Page 196 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“I will leave tomorrow morning,” I announced, standing to leave. “I also cannot join you tonight for dinner, you will have to continue with your stories on another visit I suppose.”

* * *

It had gone completely dark, clouds were so thick they were gurgling above each other for space. Not a trace of the stars from last night but lightning that flashed, cracking between them silently and violently. The blinging white light reflecting over the glossy onyx roofs of the city, silently resting in the warmth of their home and family. The quiet of night and winter only broken by the noise of unsure skies, sound of lighting and thunder a hair-raising symphony, epiphanic, it was calming chaos. Eye of a storm. I wondered if it saw all trouble.

Kilian sat by a bench affront the Lord’s house, his head dropped in surrender to the spiralling thoughts he’d dived into. The only starlight I wanted to see was that of his, but even them stood between troubled storms. I knew his troubling storm.

I gathered all strength in my voice. I wanted him to know I meant what I’d say next. “I don’t regret them, Kil, do you?”

His silver gaze rose to me. “Never.”

“I’m going to hurt you.”

He stood stalking careful paces to me. “I deserve it.”

My feet meekly moved forward. “I cannot spare you.”

“I cannot be spared.”

I reached closer, my steps quickening. “I will lose you.”

“You will be grateful.”

“You will lose me too.”

His stream of glitter and chips of silver still sent the most shimmering flutter over my stomach. “I have already lost you, I’m losing you now.”

I swallowed pain back to my chest. “This is a disaster.”

He gave me a lachrymose smile, it still light up his whole features. “It is, of the sweetest kind.”

“Once I step in Adriata, once I wed your king, I will not look at you the same and you won’t look at me at all. It will be our end. We are running on stolen time, once it ends this too will.”

“We might be thieves, my love, but we won’t be ungrateful ones.”

I smiled at his words. “I still want you.”

“I never stopped wanting you.”

My steps were as large as his and I practically leapt in his arms. He held me tight, my forehead pressed to his while he slowly spun us round. We shared a breath, a heartbeat, one touch—a aching and needing touch. It didn’t feel like flames, it felt like first break of light through the greyest of clouds, soft feather, and mist. His nose nudged mine and I anticipated that joining, his lips on mine, his taste and need…for too long. Both of us did as none leaned in for that first contact. Never before had I hesitated, never had I doubted, backed away or reconsidered. Never had I wanted one person of this sort, body and soul, all flesh, and all blood, yet I did for the first time hesitate and then gave up to the odds of chaos that kiss would have enkindled.

Kilian’s eyes dropped shut and he gently shook his head. “I cannot do it, my heart. It will kill me if I get to taste you and not be able to do it for my entire life. I’ll go mad, slowly and torturously.”

My chest swelled. “And I will go mad if I never do. I’ll go mad, anyway.”

“Forgive me,” was all he said, as he held me there for a lost eternity.

I cupped his face and rose his gaze to me, devastation wearing all their colour. “I have someone who is all mine, and I cannot even make him mine,” I said in a tremulous smile.

“Forgive me,” he repeated. The pain that gaze cursed, almost branded my skin by fire.

“Why is this so hard? Why does it have to be you? The first time I wish to belong to someone, why does it have to be with someone who cannot have me?” I blew a long breath, and yet my chest felt even heavier, the new breath even harder. “This is all your fault.”

He laughed softly and I bit my lip at that sound that almost shattered me whole. “And I have never been more guilty in my life, but for this…I’d pay for a thousand lifetimes.”

“You and your pretty words. Those hateful pretty words.”

“Liar,” he said, kissing the bridge of my nose. “You like my pretty words.”