“All these centuries,” I whisper, “I thought Verrick’s curse was the cruelest thing I’d ever have to endure. But dark-fae magic doesn’t even comecloseto the blade wielded by time itself.” I sigh and bury my face against her neck, my hand sliding across her stomach, memorizing the silken feel of her skin. “Time. Damn it, Westlyn. I had so much of it I feared it would never end, and now—in what feels like my final hours—all I want is just a little more. A few more days to hold you. To take care of you. One more hour to tell you all the things I should’ve told you before, but was too damned scared to even try.”
Her breath catches, and I want nothing more than to capture it in my mouth, to breathe it in deep and hold it inside forever.
But I can’t. Not until I get this out.
“The truth is, Westlyn,” I continue, “before I met you, my life hadn’t meant anything for centuries. And after all those endless years, I finally accepted the fact that it never would—not after everything I’d lost. My sole purpose was freeing my men from the curse, and I wasn’t even able to do that. So what did anything matter anymore? But then you came to us, and everything changed.Everything.”
“Everything changed for me too, Draegan.”
“No, you don’t understand. I…” I climb off the bed and kneel before her, and she sits up and stares at me expectantly, her eyes bewitching and beseeching both. Reaching for her hands, I say softly, “Even after you arrived, even after you and I got physically close, even after I could feel myself falling under your spell, I… I hurt you, Westlyn. I pushed you away at every turn. I said so many awful things, dimmed the light in your eyes so many times… It’s a wonder you’ve got any patience or kindness left for me. It’s a wonder you haven’t turned your back on me completely.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but I shake my head to silence her, lacing our fingers together, holding her tight.
“The night of the fire,” I press on, “when I saw Rook’s security footage, something inside me shattered. I couldn’t bear to think you were taken from us. That you were imprisoned somewhere, frightened and alone. Yet, I couldn’t bear the thought that you were anythingbutfrightened and alone, for any other possibility was just too terrifying. Was someone hurting you? Did you perish in the fire? I had no bloodyidea. I only knew that you weren’thome, weren’t in my arms, and the very last thing you and I shared in your waking hours was another stupid argument because I refused to be honest with you. Refused! As if my smug silence could actually protect me from falling in love with you.”
She searches my face, tears slipping down her cheeks.
“I vowed to myself right then and there that when we found you again,” I say, “when, not if, I wouldn’t wait another moment. I would be honest with you. Completely, utterly honest, because the thought that you could be taken from me without knowing how I truly felt… The thought that I might never be able to speak to you again, to hold you, to gaze upon your face and see that look in your eyes when you say my name…” I cup her face, my thumb brushing her tears. “But of course, everything else happened so fast. The attack at the cathedral, the portal to Wintermoon. Rook, and then Jude, and now… Now I fear I’m almost out of time, and I can’t—Iwon’tlet that happen. So this is me, Westlyn Avery. This is me on my knees, confessing all the things I’ve kept locked in my heart when I should’ve freely given them to you from the very start.”
“Draegan,” she whispers. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying… I’m saying that for all I’ve obsessed over it, I can’t even remember the exact moment I fell in love with you. There were so many of them, I’m not even sure there evenwasa moment, some single event or conversation that tipped me over the edge. When I try to recall it now, I feel them all wrapping around me, burrowing in deep. Then one night I just looked at you, and you smiled at me, and I knew. I knew, despite all my denials.” I take one of her hands and place it on my chest, right over my heart, holding her close. “No matter what the outcome is in Wintermoon, know this. You have healed a heart I’d long thought ruined beyond repair. For the first time in more centuries than I can recall, I feel whole when I’m with you. Not because you’ve erased the past… the grief… but because you granted me the space to feel it. You didn’t give up on me, on us, even when I gave you every reason to doubt me. To run for the bloody hills. My heart is fully in your hands now. And though I don’t pretend to know how much time I’ve got left, I promise you, Westlyn Avery. If you’ll let me, I’ll spend what remains of my life showing you just how much you mean to me. Showing you just how much I love you.”
Her eyes flutter closed, and for a long moment, she doesn’t speak. Her tears fall freely, her lashes dark with them, cheeks pink, a tremor shivering through her body.
“Please don’t cry, love,” I whisper. “I can’t stand the thought that my words are still hurting you.”
“It’s not your words,” she finally says, opening her eyes to look at me once more. “I’ve been waiting to hear you say these things to me for so long. And now that you have, there’s so much… And you just… And I…Goddess, Draegan. I want to trust you. To trust what we have and what you’re saying and all the things I feel for you—all the things I’vealwaysfelt for you.”
“Then trust it. Trustthis.” I press her hand more firmly against my heart, letting her feel every wild beat.
She nods, but the sadness in her eyes deepens, and my heart beats even more furiously, everything in me desperate to ease her pain.
“What is it, love?” I ask.
She unleashes a pent-up breath and shakes her head, lowering her gaze. “It’s… silly. In the grand scheme of things.”
“Westlyn.” I hook a finger under her chin and lift her face until she’s gazing up at me once more. “Nothingthat puts that devastated look in your eyes could possibly be silly.”
At this, the tiniest smile graces her lips, but—like every smile that’s come before it here in this forgotten realm—it fades all too quickly.
“All this time,” she says softly, “all the things we’ve done, all that you’ve just confessed. And you still haven’t truly kissed me. Every time I asked you to, you turned me down or walked away.”
She’s right. I haven’t.
Kissing someone is its own sort of confession, and before now, I couldn’t bring myself to offer it to her, no matter how desperately I longed for it.
“Because I’m a damned fool,” I say. “A fool who likes to torment himself by denying himself the one thing he wants more than the very air he breathes.”
“If I asked you for a kiss now,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper as her thumb ghosts across my lips, “I mean, arealkiss… Would you turn me down again?”
“What do you think, my beautiful, insatiable little immortal?”
Genuine fear glazes her eyes, and she lowers her hand from my face. “I think I’m too scared to find out.”
Not a taunt or a test this time, but a confession as bare as my own.
A confession for which there’s only one response.
