CHAPTER 66 #2
Tyghan pushed up from the chair and stood.
“It wasn’t a lie,” he said. “I swear. I can’t control the council and force them to change a sentence, but I do control my troops.
I promise you, I did rescind that kill order, and that still stands, and will always stand.
” His gaze was unwavering. “I need you to believe that.”
She searched his face—his eyes glistening—and she finally nodded, brushing at her lashes. “Julia said our differences would catch up with us if we didn’t talk them out, and now they have.”
He rubbed the back of his neck then nodded. “Then let’s talk them out. Let’s not leave this room until we’ve talked about everything.”
And they did. They talked, and they listened, their conversation spilling out of order, one thought triggering another, biting their tongues, trying not to interrupt, but mostly following each other’s lead.
Mostly listening because they truly wanted to understand, more than they wanted to scream anymore.
Why didn’t you tell me it was only a month?
I struggled with my choice and didn’t tell anyone, not even Eris.
I wasn’t sure if I had done the right thing.
He didn’t just betray me. He betrayed an entire kingdom.
If the council found out what I did, they’d convene and put Cael back on the throne faster than I could blink.
That could be disastrous. He’s not ready.
Too many plans are already in the works . . .
When I questioned her, Kasta confessed to me that she gave him a thousand years. She thought I was making a mistake to shorten his sentence. She tried to talk me out of it.
But you shortened it anyway. Why? Have you forgiven him?
No—I’m not sure—I don’t know. I’m still confused by my own feelings, but one thing I know with certainty is that you love your father. I didn’t do it for him. I did it for you . . .
My father called out Kasta’s name from the pillar, that’s why I ran to her instead of you. I was still in shock. And then I was angry. All I saw was red, and not all the consequences.
I’m sorry, Bri, for the way you found him. I never meant for that to happen. What did he say when you let him out?
He sobbed when I told him I was bloodmarked. He said they never wanted that for me. He was afraid for me. I told him that you were not Kormick . . .
Eris and I were shocked when we learned Kierus had a family already, with adult children, but mortal time is unpredictable and takes us by surprise too.
It was only six months in our world, not your lifetime.
That was the timeframe we thought in. Months.
We had no idea that you even existed. If we had known . . .
All the times I shut you down. I’m sorry. I thought I was protecting you, but I was only protecting myself. You can talk about her, and I will listen.
I sold her a dream, Tyghan, in order to get Cael back. It still feels like I sold part of my soul that day . . .
My father’s a mortal. Fully mortal. When I let him out of the pillar, I told him to wait for me at the barn, but I knew almost immediately that he wouldn’t. Now I’ve put him at risk.
Your father has always had a compass of his own. You’re not responsible for what he does.
You were watching his back. You wanted to keep him out of trouble. Is it so hard for you to admit that at least some part of you doesn’t want him to die?
No, not so hard. A big part of me doesn’t want him to die.
Did Pengary try to hurt you?
No. He kissed my hand and thanked me for helping him, telling me not to believe all the stories I’ve heard about him. He said the centuries twist them and that one day I might be a legend too. And then he turned into an enormous beast and flew away . . .
A dragon.
Yes, a dragon with sharp claws and teeth, but he didn’t use them on me.
They sat silently for a while, their words and feelings settling in, the only sound the crackling of the fire.
Bristol’s fingers strummed the arm of her chair, another thought still tugging at her.
“In the last letter I wrote, I told my sisters my mother was alive, that I was bringing her home. Bringing both of my parents home. I shouldn’t have said it.
But I wanted it to be true. I’m afraid now. I can’t let them down.”
Tyghan leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs again, repeating the words she had said to him a few days earlier: “All of us are given powers from small to great. There is only so much one person can control.” His brows rose. “See? I do listen to you. Every word.”
She stared at him. A lock of hair dangled over his forehead. He looked as drained as she felt. “What are we doing, Tyghan?” she asked.
He was silent, his dark eyes simmering with thoughts, but still locked on her. His shoulders rose then, in a bare shrug. “We’re stumbling, messing up, and loving each other.”
“We’re quite good at the first two,” Bristol replied.
A faint smile creased his eyes. “But most of the time we’re spectacular at the last one.”
A weak laugh stirred in her chest.
He stood. “Are you ready to go back?”
She pushed against the arms of the chair, standing too.
She took one last look at the room, the fire still flickering, casting warm shadows.
“Yes, I suppose it’s time.” Tyghan walked toward the door, apparently intending to walk back instead of nightjump, the urgency gone.
But something inside her wasn’t ready to leave.
She still needed more. More healing. More closure. More of each other.
“No,” she said. “Not yet.”
Tyghan turned, trying to understand what she was saying, and his eyes soaked her in. He took a hesitant step forward. “I’m not sure what—”
“I’m not ready to leave.”
It was her eyes that spoke to him, more than her words. He swallowed.
“You can touch me, Tyghan. If you want to.”
His eyes slowly swept over her. He stepped forward, his movement slow and considered, stepping close until heat radiated between them.
“I want to.” He raised his hand, swiping a strand of hair from her brow.
“Bri,” he whispered. Something was different between them now.
It wasn’t just desire driving them forward.
A new reverence reverberated between them, a shared vulnerability.
His finger grazed the hollow of her neck and trailed across her collarbone, and then down to the first button of her shirt.
Needles of heat shot through her, his fingers searing her skin.
He worked the button loose like he was unlocking a treasure he had almost lost. One by one, each button was freed, and he slipped her shirt from her shoulders.
It fell, whisper quiet, to the rug beneath their feet.
His words were spent, but she felt his love in every measured move, every glance, even in the flutter of his lashes as he gazed at her.
Heat blazed over her skin, but she didn’t want to rush the moment.
She wanted to savor his breath, his touch, his gaze devouring her.
His mouth came down, his tongue parting her lips, his hand at her back, expertly popping her bra free.
He moved on to her trousers, no fumbling.
He knew exactly how to make everything come undone, including her.
His lips slid across her cheek to her earlobe. “You are my soul, Bri, my light, and I will die before I ever hurt you again.”
“Never say the word die,” she whispered back. “We have a lifetime ahead of us. I don’t care how many times we stumble, I will always come back to you.”
She reached up and slipped his buttons free, a slow languid parting of his clothes, belt, shirt, trousers, all falling to the floor until every bit of his flesh and muscle was exposed, the hard planes and angles carved by firelight.
He was still and yielded everything to her touch, even the scar he had once tried to hide.
Her finger traced its jagged line, not in curiosity but in love, acknowledgment of what he had shared with her and her new understanding.
She skimmed her hand up his arm, following the hard rise of his biceps, his skin burning beneath her palm.
Her hand swept to the side then, pressing against the broad firmness of his chest, and her thumb circled his nipple.
His eyes drank her in, his breath grew husky, and then he gathered her up in his arms, his lips on hers again, and the darkness of the room swallowed them whole as he carried her to the bed.
He laid her down gently, the soft furs of another era beneath her back, the feeling of something ageless gripping them.
Something inevitable. It vibrated in the air.
History was written within these walls, not in great swaths of time but in fragmented moments like these.
They were another layer of that history.
Bristol sank into the softness of the furs, waiting for Tyghan to join her. He was a black silhouette at the side of the bed, flames licking his outline like he was a dark specter about to consume her. Her skin burned. She wanted to be consumed. By him.
And he did, touch by touch. Her mouth, her breasts, her nipples, even places she didn’t know that drove her to madness, his tongue skating down her spine, then nipping at the flesh of her lower back.
They explored each other’s bodies like it was the first time, taking nothing for granted.
His fingers reached into her, plundering the slick wetness between her legs, stroking her, her pleasure building, breaths skipping, the throb growing.
Her fingers dug into the blankets beneath her, and her breaths and moans intensified as she lost her grip and her mind crushed into one blinding thought.
But then she let held breaths slip loose, and nudged his hand away.
Not yet, she thought, and rolled over, pushing Tyghan onto his back.
She wanted this single moment to be long, torturous. A memory they would never recover from.
She sat on his thighs, her fingernail barely grazing the full length of his shaft. “Let’s talk,” she said.
His breaths quivered. “Now? You expect me to talk while you do that?”
“I expect you to try to talk.”
Her finger grazed him again. He swallowed, his arousal making his brain and mouth stop working together. “You want to play? How about if we change positions?”
“See, I knew you could talk. The Knight Commander always has something to say. But I staked out this position first. And I know you’re well versed in strategic maneuvers.”
His eyes narrowed, their blue ice piercing her. “You’re a wicked vixen, but if you order me to lie here for a century, I will.”
“Good. Because I want this moment to last forever. I want it burned into us. I want to see your eyes needing and wanting and loving me, and I want you to see the same in mine. I want to memorize every touch and whisper between us.”
“This isn’t going to be our last time.”
“I know that. But it won’t be the last time we stumble either. And when we do, this moment will be engraved in us. We’ll remember. We can get past anything.”
She leaned down, her lips lightly grazing across his like a signature on a precious document.
The fire popped then, as if in agreement, and they laughed against each other’s lips. “Got it, Knight Commander?”
“Got it, Keats. And speaking of maneuvers—”
And with a flip that overtook her so fast she didn’t see how he did it, she was beneath him again. “Time for more games,” he whispered.
Somewhere along the way, Bristol had gained the upper position again, and Tyghan’s breath caught as she eased down between his legs, her mouth closing around him, squeezing, her tongue swirling, and his eyes clamped shut.
His legs, his abdomen, every muscle in him tightened in response to her touch.
Mercy, he thought, his groin burning as he searched for control.
She slowed her movement, teasing him, drawing it out.
Her taste and scent were still in his own mouth, assaulting his thoughts, and her moans undid him, his head lost, weak.
But whatever glorious torture this was, he wasn’t ready to let loose, not yet.
He reached down, guiding her up onto his chest, holding her in his arms, a hunger so deep inside him, he never wanted to let her go.
His hand glided over the curve of her hip and he breathed in her hair, her skin.
He burned for every part of her. He wanted to loose the throbbing inside him, but when he did, he wanted it to come loose inside her.
To press deep into her until they both were lost to each other.
“I love you,” she whispered as her lips brushed his ear. Three quiet words, but they tumbled into him like something solid, something that held him together.
She gently ground against him, her breaths shivering. “Now,” she said. “Go into me, now.”
He didn’t need a second invitation. He rolled over her and slipped his hand behind her knee, lifting her thigh.
She wrapped her legs around him, inviting him to go deep, and he did.
He was hard, eager, and she was wet. He plunged to the root, filling her completely, and she gasped, but screamed her pleasure at the same time.
He paused mid-thrust. “Easier?” he whispered.
“No, all of it,” she groaned, and her hips rocked up to meet his.
She was ripe, ready, and the sounds of her coming shot through him like fire. He felt her spasm around him, and he couldn’t see any more, his blood molten, every part of him pulsing and pushing and pulling her closer, until their screams were not his, or hers, but theirs.
They lay there for a long while, their hands entwined, soaking in each other, the moment, the crackle of the logs.
Engraved. Bristol gazed at the small quarters, the rustic walls, the aged timbers, the fire that never stopped burning.
The daughter of winter had built this room as a refuge in the middle of a blizzard.
It had sheltered the first queen of Danu, and hundreds since then.
Now it sheltered Bristol and Tyghan as they navigated their own storm.
They finally dressed because the world waited for them. Tyghan opened the door—they were going back the old-fashioned way—walking, so Bristol would know how to get there again if she chose to return.
Tyghan stopped in the threshold of the doorway, hesitating. “Before we leave, I have one last question. I need to know.” He gently swept back the hair from her neck. “Who did this to you?”