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‘Marit—’
She turned and pressed a kiss against his lips, stopping the words she couldn’t bear to hear. Her hands plunged into his hair, holding him to her when he would have pulled away. He let the kiss linger as long as she needed it, but the man was more stubborn than she had given him credit for. He held her in his arms, offering her the world she’d always wanted and now could never have.
‘Don’t do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you whatever you need, take you wherever you want to go. I’ll complete any list of things you like.’
Her eyes began to fill with tears she wouldn’t dishonour him by wiping away.
‘We’ll run away. I’ll find the most beautiful home for us and you’ll fill it with music every day. You’ll sing every day. We’ll dance every day. And I’ll—’
‘Lykos, don’t,’ she said, shaking her head to stop his words. She couldn’t trust herself not to give into what he was saying, what he was offering, because it was everything her heart wanted. And then she saw it. His jaw clenched and his eyes darkened the moment he felt her response as a rejection of him. ‘No, Lykos—’
He turned from her and the pain she felt as he began to shut her out was devastating. ‘Would I have ever been enough?’ he asked, his gaze on the sea, pain glittering in his silvery eyes stealing the breath from her lungs.
‘How could you ask that?’
‘Are you going to tell me that the fact I grew up a child thief in an orphanage has nothing to do with why you won’t be with me?’
‘Lykos!’ His words sliced little cuts into her heart, but she recognised them for what they were. A lifetime of hurt and rejection. ‘Look at me,’ she demanded, so he could see what was in her eyes, her heart. She waited and only when he turned towards her could she answer him. ‘Everything you have done, everywhere you have been, it is a part of what makes youyou. You shouldn’t deny your past because it is the very thing that has driven you to achieve such incredible things. It’s what makes you see the people most are blind to, makes you so generous with your time to those who deserve it, and what makes your heart so, so valuable, and you so amazing to me.’
It killed her to see the distrust in his eyes.
‘Then tell me, if the legislation wasn’t in place, would you marry me?’
Her heart stuttered at his question, stumbling over the thought that he might have wanted to marry her and the realisation that even then she couldn’t. She felt tears gathering in her eyes, and he must have seen it because darkness swept into his eyes and she hated herself but she could never lie to him.
‘No.’
‘But you would have married André? And it’snotbecause of where I came from?’ His question was loud, angry and full of hurt and disbelief.
‘No.’
‘Then what is it?’ he demanded.
‘Me!’she couldn’t help but yell back. ‘It’s me! I’ve changed, Lykos. Because when I ran away to marry André I was only thinking of myself. I was ignoring the fact that Aleksander didn’twantme to make an advantageous marriage, heneededme to. The second in line to the throne must marry someone titled for the sake and security of the royal family and our country. Marrying André—marrying you—would be so selfish,’ she said, shaking her head, her heart breaking over what she wanted with every fibre of her being, what she couldn’t have. ‘But if I am going to do this properly then I have to do it all, including marrying someone with a title.’
Lykos glared at her. ‘And this has nothing to do with you trying to prove yourself worthy to a family that has never seen you, loved you, for who you truly are?’ he accused.
It hurt how closely his question cut to the bone. She couldn’t deny that there was a truth there, but it wasn’t the sole reason behind her decision. In the last few days she had changed so much and it was because of Lykos. She had flourished in the freedom he had given her and, in that, found herself—even if it had cost her her heart.
‘Tell me you don’t love me,’ he demanded, not waiting for an answer to his earlier question.
Every part of her ached to say that she did, burned to tell him how much she loved him. But she couldn’t. ‘Please,’ she begged, ‘don’t make me another person in your life who tells you they love you before leaving you.’
He closed his eyes, his inhalation sharp and swift, speaking only of pain, the muscle flexing at his jaw, and her heart ached for him, for her, and for what they would never have.
‘They don’t deserve you.’ Lykos’s reply came strong and true, a slash of his hand through the air.
She cast her gaze to the floor, unable to stand the ferocity and truth in his gaze. ‘That may be. But Svardia does.’
She looked up, letting him see how much this cost her, let it shine from her eyes. She poured out her hurt into the seascape and let the salt tears flow. Her sob caught in her chest and the first, ‘Sorry,’ came whispered on her breath, then another, then another, until all around them her apologies echoed until Lykos swept her into his arms and soothed the deep sorrow lying in her heart.
He brushed her hair from her damp face and pressed kisses to her heated skin, her forehead, her cheeks, beneath her ear, her lips, her lips again, and slowly her mouth opened to his, wanting him selfishly just one last time. She came to life beneath his touch, her hands reaching for the front of his shirt, fisting the cotton, the buttons straining. She feared that she wanted so much it would never be satiated. Until a want deeper, more primal rose within her. One that was urgent and hot and just as desperate, but the exact opposite. Now she needed to give.
Lykos felt the change in her ripple beneath her skin and taste different on her tongue. It felt like...power. She pulled him into a kiss that forced the sea to move differently beneath his feet, as if they were pushing against an impossible tide and for just this moment in time they might succeed.
Arousal swept him up in a storm, ignited by the passion twisting and unfolding in his arms, burning through the ache in his heart. There would be time to feel it later, long after he had returned Marit to Svardia. But he could not,wouldnot, damage her by removing her from what she felt was her place in the world. He’d felt the strength of her decision, the way that it had settled about her shoulders. It wasn’t because she felt shehadto; it was what she needed to do for her sister, her family and her country.
He pulled back from her kiss, her hair a wild halo of gold, picking up the flecks of yellow starbursts in her eyes that looked like the feathers of a phoenix. Her lips were kiss-bruised, a flush riding high on her cheeks, her breath as ragged as his own. If this was their last day together then he would make sure that it was spectacular.
