Page 24 of Iron Crown

“I’m so sorry,” I gasped, touching the long lines that I’d carved in his flesh.

“I bear your marks with pride,” he said, his face still in my hair and out of my view.

Then something else bothered me. A new seed of jealousy that, strangely, made me clench with him inside me, as if my entire body wanted him to know that he wasmine, and that he belonged exactly where he was right at this moment.

“Then put your scar on my palm,” I whispered, opening my left hand up to him.

He stared at it, his eyes wide, lips parted. He took my hand, running his thumb across the line that should be there. He smiled to himself, like a thought had pleased him. But then his brows furrowed in agitation, before falling back into a serene mask of indifference. His expression had slipped from one expression to another in seconds. I wanted to pry my thumbs into his skull and open it up to see the thoughts inside!

Eoghan kissed my forehead. “We have no need for such things.”

It was an answer that wasn’t supposed to be questioned, but it set off alarms in my head.

I felt like I was on rocky ground! Eoghan, who haddemandedeverything from me, was telling me that a commitment in front of others wasn’t necessary? No. This wasn’t like him at all. This wasn’t alright.

It was especially not right when he pulled himself out of me, breaking our connection, when he would have stayed there, holding me until we could no longer stand. Until wehadto get to bed. Or he’d demand another round… and then another…

Where was my lustful, greedy lover?

He turned from me, zipping up his fly, before he ran a hand over his hair, then his face, as if fixing himself to walk out and leave me here.

I grabbed him, turning him around. His eyes were glassy, but I saw no other signs of the strangeness I was feeling. Was I going crazy?

He looked at me, expectantly, as if my grabbing him could only be because I had something to say. But I didn’t. Couldn’t I just grab him for the sake of holding on? Why was he acting so strange?

Searching for something to say, I came upon something that had been bothering me since yesterday—a hard truth that we needed to talk about.

“My love,” I whispered, using his own terms of endearment back at him. “We have to get Cillian to safety, until we fix this situation.”

He came to me, closing the distance again, settling between my thighs. His hard eyes looked at me, black and cold as night. “No.”

“Darling, I know people who can keep him safe until the war is over. They can—”

“I cannot let him go, or you.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m not letting either of you out of my sight.”

I clutched his face in my hands, placing my forehead against his. “You’re not letting us go. I will stay. I will fight beside you, I swear it. But he’s just a defenseless boy! They will use him against us.”

He pulled away from my grasp. He put his hands through his hair, turning his back to me… possibly for the first time ever.

“No.” His voice was so full of anguish that it hurt my soul. “I just got you two back. I can’t—”

“Darling, please…” I reached for him, but he must have heard or felt me coming because he flinched away. “We have to fight this war as weneedto; it will be fast, violent, and cruel. It has to be in order to destroy the Durantes.”

I felt the rising anger in my throat, because his war was now mine. I needed Eugenio Durante dead and buried. I need the Mafia gone. I needed them burned to ashes.

“To do that, we need to concentrate on one thing—breaking them. But our son…” I gasped. “I know what happened to Yuliya.”

Eoghan stiffened, his shoulders straightening as if I’d just hit him with a jolt of electricity.

“I don’t want them using that tactic on our boy. Do you?”

“No,” he said, turning around, his head shaking and his lips in a deep frown. He wasn’t saying no to my question. He was saying no to me. “I will not let him go. Do not ask this of me, Kira, because I cannot do it. Iwillnotallow it.”

“I have never spent a night away from him. I have never slept without him in my arms. Do you think I want to do this?” I snapped, the anger at his unreasonable stubbornness overwhelming my calm.

“I have spent his entire life away from him because ofyou!”There it was. The first sign of his resentment. “I will not lose another second.”

I had always suspected that for all his words of love and forgiveness, there would be bitterness somewhere in there for what I’d done. It was only natural, after all. I don’t know why it cut me so deep. I knew it was there, despite all his loving assurances about how I was forgiven. How could it not be? But it wasn’t the time to try and make amends when a war had arrivedinsideour house.

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