Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter
twenty-three
At first, Penn says nothing.
In silence, he reaches out and pours us each another serving of the triple-strength gin. It is beginning to go to my head. I have not eaten any dinner, I remind myself.
Best sip slowly.
My hand trembles as I lift the glass to my mouth.
“Are you scared to be alone with me?”
I start so violently, gin sloshes over the rim. “Afraid of you? Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“You’re shaking.”
“Perhaps I’m cold.”
“It’s twice as warm here as Caeldera, and you never trembled in my presence there.”
My gaze moves to his. “How is Caeldera?”
“Progress is slow. We have cleared the majority of the rubble from the inner keep. Now we begin the painstaking process of rebuilding.” He takes a long sip, eyes holding mine over the rim of his glass.
Even in the darkness, they glow with banked flames.
“It will take years. But one day, it will be as it was. Better, even.”
“I have no doubt.”
“You will see the progress for yourself when you return.”
Tongue-tied, I take another gulp of my drink.
“It was difficult to leave, even knowing it is well protected by those who remain behind.” He pauses. “Not that there are many citizens left to protect. More have fled. They, like you, seem to have started new lives in new places.”
My shoulders tense. “I did not flee, Penn. That’s not fair.”
It is like he does not even hear me. His expression turns as dark as his tone. “Nothing is the same since you left.”
The breath evacuates my lungs. “Pende—”
“No. Let me get this out.” He pushes aside his glass and leans over the table so I cannot escape his eyes. “Rhya, I watch my kingdom slowly knitting back together, watch the light beginning to return to the eyes of my people, and I realize…none of it matters without you there by my side to see it.”
My pulse kicks up to a patter.
“In every crowd, it is your face I search for. At every table, it is you I seek to sit beside. Every triumph, every failure…you are the one I wish to share them with. But you are no longer there. You are a ghost in the corner of my eyes, gone the second I turn to look. And your absence…Gods, Rhya, it haunts me. You haunt me. Around every corner, down every corridor. Dreaming or waking, you are there, burned into my eyes like a brand.”
“I never meant to haunt you,” I whisper. “I thought, in staying away, I might grant you peace.”
He pushes to his feet so fast, the chair tumbles backward to the ground with a clatter. “Peace? There is no peace without you.”
He takes two strides in my direction and falls to his knees before me. My stunned mind struggles to process what is happening as he grips my chair by its legs and drags it around to face him. On the shadowy terrace, his ember eyes seem the only source of light.
“Rhya…” His hands lock on my hips, holding tight enough to bruise. “I have not known peace since the moment you went through that portal. I fear I will never know it again. Not until you are back with me in Caeldera.”
I gape at him, incapable of speech.
“Do you understand what I am telling you?” He shudders with the effort to keep his powers in check, his broad shoulders shaking with each breath.
His hands are warm as brands even through the leather.
“Rhya, I…I never should’ve let you go. I cannot be without you, not for another day, not for another moment.
Come back. Please, please…come back to me. ”
With that halting confession, he lays his head in my lap.
I go utterly still.
I have no idea what to do, what to say. For this is everything I’ve wished to hear from Penn for so very long.
Everything I dreamed he might one day confess to me as I tossed and turned at night, as I agonized over maybes and somedays.
As I chastised myself for daring to hope for an ending in which we might end up together.
“Rhya,” he whispers—nearly a whimper. “Please.”
His pain brims over, rushes through me. Tears spring to my eyes as it mingles with my own wildly vacillating emotions. Before I can stop myself, my fingers are threading through his thick, burnished chestnut hair. He groans as he feels my touch.
I mean it to be soothing—but Penn is not in the mood to be soothed.
In a blink, his grip on my hips tightens and I feel my body dragged down to the floor, the edge of the chair scraping my spine, my skull cracking against the hard terrace tiles.
I barely feel the pain as Penn’s body rolls on top of mine, his weight compressing the breath from my lungs as he settles between my legs.
My gasp of shock is swept away by his mouth, which claims mine in a bruising, feverish kiss.
Skies.
Heat sears through me, unstoppable. It is the same as it always is between us—sweet combustion, delicious torture. I feel like crying as our lips dance together, a violent clash of tongues and teeth that blazes me down to my bones.
But how can I be crying?
This is everything I have wanted, everything I have wished for in my most far-flung fantasies.
The formidable Pendefyre of Dyved, submitting to me.
Relinquishing his precious control, pulling me into his arms, and never letting me go again.
Mine to hold—not just for a few stolen seconds in the darkness, not just for a momentary lapse of judgment.
Mine.
Is he mine?
Am I his?
My body is alight with such pleasure, it takes my mind a moment to catch up. For reason to crash back in, a wave of pain to douse the passion. Tearing my mouth from his, I push at his shoulders until he rolls off of me.
“Wait! Wait.”
His breaths are as ragged as mine. “What? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Penn…” I shake my head as I sit up, feeling a million contradictory emotions at once. “This…We…We cannot do this.”
“Why the hell not?”
“We cannot just dive back into each other. Not after everything that’s happened.”
He stares at me, face stricken, hair messy from my hands. “Rhya—”
“There are things we must talk about,” I insist softly, trying to get my spinning senses under control. Praying he will not touch me again, for when he does, my thoughts go up in flames. “I need a moment to process.”
“To process what? I’ve just told you—”
“That you want me back in Caeldera. Back by your side,” I echo thickly, scooting back a few feet so I can breathe properly. “Yes. I got that part.”
“Then why are you confused?”
“What, exactly, does that mean?”
“I do not know how to make it any clearer.”
“Then…” I shake my head, trying desperately to slow my pulse from a thudding tattoo to a more measured tempo. “What has changed these past three weeks?”
“Changed? Changed how?” He studies me, brow furrowed, eyes dark with displeasure. “It seems you are the one who has changed most during this separation.”
My chin jerks. “That may be true. But that was not my question, as you well know—even if you are attempting to deflect it.”
“Gods, you’ve spent too much bloody time among people who speak in circles,” he mutters. “Not everything requires endless discussion.”
“I think I have earned a conversation. An explanation, at the very least.”
Scowling, he gestures at me to continue.
“What will be different between us if I return with you?”
“If?” He bites out the word. “Do you intend to stay here, then? With him?”
“Do not drag Soren into this.”
“I am not dragging him anywhere. He has inserted himself between us gleefully.” He wipes a hand down his face, as if that might clear the hurt from his expression. “It pains me you cannot see how he is toying with your emotions.”
“And it pains me that you think I cannot make a decision about my future without being misled by the men in my life.” Suddenly, I am on my feet.
Too furious to stand still, I begin to pace in tight loops across the terrace.
“Gods, Penn, you accuse Soren of toying with my emotions. What is it you are doing? Showing up here, acting the wounded party, asking me to return to Caeldera with you…And, all the while, I have yet to hear you express what our life will look like, should I make that choice. Will we be together? Or will things go right back to how they were before I went through the portal at Blister Bight?”
“You expect me to be an oracle, predicting the future? I cannot do that, Rhya. All I can tell you is how I feel now, in this moment.” He steps into my path, halting me in my tracks.
I did not even hear him find his feet. He does not touch me, but his eyes hold me captive, their burning depths ablaze with the intensity of his emotions.
“This fire you have lit inside me will burn and burn and burn until it has consumed me from within. I know you feel the same. Your body does not lie. The bond does not lie.”
I cannot deny the words. They are the truth—but not the whole of it. I cling to my hard-fought logic even as my foolish heart begs me to yield. To fall back into his arms and let his fiery touch erase all my hesitations.
“Passion alone is not enough to sustain a partnership,” I whisper. “At least…not the kind I want.”
His eyes narrow. “And what kind is that?”
“The kind in which I am an equal in all aspects. Encouraged to participate, not relegated to the sidelines like a child.”
His pause is rife with self-restraint. “I have only ever sought to keep you safe.”
“I know that. I do. But, Penn…I have learned to keep myself safe. My powers are strong, and grow stronger every day.”
His head shakes once, a jolt of disbelief. “So you do not need me anymore. That’s what you are saying.”
“No, I’m saying that I do not want to love someone because I need him. I want to love someone because I choose him. And because he chooses me in return. The real me. Not the version he wants me to go back to, not the potential he hopes he can forge me into one day. Just…me, as I am now. Rhya.”