Chapter 34 #2
His eyes caught hers. “Yes. You are terrified. You chase the fire and call it choice. You throw yourself into storms so no one else can cast you there first. You would rather drown on your own terms than admit you want saving. And while this body weakens and my hold on the world thins, I watch you and I learn the shape of purpose. I love you.” He pounded emotion into every syllable.
Her mouth twisted, the words tumbling sharp and fast. “You are a lonely, fading god. You are desperate and you are friendless. You do not know what love is.”
“You seek to maim, and that is fine by me, Ilys.” His mouth curved, not in humor, in truth.
“I love you. It is selfish. It is macabre. It is ironic, but I do. And yes, I have been lonely. We are both lonely, and we understand each other in a way no one else could. All of that is true. So is this: I love how age hardens you and softens you in the same breath. I love your appetite for whimsy and your refusal to stomach injustice. I love your laugh when you forget to guard it and your smile when you choose to be merciful with it. I love you, Ilys.”
“Stop,” she begged, voice breaking.
“I will not,” he said, and he laughed once, rough, almost tender.
“I hate you,” she promised, but the words shook.
“I know,” he answered, as if he were telling her a bedtime fact, full of understanding and no surprise.
She kissed him like a strike. He met her like a wall.
The room jolted with the impact of their bodies, the back of her thighs hitting the bedframe, the cup on the table skittering to the floor.
Her wrists were still pinned in his hands until she yanked free and caught his collar instead.
He pressed her into the post and she arched into the pressure, not to flee it, to feed it.
“I hate you,” she whispered into his mouth.
“I love you,” he breathed back, and the words did not soften anything. They made it worse, which made it better.
She shoved him and he let it move him a step, then came back in, taking her mouth again.
Teeth, then heat, then hunger all over again.
He turned her and she turned with him, a knot that did not wish to be undone.
Fingers found laces with more force than skill.
Cloth rasped skin. His palm spread over the bandage at her shoulder and he paused, a single heartbeat of gentleness.
She hissed the word against his ear—a yes that left no doubt, only invitation.
When he thrust into her, her breath caught hard, ragged, her body opening around the force of him. And in that wild, desperate rhythm she could not control, a memory pierced her—the echo of his voice from another night. Breathe, Ilys. Count with me.
“Look at me,” he said as they panted into one another’s mouth.
She clung to him fighting the pull to shatter, nails biting his back, every motion pulling her deeper into the truth she swore she didn’t want, but that grew harder to deny.
“I hate you,” she gasped again, though her body betrayed her, meeting him with abandon, slick with denial as he gripped her up against the frame, his fingers working between them with knowing precision.
She cursed him silently—his arrogance, his practiced skill, the ease with which he drew her apart—but still her body bowed to it, helpless. She came first, fast and humiliating.
He watched her unravel, protests falling from her lips as her face flushed with pleasure, and he followed soon after, breath ragged, hands digging into her waist, anchoring himself to the moment.
When he stilled inside her, she wanted to shove him away, to reassert the distance she’d carved with every word.
But instead, he eased her down, kneeling before them both.
His hands were tender now, smoothing the disarray he had helped create.
And she found herself frozen, helpless to that tenderness.
“Ilys,” he said quietly.
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her throat felt too tight, her body still trembling from what they’d done. But he caught her gaze anyway. His eyes were dark and unbearably gentle.
“Make another bargain with me.” He reached for her hand, gingerly enough that she could have pulled away, but she didn’t. When his lips brushed her knuckles, the gesture so careful, so unlike the chaos of moments before, that it felt like being touched by a promise she hadn’t agreed to yet.
Her breath caught. “What?” she managed, the word breaking halfway out of her.
“Let us have this,” he said. “This sliver of happiness. I will die soon, and you may pick apart every piece of it that unsettles you after. But may we have it now?” His thumb swept once over the back of her hand. “May I try to make you happy, again and again, in the little time left to me?”
She stared at him, her heart pounding so hard it made her ribs ache. Part of her wanted to laugh because it sounded so easy when he said it. Another part wanted to claw her way out of his grasp, run until her lungs burned.
“You think that’s what I need?” she whispered finally.
“No.” His eyes softened even more. “It’s what I want.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came. The room smelled of salt and skin, the bedclothes rumpled under her fingers.
She thought of the night before, of every place she’d let him touch, of every place she’d wanted him to.
She thought of how the sound of his heartbeat had steadied her even as she cursed him.
“You’ll die,” she said, almost accusing.
“I will.” His voice steadied itself, but his hand held on harder, the restraint in him breaking at the edges.
Her breath shuddered out of her. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, meeting his stare. “One sliver,” she affirmed, the words trembling out of her. “No more.”
He smiled, not a triumphant thing, but a quiet, aching one, and pressed his forehead to hers. “One sliver,” he echoed.
“This is cachu hwch,” she said wryly, sighing deeply.
Death only caught her mouth with his, smiling faintly. “Hopeless,” he whispered, and kissed her again.