Chapter Seven #3
She cried as though the world were ending, and in a very real way, he knew it had, for her.
He could not bring her mother back, nor undo Edward’s betrayal, but he could do this.
Kai put everything he had into standing steady for her, holding her upright, absorbing the weight of each wracking sob.
He smoothed the loosened wisps of curls back from her face so they wouldn’t catch in her tears, and when his touch made her burrow closer, he continued to stroke her hair, whispering softly in her ear.
“I know. I know.”
There had been a moment, before they’d left Eisalaan, when Adeline had broken down just like this in Gerard’s arms. Kai had struggled with a fleeting, oily sort of feeling, the discomfort of it slipping painfully past his lungs and making his chest ache.
He had thought it was jealousy, at first—now it reared within him again, just as slippery and hard to grasp as before, and he recognised it at last for what it was: failure.
The painful knowledge that Adeline was fractured in a way he could not fix.
That she hurt in a way he could not soothe.
But he would try.
Adhlas as his witness, Kai would try for all he was worth.
He would stay with her all night if he had to.
And perhaps that was precisely what he did; time meant little to him as he stood there, holding her together as grief did its best to tear her apart.
At some point, he noticed that her shoulders had stilled, her breathing finally slowing, but the weight of her remained slumped against him.
She had, he knew, thoroughly exhausted herself—she was no longer crying, but she hadn’t bothered to pull away, and Kai allowed himself one shameful, selfish moment to bask in the way she fit against him.
To enjoy holding her just because she wanted to be held.
“I’m sorry,” Adeline breathed again, the words muffled where she’d pressed her face against his chest.
“No,” said Kai.
“No?”
She looked up at him, brows tugging together in confusion. Her eyes were still damp, lashes shimmering in the low light, and when Kai brushed his thumbs across her cheek to smooth away the tear tracks, he tried not to notice the way her lips parted around a shaky breath.
He shook his head, stilted.
“Don’t apologise, Adeline. Not to me. I want to be here for you, alright? I always will, even if we’re—”
Kai cut himself off. Now was not the moment.
But Adeline’s brows just rose further. Her hands were still flat against his back.
“If we’re …?” she pressed, and then, so softly he could almost believe he’d imagined it; “If we’re what, Kai?”
He cursed himself. This was not why he’d come out here; he would not make her do this, not right now. But she was gazing up at him so intently, the look in her eyes expectant and wary, and Kai imagined, somewhat … hopeful.
“I want to be here for you,” he said carefully, “no matter what has changed. No matter who we are to each other.”
Her expression sent a hairline crack down the centre of his chest, a bolt of pain racing in its wake. He could not guess what his own face did in response, but her hands released his back and circled to grab urgently at his shirt as though he might try to back away.
“Kai,” she said quickly, almost desperately. “We’re—”
“You don’t have to,” he cut in. He wished his voice were not so hoarse.
He wished it didn’t hurt to look at her.
He wished he could reel the last few seconds back and just hold his damned tongue like he’d meant to.
Yet, he couldn’t seem to do that, even now—the words simply surged up his throat, tight and low as though even his body strained to contain them; “Just tell me it’s not over. ”
Damn it all, he didn’t want to hear this, he didn’t—
“It’s not.”
It’s—
Kai blinked, certain he’d misheard until she said again, slower now, “It’s not over. I don’t want it to be over.”
Not over. He wanted to ask what that meant, but he was already so angry with himself for coaxing this much from her before she was ready. And, Mother damn him, already so intensely relieved that she’d given him anything at all.
“Kai,” she said softly, to his silence.
He swallowed hard and watched as her eyelashes bobbed, the warmth of her gaze tracing his throat. Her full bottom lip rolled between her teeth, and he hadn’t a hope of stringing a coherent thought together.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
It was more warning than request; unless she stopped him, he was going to kiss her.
He had to. It was a powerful, painful compulsion.
His voice had dropped far too low, and Adeline’s breath faltered at the sound, the soft swell of her chest stuttering against his own.
He could not say which of them had pressed closer.
“Then kiss me.”
Kai’s breath audibly shuddered out of him; it should have been embarrassing.
But he bowed his head, Adeline’s lashes fluttering as he drew near, and when their lips met, her slight, relieved sigh might have been his eternal undoing.
It was a relief to him, too; more than that first breath of air after centuries in the stale ice.
More than sinking into the warmth of the Laune, feeling the ancient waters rush past his gills and imbue his blood with magic.
To kiss Adeline was to breathe, and the Mother knew he’d been breathless.
Now he drowned all too willingly, in this kiss that was so slow yet so deliberate, both of them moving as though they held something fragile between them that might shatter with one wrong move.
Carefully, Kai spread his fingers at the base of her throat, felt the hum of her muffled sigh beneath his palm as his hand travelled up to cup her jaw.
He wanted to taste that sound, drink it down like the floral wine still on his tongue.
It would be just as sweet, he knew, and infinitely harder to resist. He tilted her head so he could part her lips, and she melted all at once, hands flat on his chest, then twisting in the thin fabric of his Dhaliaan tunic as though he was all that held her to the ground.
And when she pushed to her toes, bracing her hands on his shoulders as she slid her tongue past his bottom lip, Adhlas, he had little hope of anchoring either one of them.
His arm was a vice around her waist, and hauling her close, he turned them to the balcony’s edge until he had her framed against the balustrade between his arms.
Too far.
And yet, he had no desire to stop. Kai drew on every threadbare scrap of restraint in his possession.
All ten fingers wrapped around the railing on either side of her, hanging on for dear life so he wouldn’t do something he couldn’t take back, like trace the shape of her spine or let his hands wander for the backs of her thighs.
It did not help that she was tugging on that same fraying restraint.
Tearing it in the opposite direction every time she made that soft, mewling sound in the back of her throat, every time her back arched and sent her hips pressing into his, until there could be no hiding how badly he wanted her.
Her hands moved slowly down his chest, both of them, tentative at first and then firmer as they passed over his stomach and felt how he tensed and gasped beneath her touch.
Her fingers traced the length of his belt, lower, and he knew he should stop her, but he didn’t.
He caught her lip in his teeth instead, held it captive just so he could hear her whimper for him when the flat of her palm—
A throat cleared behind them, and Adeline tore away, eyes wide and panicked on his for a split second before she peered around him.
“Oh,” she said, her voice oddly strangled, whether from the crying, or the shock, or the slow unravelling of their kiss, Kai could not say.
He also could not turn—not until he was less obviously aroused, a fact Adeline must have picked up on, given the little space between their bodies.
She shot him a wild glance, and he knew it was entirely for his benefit when she aimed a frazzled smile at the doorway and said, “Oswalt. Hello.”
Mother end it all.
“Princess,” said Os behind him.
Kai hadn’t heard anyone step onto the balcony.
This.
This was why doors were important.
“Your Majesty,” said Oswalt.
Kai released his grip on the railing with difficulty, hands stiffened into claws from the considerable tension he’d pressed into them. He shook them out as he turned to Os, then folded them behind his back and nodded in what he hoped was a somewhat dignified manner.
“Os.”
“Apologies for the interruption.”
His cousin spoke flatly, and Kai knew from experience that Os was saying the thing he knew he should say. Whether he meant it was anyone’s guess. His face, as usual, was entirely and deliberately blank.
“That’s alright,” said Adeline. Though still notably breathless, her voice was considerably warmer than his cousin’s—and just a touch too bright. “I’ve been out here a long while. I should probably step inside. I’ll leave you to it.”
She paused for the space of a heartbeat, just long enough for Kai to meet her eye. That one look conveyed so much; too much. He couldn’t begin to decipher the way she looked at him in the split second before she hitched her bright smile back in place and excused herself with a nod to them both.
Os watched her go, then turned wordlessly back to face him. Kai shifted under the scrutiny, and little though he wanted to hear it, his cousin’s words floated forth from the recesses of his mind.
I’m nervous.
You walk chest-first through life, without a scrap of armour.
Kai had responded by insisting Adeline was not Avette, and she wasn’t—but which of them had been proven right, when it really came down to it?
Avette had broken his trust, and Adeline had broken—something.
Even if he didn’t, couldn’t, blame her for it, the fracture and the ache it left in his chest was unmistakable.