Page 101 of A Kingdom of Pleasure and Torment

He closes his eyes. “Cenere…”

“You didn’t tell me, and you didn’t remove the spell, because once you do, Parphia is gone. Truly gone.” I take a step back and look down at myself. The human body I thought I inhabited. The human feelings I so often cursed myself for having. These are all that remain of a long-dead faery queen.

“No. I didn’t tell you the truth because when you found out... you would be gone.”

I meet his eyes. “That isn’t true. I’ll be a faery, the way I was meant to be before all of this secrecy and treachery and betrayal.”

“But you won’t be the human Cenere that I fell in love with.”

I feel as though I’m sinking, though my feet remain on the floor.

“I have never pretended to be selfless. Or honest.” He chuckles ruefully. “Yes, Cenere. I love you. And the love of a faery is selfish and consuming and possessive. I would never have let you change if I stayed. That’s why I left you.”

“You love me,” I whisper. I knew it, to the depths of my being. I should be furious with him, but I can’t be. I’m just relieved that it wasn’t something I imagined.

“Kathras knew,” he goes on. “I gave him the diary and asked him to give it to you.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

We stare at each other for a long, silent moment.

“You framed Kathras for his father’s murder,” I say.

Luthian nods. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it was a part of the plan.” Luthian tilts his head down. “And because I suspected that you loved him. Do you deny it?”

“I do not.” My feelings for Kathras are complicated, but beneath them all is a foundation of love. Much like what I feel for Luthian.

“I couldn’t stand the thought of you being with him.” Luthian smiles sadly. “A faery’s love.”

Selfish. Consuming. Possessive.

“I should have known.” I shake my head and twist my nightgown in my hands. “I should have known.”

“Should have known what?” he asks.

I lift my chin and stare into his eyes. “I should have known that I was a faery.”

“You could not have known.” He turns away.

I don’t allow him to escape me. I rush to him, throw myself into his path, and grasp his arms, holding him fast. There is a battle waging behind the silvery depths of his eyes. He lifts his hands and holds my forearms, as if deciding whether to push me away.

“I should have known, for I want to possess you! I want to consume you!” My admission is a plea. “Possess me. Consume me. Because, selfishly, I love you, too.”

With a wretched sob, he pulls me into his arms and claims my mouth with his.

Chapter Forty-Three

I fall into Luthian as if from a great height. Dizzy the moment my feet leave the cliff’s edge, exhilarated by the danger, knowing that what awaits me at the end can only be pain.

Luthian has taught me plenty about pain. But nothing could have prepared me for the ache of losing him. Now that I know what it feels like, it makes me hungry to avoid feeling it again. I cling to him, almost climb him in my desperation to physically hold him here with me.

I expect him to leave. That this is a final, passionate kiss goodbye to mark the ending of everything we could have had together.

---