more. Each gingerly pass grew longer, fueled hotter.
We paused, inching apart. Then we launched ourselves into it.
Our mouths flew at each other. Growling, Aire snared one ass cheek and anchored the back of my scalp with the other, his hands tangling in my roots. His lips crushed against my own, tilting and rocking.
Not fast. Not slow.
This knight’s kiss deepened at a sinuous pace. Soft but urgent. Hungry but steady. Delirious, we shoved our lips together, the heat of his tongue probing me open, licking into me with even strokes.
One long and slick pass urged a moan from my throat. I lapped him back until Aire hummed and widened the kiss, allowing me to take over, my own tongue flexing between his lips. A battered noise rumbled from his chest, vibrating into mine as our tongues entwined.
Wrapping his arms tighter, Aire gathered me to him. I used to mock these kinds of embraces, reminiscent of a fairytale painting or one of those sonnets about courtly love. But this man had a skill for turning every sentimental moment into something raw, beautiful, and genuine.
So the kiss erupted. We rushed into one another. Nostrils flaring, arms clasping, we seized each other’s lips. His tongue raked against mine, our mouths grabbing, tugging.
At another teasing flick of my tongue, the remnants of Aire’s composure split.
I grunted in encouragement as he spun us around, pressing me against a tree.
His palms clasped the back of my skull, and his own tongue took charge again, whipping between my lips.
His kiss hit a spot that had me raising a knee to flank his thigh, my cunt bucking into his pelvis.
The seam between my legs throbbed, my pussy swelling as it pressed into the bridge of Aire’s cock.
The knight hissed with pain, affection, and every emotion that mattered. Our tongues pumped, and our lips molded tightly, as if they’d been forged for one another. Just like the rest of us.
This kiss stitched something inside me, a small rip I hadn’t realized existed. A wound that had been left gaping, bleeding slowly until now.
Love was one thing. But a will to live, breathe, age, fight, and die with this man. That was another, greater kind of bond.
One we’d never have.
A tattered sound climbed up my throat. It got as far as my tongue, rippling against Aire’s as his mouth tore mine to bits.
I wrenched myself from his lips. Then I burst through the solid band of his arms, scrambling backward with such force the axe jostled at my side.
His glassy eyes cleared from the spell. Panting, Aire loomed like a disheveled god, ashy blond hair in shambles, complexion flushed, neckline sagging to reveal the plates of his chest, which heaved for oxygen.
By the same token, his dark pupils strayed over my mussed locks and rumpled clothes. My mouth felt swollen, and my flesh baked under the foliage motifs.
We had charged at each other good. Yet it had been the most precious, passionate kiss I’d ever known.
From here, it could be more. Gentler. Sweeter. We could snare one another again, peel off our clothes, and—
“I lied first,” I wheezed. “I’m a traitor.”
Aire frowned through his arousal, confusion giving way to fondness. “Aspen,” he murmured affectionately, “lying does not make you—”
“It does.” My shaky lips moved in quick succession, bulldozing through this moment before I could pace myself. “I’m a liar. I’m a traitor,” I repeated, then dragged my eyes to his. “I’m a spy.”
A mystified scoff burst from Aire’s lips, his expression nonplussed. He waited for the punchline, even though this soldier hated jokes and would never expect me to make a cheap jibe at a time like this. And because of that, his mystification died in seconds.
Silence pulled between us like rope, thick and coarse. Whatever he saw lingering on my face confirmed the rest.
Aire’s features slackened. He moved forward, but then halted. “What are you saying?”
His eyes leaped from one corner of my features to the other. He searched every crevice, ready to believe whatever I told him, expecting to forgive it.
Even now, this man trusted me.
The ground slanted under my boots. Seven years of deception stung my lips.
“The spy Nicu talked about,” I prompted. “It’s me.”
And now Aire’s features collapsed. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m working for Rhys.” A dilapidated noise threatened to crack from my throat, but this wasn’t about my guilt. This moment only had room for one person to feel hurt, and I wouldn’t take that from him. “I’ve been working for Rhys for a long time.”
And finally, I told him. It came out like an avalanche, rocks tumbling from their chinks, pulverizing their way to the bottom.
Reaper’s Fest, when my hatchet pinned Rhys to the pyre. The grudge he nursed afterward, as well as his interest in my skills, given my history with the Masters.
My mother. The king’s threat on her life.
Years of spying. Years of learning his methods. Years of becoming a double agent, trying to free myself from his clutches, to pry information from him, and to protect the clan. All while, feeding Rhys information sometimes, then misleading him other times.
Gripping my axe handle, I patched the story together. A tale of betrayal and treason. It recounted every moment up to the night of the explosion, when I witnessed Rhys at the camp, and how he’d cornered me later in the enclave.
The deeper I waded, the quieter Aire’s breathing became. I sensed him absorbing the vicious truth.
That I had shared none of this until now. That I kept him in the dark.
When I finished, my gaze landed on a set of blackened pupils. Rage locked his jaw, and those eyes skewered through me.
Aire whirled, his back a wall of stone. Bracing his fists on his hips, he bowed his head, every second without a reply mincing me to pieces.
And then he murmured, “Why?”
It was the smallest, most agonizing sound I’d ever heard.
I had explained my motivation. That wasn’t his question.
Why hadn’t I told the clan? Why hadn’t I told him ?
I moved toward Aire but froze when he tensed, detecting my approach. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t,” he snarled, whipping around to lash me with those cold, embittered pupils. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“If I had told you, that would have made you a target,” I implored. “It would have endangered anyone who knew. I refused to put you in harm’s way, to see you hurt.”
“Hurt!” Aire boomed, my defense ludicrous to him. “You dare to speak of concealing me from hurt! Confessing wouldn’t have harmed anyone! Your silence is what hurts me!”
“I was protecting you! And the clan!”
“You betrayed everyone who trusted you!” he roared, lashing one arm out to the side. “You betrayed Poet and Briar! You betrayed your queen! You betrayed Nicu! You betrayed—” he cut himself off, a defeated light piercing his eyes.
You betrayed me.
The accusation radiated from him. Not in fury. But in anguish.
Desolate, he stumbled backward while shaking his head. “Did you once regret misleading me? Was any of it real?”
It was. All of it.
His eyes glistened like coins. “Aspen,” he stressed in a hoarse timbre. “Was. It. Real?”
I stumbled his way. “Aire—”
He held up his hand, squashing my apology to a pulp. “Don’t say my name,” he ordered through his teeth. “Ever. Again.”
“Aire, please. It was real. Everywhere we’ve been, every second we spent together. All those times, I wanted to tell you. When we said goodbye, when you came home, when we set out for this place—”
“When you fucked me?” he asked with wounded malice.
“I wasn’t using you,” I cried. “Believe me—”
“Believe you,” the First Knight echoed in a hollow, humorless tone. “I don’t even fucking know you.”
Ever the trained knight, he steeled himself against whatever else I could say. Woodland shadows cut his face into sections, each one its own brutal shape.
I couldn’t reach him like this, as elusive as the sky. Something that had touched me briefly, swept me up in its arms, and then let me go.
Twisting, he stalked from the platform.