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Chapter Eleven
Lonan
He’d actually stopped.
I couldn’t believe it, and panic made my throat close up as he spun round to face me again, still brandishing his dagger.
But not because I was worried about him hurting me. If he did, I would let him. I wouldn’t fight back. I couldn’t hurt him. And he deserved to hurt me. If he remembered me, he’d want to. He’d want to kill me.
“What?” he gritted out, but I could see the hint of fear in his eyes. The confusion.
“I… I…” I didn’t even know what I wanted to say to him. He didn’t remember me, so it was pointless to apologise. To try and explain. But Iwantedto. And he deserved it, even if he didn’t understand why I was saying it.
Despite the pain of seeing him, of him not recognising me at all, intense relief chased away some of the hollowness in my stomach. He was here. He was alive, and he was healthy. He had a strange new arm, and he had wielded his bow and arrow expertly. Tender pride suffused me. He was so strong. Even after everything, he hadn’t backed down. He hadn’t let my mother win.
“What are you trying to do?” he barked when I didn’t speak, gaze darting around as if he thought someone might leap from the shadows. “What the fuck do you want?”
My heart was pounding, chest rising fast with my panicked breaths and the overwhelming sense of urgency to say something to him. To say everything to him.
“I love you,” I blurted, and even when he froze in shock, the words kept pouring from me in an unstoppable rush. “I miss you so much it feels like I’m dying. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it, but it wasn’t a game, Ash. None of what we had was a game. It was real.”
I forced myself not to step closer to him even as my body strained to. I wanted to feel his warmth, to breathe in his scent. But I wasn’t allowed. I didn’t deserve to.
“I would give anything for you to remember me, Ash,” I told him unsteadily. “Anything. Everything. There is so much I wish I’d done differently. I should have tried harder. I should have—I tried to stop it. I tried to help you. I tried, Ash.”
“T-tried what.” His mouth trembled, and his green-gold eyes were bright but hard as he stared at me. “Why are you saying you love me? Who are you? What are you sorry for? Is this a trick?”
“It’s not a trick,” I rushed out. “It’s not a trick. It’s not a game.”
“Who the fuck are you?” His mouth trembled again before he clenched his jaw to stop it. “Why are you saying this?”
“Because I might never get another chance to,” I told him hoarsely. “You can’t come back here. It’s not safe. They’re looking for you, Ash. In the forest. You must remain hidden.”
He stiffened at that, his fingers clenching his dagger tighter. “You mean the Carlin? She’s looking for me?”
I nodded, clenching my fingers in the soft fabric of his shorts to stop myself from reaching for him in desperation. “Wherever you have been hiding, stay there.”
“Why are you telling me this? You’re unseelie. She’s your ruler.”
I swallowed hard and clenched my jaw. “I hate her.”
His tense muscles relaxed infinitesimally at that, because he knew the Folk couldn’t lie. He couldn’t lie now, either.
“And I love you,” I couldn’t help but add, even though it made him tense back up.
Now I’d said the words, I wanted to keep saying them. To keep telling him, to say it for every time that he’d said it to me and my throat had closed up with panic before I could get the words out. I hadn’t felt worthy of it. I’d felt like a fraud. A snake, desperately soaking up his love and affection while I could, knowing what my mother had planned for him and being unable to tell him anything.
“Stop saying that,” he gritted out. “How can you love me? You don’t kn—”
I saw the panic flare in his eyes again when he couldn’t get the words out, and my insides crumpled. My poor Ash.
Would he remember any of this?
“I just wanted to tell you,” I whispered, knowing it wouldn’t make any sense to him. “Just once.”
He was silent for a long time, and I could feel him struggling to understand why I was saying any of this. Eventually, he rasped, “If you’re trying to trick me, it won’t work. I’m leaving.”
Panic made my arms jerk, desperately wanting to reach out and stop him. I refrained, mainly because the longer he stayed here, the more danger he was in. He had to leave.
