Kingston
I should have torn my eyes away, but I couldn’t. Witnessing as something flickered in his gaze. Waiting for the axe to fall. And watching, transfixed, as he came with a quiet groan.
I should have looked away, but I wouldn’t.
Not until she lifted her head and searched for me. Rising to her knees to reach my lips, she panted breathlessly in the aftermath of what we’d shared. I kissed her with everything I had, losing myself in the taste of her. Slowly registering the taste I didn’t recognize at first…was him.
When she pulled back and reached for him, I let her go.
We came down together in the quiet room, the memory of our bodies reaching the height of pleasure lingering in the space around us. She rested beside him, and as he scooted them over to make room, it took me a moment to realize the space he created was mine.
Once she settled a bit, Landon left to get a washcloth from the bathroom. An aftercare routine she didn’t so much as blink at. She watched him go before her eyes drifted to the adjoining door to her room. Longing for Max, too. Perhaps wondering how he might fit into all this one day.
And I had no doubt we’d figure it out.
Her features shifted as she worked through her thoughts, and I stroked her hair so she’d know I was there if she wanted to share them with me. But sleep was pulling her in too deeply.
After Landon came back in and took care of her, her mind wasn’t fully at ease, but she slowly drifted off to sleep, unable to fight it any longer.
Neither Landon nor I could sleep.
Every cell in my body was attuned to his.
Aware of his presence. Aware of where we’d touched.
The thought of relaxing felt impossible.
Not when a million thoughts ran through my head.
Words I wanted to give him that wouldn’t even come close to conveying what I’d kept locked in my heart all these years.
I had said goodbye to who he was, but I had also admitted the truth.
It would never quiet, never fully rest.
And in the dark, I fought to make peace with what we shared now. What we would share with her. He was, and always would be, my best friend. The first person who showed me I wasn’t alone. And I’d lost who he was, but he was still here. Still safe.
It was…enough.
It would have to be enough.
Then his voice broke through the quiet in the room and the racing of my thoughts.
“Kingston?”
I cleared my throat four times before I spoke. “I’m awake. Are you alright?”
He didn’t answer right away, quiet while he thought. “I have all these things I want to say. I don’t know where to start. I should’ve trusted you. But…”
Our gazes fell on her. And all I could say was, “I know.”
“It’s hard to put into words.”
“Some things don’t need words.”
He murmured quietly in agreement before he sighed. “There’s a lot I don’t understand. I know that, Kingston.” He stroked her cheek, and she nuzzled into his palm even in her sleep. “But this? Her?—”
“She’s light in the darkness.” I swallowed once I released the words. “Hope. I understand, Landon. Believe me. She’s… exactly what Camelot Court needs. What we’ve needed.”
He only nodded as he stared at her, so I kept going.
“Someone who was strong enough to break through a hundred years of tradition because she’d been raised outside of it.
Someone who had known pain, but learned to trust herself to get through it, who longed for the truth and vowed to speak hers, and who understands some things… some people are worth fighting for.”
“Yeah,” he choked out. “I thought I’d lost her, and I…Kingston, I don’t know how you did it. How you knew we would get here, even when she walked away after the Knights’ Quorum. I...I’ve been angry with you. But deep down, I’ve just been mad at myself.”
“It’s hard to explain how I knew, just by looking at her photo. Reading the words on her application. It was so much more than that…you’re right. It’s hard to find the words. But she was different, and familiar, all at the same time.”
“Familiar?”
“She was like me, Landon. With the world closing in around her, even though she has Gia and she loves her, she was still…alone. She’d lost something no one can replace. And I…”
“What?”
“I had faith that when she learned what all of it was for, she’d see it, too.
But you didn’t have the information I had, and I couldn’t—I still can’t tell you all of it.
So, none of this is your fault, Landon. What happened with Elaine and my father, I could’ve prevented it.
It was my choice.” When silence hung between us, I said it again. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah…but you always say that. Even after what happened last year. I’m supposed to be strong for you. Shoulder the burden. That’s not—You shoulder all of it alone, so I don’t have to carry it. That’s not how this was supposed to be.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
He tilted his head, confusion on his face, because to him, he’d been told all his life his purpose was to serve me. Be my right hand. Be better than the Scotts that came before him. Never betray me. Never step out of line.
Any mistake felt like failing a lifetime’s worth of expectations.
And I’d meant what I said that day to Quinn.
Landon had never betrayed me. He’d always tried to do the right thing, even without having all the pieces.
Because he’d asked me once not to give them, but in the end, he’d left me with the choice.
It always came down to my decision to protect him.
Maybe he’d never see it that way. Maybe others would disagree. But…
He was my best friend. And I saw how it was killing him.
So, when he asked me to make it stop, I let him forget.
I met his gaze. “A wise king leads from the front, Landon. He sets the example…” I dropped my eyes to her as I got the words out.
“I would shoulder all of it to protect the people I love. And in the end, as long as she’s Queen of Camelot Court, it will have been worth it.
She’ll choose you. And we can do what I set out to do. ”
“And if she chooses him?”
“Would it really be the worst thing?”
“No,” he grumbled. But his admission, however begrudging, said more than he knew. “He still hates me for what happened last year, and he’s so fucking stubborn. Always baiting me and rubbing it in my face.”
“Because he doesn’t know the truth, Landon. Only you can decide when you’re ready to give it to him. To both of us, fully. Only you can decide when you’re ready to let the past go.”
“What if it makes everything worse? What if I tell him and he still doesn’t forgive me? Or…I find out I could’ve saved her, but I hadn’t been strong enough to do it.” He swallowed. “What if it always should’ve been him?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked me that, but the answer was too closely tied to the one I couldn’t give him.
“We’ll deal with that. But…” I glanced at him, then down to Quinn again, and he followed my gaze like I’d hoped he would. “What if you get so much more than you expected?”
He smiled at her sleeping face, and the love in his eyes hurt but also healed. It was the first moment I thought I could truly bear it. Loving him while letting him go. Where the path forward, even if it didn’t lead to us, still made me feel…happy. Whole. With them together.
My eyes drifted shut, thinking he’d fallen asleep and planning to follow him. Follow them.
But then he spoke again, his low and quiet voice blanketing me in the dark. Reminding me I wasn’t alone.
“Moments like this…I feel like I remember.”
I swallowed. “Remember what?”
“Why you’re my best friend. Why I’d always followed you wherever you wanted to go. It feels like it’s been a long time since we got to talk like this, but it’s…familiar. It makes sense why I always trusted you. And I—” He drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry I forgot.”
“It’s not?—”
“I know what you’re going to say, but I have a choice, too, Kingston. And sometimes, I want to remember the rest. I want to know…But it hurts. And I don’t understand why, but you said—You said you didn’t ask for this.”
I fought to keep my voice from breaking. “No.”
“I asked you not to tell me, didn’t I?”
All I could do was nod.
“And you never did.” His brow furrowed as he thought about it, but he didn’t wince.
Not a memory, just his thoughts. “I think because of that, I’ve known that it had to be really bad.
Even before everything that happened with Quinn.
I think it’s why I never asked. And then, even more so when things were falling apart, when I chose her instead of you, when I ran from you that night… ”
Breathing slowly through my nose, holding onto the sound of his voice.
“If you’ve let me be angry with you to protect me from it, it had to be something that would hurt me worse.
It’s like you’re worried it might…break me or something, and I’ve been fighting the memories, to stop them from returning, because I trust you.
And I’m scared to remember because I don’t want to lose her, too. But…”
I pulled in a ragged breath, willing my body not to shake because I didn’t know what I’d do if he asked me for the truth right then. And I didn’t know why it surprised me. That he’d seen what I’d fought so hard to hide.
But he’d seen it the way he always had. The way he’d always seen me.
“Kingston, if I wanted to remember, would you tell me?”
“I…” I hesitated, but I wanted him to have a choice. “Yes, if it was what you wanted.”
“And if it made everything worse? If it broke me?”
I shuddered out my exhale. “Then, I’d do everything in my power to hold you together, Landon. We both would.”
“Okay.” He nodded and fell quiet, and my heartbeat quickened. “Not yet. I’m not ready yet, but someday soon. When it’s safe.” He rested his hand on my forearm, and I swore the pounding in my chest would wake her up. “When we’re free from all this.”
I turned my arm over in his grasp, holding onto his arm. Gripping it tighter than he had, but it was okay because he squeezed back harder, too.
“When we’re free from all this.”
His eyes fell closed, but he didn’t let go of my arm. I couldn’t tell if he realized he said it, but his last words struck my heart. Because they only could’ve come from his.
“Good night, mate.”
I fought past the emotion in my chest, the lump in my throat, and whispered, “Good night, mate.”