“I need him back,” I whispered, clenching my pillow hardenough to crack my fingers from the force.
Ciaran sighed and leaned against the wall next to my bed with his arms crossed. “I know. Me too.”
“If we cannot…” I broke off in uncertainty of whether it was a good idea to continue. But the words weighed so heavy in my heart that I did not think I could keep them to myself any more. “I cannot do this without him. I don’t evenwantto,” I whispered finally, giving life to the truth that had been growing in me.
Ciaran was silent for a moment before he surprised me by taking the liberty of sitting on my mattress again with his back against the headboard.
“You do not get to quit. I will not allow it,” he told me calmly but without any room for argument in his tone.
“If I cannot get him back—”
“Then you will find a way to go on,” he interrupted me more firmly. I shook my head in frustration, and he turned to lean over me abruptly so I was forced to meet furious tabby eyes. “You don’t get to quit!” he ground out again. “Whatever you must do, whoever needs to suffer to make it bearable, I will help you, but you willnotquit on me.”
“Why?” I snarled, too curious about all this intensity to hold my tongue.
“Because he would never forgive me!” he exclaimed, becoming emotional for the first time since I’d met him. “You arethemost precious thing to him. And if you are all that is left of him, all I’ll ever have left of my brother, then you should know I will die before allowing anything to happen to you,” Ciaran revealed.
I lay blinking at him, trying and failing to hold back the fresh tears as they spilled down my cheeks.
“So youwillfind the strength,” Ciaran reassured me, although the harshness in his voice was softened by a rasp of emotion. “If I have to drag you kicking and screaming through the rest of your life, then so be it. Understand?”
I was too stunned to speak for a moment as I wiped the tears off my cheeks, but I nodded.
“I really fucking hate you, Ciaran, you know that?”
“I can live with it,” he assured me dismissively as he leaned back against my wobbly headboard again.
“Sage is…reallyimportant to you. I mean I knew that already since you wanted to kill me for hurting him...” My voice trailed off suggestively, but he refused the bait. He remained staring ahead at the door until I sighed with exasperation at him. “Tell me how you met him!”
It was the first time I’d deigned to really talk with him about Sage, despite a few prompts from him. But I was desperate for something,anything, about my mate to keep me from splitting apart at all my seams.
“I grew up in Aes Rurrinn,” Ciaran revealed, and I felt a bit sheepish that I had never asked him about himself in all the time we’d spent training. I supposed I was so used to hiding my own past that it rarely ever occurred to me to ask others about themselves. “I did not meet him until one Mabon Festival, about two hundred years ago, when the tribes gathered for harvest feasting. We got into a fight.”
“You did?” I laughed, amused but not at all surprised since Ciaran was rather grumpy and confrontational.
“It was my fault—”
“Obviously,” I snorted and bit my lips together to stop my laughter when he shot a glare down at me.
“It was late into the festivities, I’d had far too much to drink that day, and the males had started challenging each other to some good-natured competitions. Sparring and wrestling and the like. I was not… I did not grow up how Sage did with kind and loving parents,” Ciaran admitted, making the amused smile fade from my mouth as I took in his sombre expression. “My mother and elder sisters were militant, and I was expected to earn their approval. Especially as a male,” he added and crossed his arms as he rested his head back against the headboard. “Sage was the son of a Sua, so I saw him as a good opponent against whom to prove myself. I would not take his no for an answer when he tried to decline the fight. I think he could tell that I was taking it much too seriously when it was all meant to be in good fun,” Ciaran explained.
“He is… eerily perceptive like that,” I agreed.
“He is also an exceptional wrestler and had me pinned in about two minutes. I should have been able to laugh it off and congratulate him but was too ashamed and angry. Things got heated, and it came to blows until his mother stepped in. I am not sure if you know, but in our culture, if someone acts against the interests of others, they can be asked to make recompense. It can be anything as long as the action is not contested by the Sua,” Ciaran revealed.
“Really? I did not know that!”
“So Asha negotiated the recompense with my mother. They decided that I would live with Sage and histeinefor one year, and then he would come to live with my family for the same amount of time.”
“What? Over a fight?” I verified in disbelief.
“It was a very bad fight. But going to live with Asha and Carrick was perhaps the single most valuable thing to ever happen to me. Not only did I learn a new way of life, but Sage and I became brothers. And when he joined the Wild Hunt, I followed not long afterward,” he finished.
I could not help smiling at the heartfelt story even as tears stung my eyes. Especially when I thought about the utter respect with which Ciaran treated Asha.
“You read the letter last night,” he said in a clear effort to change the subject. I was impressed he had managed to last so long before he asked about it.
My nose wrinkled and my ears flattened as I recalled how Amira tried to justify herself. They thought I was in danger and that the Wild Hunt were still their enemies. She swore that what happened to the Spring Court had not been intentional, andshe was immensely ashamed by it. But it was the parts where she talked about Sage that had really turned my stomach. Her words were pretty enough, but they would never be enough. She still wanted to meet, which I would tell Rian, but I doubted he was any more interested in parlaying with Riordan than I was. And if he was still interested in talking, then Amira would have the chance to address him when we took her prisoner.
