Page 72 of A Reign of Roses
“I can’t,” he said in a rush.
Horrible, ice-cold fear sank through me. “Can’t what?” I whispered. Tears had already welled in my eyes. I was so,soweak when it came to him.
He shook his head, brows lowered in some kind of warning. “If I go to you…If I hold you…” His voice broke on the word and I began to cry in earnest.
“Arwen…” His next words were said so low, his tormented expression was the only proof I’d not imagined them. “It willbreakme.”
Something like relief loosened my shoulders just a bit. I’d thought…assumed he was saying something else. And I wouldn’t even have blamed him. To be together, when everything around us was constantly shattering…I wasn’t sureIwas strong enough. But this…this fear was something else. Something I could handle.
“Come here,” I whispered, scooting to the side carefully. “And I will put you back together.”
I could tell by the way his brows met that my words weakened his already flimsy resolve. He crossed the room in three strides and gathered me into his arms.
We breathed each other in. His warmth, like home. His ragged breaths—each one a rhapsody. His leathery scent and sweat seeping into my entire aching body—I swore my bones groaned in pleasure just to be held by him.
Kane pressed his lips to my forehead over and over. “I’ve almostlost you too many times,” he said. “And each time…I lose a piece of myself each time, Arwen.”
“I know,” I replied, running my fingers up and down his powerful, shuddering back. “But maybe…if everything we face, we face together, the pieces will grow back even stronger.”
Kane coughed out one wet laugh and I wondered, my face pressed against his chest, if he was crying. “Your optimism knows no bounds.”
I smiled against his sternum, and murmured, “Isn’t that why you keep me around?”
“No,” he said, lightness finally returning to his voice as he tipped my head up and our wet eyes met. “I’m mostly in it for the banter.”
This time, when we kissed, we took our time. Soft, and salty with tears.
When my lips ached and my body had grown too tired to move, we stayed in the dusty bed, holding each other in peaceful silence. I buried my head into the nook of his neck—I’d missed the comfort of his body more than I could articulate.
Kane’s fingers curled softly around mine.
“Are you sure this is…all right?”
For a moment I didn’t know what he meant. That maybe I was too wounded to be touched?
But his face—the unbridled misery carved into every one of his beautiful features…
“No.” I shook my head, horror blaring in my ears at the realization of what he must have thought. “Kane, your father never…”
A single breath released from him and he pressed a hand to my cheek. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t wish to. I can’t imagine what you experienced there. If I could, I’d go back and rip the rest of the palace to shreds. I might, still.”
“He kept me in a tower for months, but aside from that kiss henever touched me—never even tortured me. They took my lighte every few days. His court witch did it.”
“Octavia.” Kane’s eyes narrowed to slits. “That scheming, treacherous bitch.”
I sighed. “Yeah, she’s a monster.”
“She’s my aunt.”
My eyes widened. How had I not put the pieces together? Kane’s mother had been mostly Fae, but he’d told me long ago in his wine cellar that her grandmother had been a witch. And Octavia had Kane’s same unruly dark hair…That’s why she’d expected to be made queen. She had been the late monarch’s sister.
“She was envious of my mother’s throne and beauty, her closeness to Briar rather than her. Octavia always wanted to climb up the rungs of the court. But to serve the man who butchered her sister…” Kane looked as though his fury could capsize an armada.
I grasped for his hands and squeezed. “Your father is weak, Kane. That’s why he needs her. Why he had her take my lighte. He’s losing power, I think.”
Kane considered my words, his head tipping to the side in thought. “He ran out of lighte fairly fast when we fought. He punched me.”
“Your fatherpunchedyou? Rather than using his lighte?”
