Page 137 of Enchanted Shadows
“I was there, distracted and not myself. And we were there, in that very clearing, because of how desperate I was to fix things with you.Allof it is my fault, Kess. All of it. And I can’t get past it. That my decisions almost cost you your life.”
That stilled her entirely, I wasn’t sure she was even blinking.
“Add that on the worst moments, there is a thread of doubt that seeps in and wonders. Wonders if Calix isn’t right. That you know in your heart you wanted to be bonded to him. That you still want him and not the man you find yourself married to for convenience’s sake.”
Her eyes flashed with anger then. “Are you truly this moronic?”
“I—” Was I? “Yes?”
“I have been attracted to you from the very start, and I don’t know how you didn’t see it. All your brute strength, you can choke a man with your bare hands if you merely got the whim, but instead, you lead with a tenderness and kindness that defies your exterior.”
I couldn’t form a thought while she carried on. “I don’t want to bond with Calix. Maybe once I considered it, but even back then, when I actually did have real feelings for him, I didn’t want to give that piece of me to him. He could take my body and have my hand in marriage, but he didn’t deserve the possibility of two Enchantments and the responsibilities that come along with them.” She must have seen something on my face she didn’t like because she snapped, “I donotstill have feelings for Calix. If I did, I wouldn’t have tried to kill him.”
I had no idea what to say. “Oh.”
“Yeah ‘oh.’ And just as you reminded me repeatedly that what I was forced to do in Agria for my brother was not all my fault, Iwill do the same for you. Not all of what went down in Agria is your fault. Not telling me you were going to offer me the crown, yes. That is entirelyyourfault.”
“Kess,” I began. “I’m?—”
“I’m not done. You know what else is entirely your fault? The way you kiss me. The way you constantly check on me. The way my eyes and hands want to constantly touch you. The way I worry about you so much that I cannot breathe. The way that this silly marriage was supposed to be fake and hasn’t been for a long damn time!”
I ceased breathing but felt it all, right between my ribs. A fall breeze rushed in to cool my sweat and remind me that I was, in fact, still alive. That this was real life after all. Was she saying what I thought she was saying? “Give me something real, Kess.”
“I love you!” she put her hands out at her sides, one still holding the sword. “Dammit, I love you!”
I was moving before she was done. I’d noted that sometime in our arguing and fighting, Miles had apparently decided that Kessara was not going to maim me and left.
Good.In possibly the fastest move of my life, I made all space between us vanish as I crashed into her, kissing her soundly.
She was the one to bring us back to reality, gently tugging on my hair and removing her lips from mine long enough to ask, “Are you done? Avoiding me?”
I let out a sigh but refused to move my hands from her. “I never wanted to, honey. I was bogged down by guilt over how things went down in Agria, that paired with how I feel like you deserve your freedom from all of this, even me, made me in a foul mood.”
“I am free here,” she stated. “I joined the team. I helped Artem. I am trying to...heal.”
“We didn’t get married because we were in love,” I argued. “So I still feel as if I’m caging you. The last thing I would ever want to do to someone I love.”
“We didn’t get married because we were in love,” she agreed. “But we found it all the same. I am free here, and with that freedom, I choose to love you. With everything that I am.”
“I loveyou. And I’m also about to kiss you disrespectfully,” I warned.
She cocked her head in challenge. “Make it count, Commander.”
CHAPTER 43
All of my senses were dialed in. I was trained in numerous ways to kill a man, and I had used all of them at one time or another. I was built to attack, always ready for a fight. But in this exact moment, all of my focus was locked in on my wife. A fire could have been raging around us, and I wouldn’t have noticed nor cared. I would’ve gladly been burned. In this moment, she waseverything.
As breathing became more difficult, as thinking became more difficult, as doing anything other thanfeelingbecame difficult, our hands more frantic, I felt myself get covered in shadows and then had the sensation of being moved. One moment we were in the middle of the training ring, the next she opened the door to my cabin.
I looked to her, my eyebrows reaching for my hair.
“The castle was too far.”
“You need to be spending time with Artem today,” I reminded her, even as I let her walk me backward toward the bed as the door shut behind us.
She kissed me. “I will.” And again as her nails dug into the skin on my shoulders. “Can you just shut up and let me love you?”
I grinned. I sometimes liked to think I was a complex man, but in this moment, I found I really wasn’t. “Yeah.”
