56. Chapter 56 #3
I shook my head as he came to stand before me.
“It wasn’t for you to decide that for me.
I know you want to protect me.” My eyes lifted until he could read the veracity in them.
“Protecting me from myself and from you do seem to be very different challenges.” Reminding him of his words before, I forced the levity into my voice, because it was either that or anger.
Shattered glass reflected in Kaed’s eyes. “I know that. Maybe understanding how I’m meant to protect you is the real challenge.” The corner of his lip pulled up before he let it drop again. “I just didn’t know what to say. If there even was anything to say.”
The mess of emotions inside me were warring for dominance.
Anger, rage over what I felt was mine to know.
Gratitude for the fact that if I’d never met Kaed my life would have been worlds different.
And I knew in my heart, if I’d never met him it wouldn’t have been what I needed.
Even if I didn’t understand the thread of why I needed to be near Kaed, I knew I wasn’t about to be parted from him because of my own rushing emotions.
“You couldn’t have known. I don’t blame you. I don’t even know what I feel.” I turned over my hands. Were they different now? Was there something under them trying to break through? I wanted to flex them, to test whatever it was Huxley believed was inside me …
Instead, I balled them into fists. How could there be fae witch magic in me? Kaed’s had been forced into him.
Kaed knelt before me then, his knees landing in a mossy bed. “Imogen”—he took my hands in his—“we weren’t sure. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The oceans of his eyes weren’t roaring with wildness but crashing against their confines as he looked into mine.
“What if it’s locked in there forever?” Voicing this new fear tore open a vulnerability in me. I never had to worry about having magic. I just didn’t have it. And now everything felt different and somehow the same.
Kaed bundled me to him, and I allowed him to cradle me into his chest. “We’ll find your magic.” He kissed my forehead and then took my face in his hands to look up at him. “I promise you.”
“What if it’s locked in there for a reason …”
He stilled at my words, and only the trees moved, the breeze controlling their limbs like they weren’t their own.
“I don’t believe that,” he said with fervour.
“You can’t know that,” I said, pulling his hands from my face.
But before I could free myself from his touch, he came closer until we were like acolytes on our knees together, praying to each other, not the forgotten gods.
Kaed gripped my wrists with one hand and held them between us. “I said I would protect you. I will.”
“Until the sands of never and forever meet.” I echoed his words from the first night we’d come to these ancient ruins.
A smile pulled at his lips. “Yes.” His free hand moved to the back of my neck, guiding me towards him. “Until the Crown Oaks are ash on the wind.”
Our lips were so close I could taste him.
“I need you, Kaed.”
My body heated, as if wyvern fire ran in my blood, as I finally admitted to myself that I needed him. I didn’t just want him. I needed him. His arms, his embrace. I needed to feel him around me.
More than my magic, I needed him. More than anything else I’d ever wanted, I wanted to feel his lips on me.
Something shattered between us, and Kaed’s lips crashed into mine.
Everything I thought I knew about myself was crumbling like the ruins around me. And new roots were taking hold and breaking through the walls I’d built up around myself my entire life.
I thought I had been abandoned by my family because I had no magic. Because I was different. Not like them. But now it all made even less sense.
Magic. Fae witch magic, not just fae magic, was inside me.
I didn’t know if we could trust Huxley on his word. But if he’d lied, Kaed would have ripped the candour from him. I trusted that he was afraid of Kaed enough to offer the truth.
Kaed paused for a moment, and I pulled back to look up at him.
“What is it?” I searched his eyes, as they were far away.
A muscle in his jaw strained. “We need to go to Hayden …”
As though the chill winds of the North had travelled here, a shiver ran through me at the words. His father. The king. But I recited Kaed’s promise. He would protect me.
“Why?” I breathed.
“We can’t do this without a fae witch.” He brought our bodies impossibly closer. “Imogen, if I thought there was another way …” He looked into my eyes. “I—”
“I know.” My fingers stilled his lips. “We’ll do this together.”
“Together.”
Rain began to fall like golden stars as it shimmered down through the sun.
Kaed’s wings came out as they had last time we’d kissed in the rain. They glimmered as the drops hit them, the gem of his sword glinting in the light.
I pulled from his kiss to look up. To marvel at his magic.
Not taking his hands from mine, I felt his shadows coil around me and pull me tighter to him.
But everything melted away as I felt Kaed’s lips on me again. And for once, I didn’t feel like I needed to be anywhere else, except exactly where I was, on my knees with his shadows tying me to him.