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She seemed to be struggling but I didn’t know if she needed for me to stop or keep going. I’d like to think there were times I knew what a woman needed or wanted, yet at this particular moment in time, I was utterly oblivious. All I knew was that she looked more broken than I had ever seen her, in either form. And it was unacceptable. “What do you need, Es?”
A tear slipped out her eye as she took my hand and brought it up to her cheek. “I need to...feel. I need to touch. I need to remember exactly how human I am.”
My breath caught and I fought off the urge to immediately crash into her. Instead, I forced my body to stay steady and brushed my thumb across her cheek to catch her tear just as she had done to me. “And you would like for me to touch you?”
She nodded as she gripped onto my shirt with her free hand and whispered, “Everything in this form scares me. Everything but you.Please, Keir.”
The please was my complete undoing.
I kissed her gently while sending the smallest strand of my magic to travel along her back to warm her. “You will tell me if it gets to be too much?”
She arched her back into it and kissed me back. “I will, but I fear it will rather never be enough.”
This was a horrible idea and was only going to complicate things. Only going to make my leaving for Wylan that much more painful. Yet I couldn’t tell her no. Not with her green eyes looking into mine with an intensity which lit my blood on fire. If we couldn’t have eternity, if we couldn’t have a future, I could at least give her this. For this stolen moment in time, we didn’t have to be enemies. We could want and touch and simply be.
CHAPTER38
We avoided reality the rest of the afternoon, and again in the night. Yet the dawn brought it knocking on the door, Zaire’s voice attached.
Esta was curled into my arms. It brought me a peace I didn’t know existed, watching her sleep next to me, knowing she felt safe enough with me and around me to have even asked this of me. Yet it also tore at my soul, taking another chunk of it to the darkness. Because as Zaire’s knocks grew louder, I knew this wasn’t supposed to be my future. Couldn’t be.
But dammit it if I didn’t want it anyway.
I gently nudged Esta awake.
“He will go away,” she mumbled as I tried my best not to be distracted by the angles of her back as she curled around her pillow.
“Esta, please,” Zaire begged. “I will keep coming. Every day. For as long as it takes.”
I felt very much like an intruder for this exchange, wanting to somehow vanish.
A gray form landed on the queen’s balcony, and for half a moment, I wondered what would happen if they found me here. If they would whisper about the queen. I didn’t give a damn about what they said about me, but I was certain in Dra Skor, with this focus on heirs, this would not be taken well.
I take one day off,Malachi said as he hit the balcony door with his nose, opening it to let his head in.
The queen, though only her bare back was showing, let out a sigh and reached for covers.
“I think my exit strategy has just arrived,” I whispered as I grabbed my clothes.
Esta snorted a laugh and shook her head at me, smiling.
Still, I did not wish to leave her. Particularly with her looking so warm and comfortable. I leaned down and kissed her hard, not knowing if there could ever be another time.
“See you at the ball?” I whispered.
“I’ll be the one in the crown,” Esta offered.
“Me too.”
“Esta?!” Zaire said, having heard her voice.
“May I get a ride?” I whispered to Malachi.
Get on, lover boy,he teased.
He headed the direction of my rooms, but I told him not to. “Take me somewhere for five minutes, please. Just five. I need five minutes. John will tell me what a complication this is and will be all worried about me, Emric will try to save things by being witty, and I will be left all day to mourn for a path that I can never be allowed to follow, much less even find.”
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