Page 65 of Blackwarden
I wrapped Rosalin in my wings and stepped back through the portal.
Chapter 33 ~ My Blackwarden
Rosalin
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I woke on the cold floor, disoriented, the world spinning as I tried to push myself up. The warmth of a body touched my arm, and I turned toward it.
Blue hair, dark skin, black horns.Keres.
I touched the tip of his pointed ear but he didn’t stir.
“Keres?” I rolled toward him, cupping his face in my hands, my stomach bottoming out. “Keres,” I whispered. My eyes flooding with tears as his eyes remained woefully closed.
He’d used too much of his magic. He was immortal, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be killed. I gathered him into my arms and pressed my face against his neck, smothering my tears in his hair. I’d lost him—my Blackwarden, my second chance. He’d protected me so many times and I’d lost him.
“Please, Keres.”
His arms wrapped around me. A sob broke free in my relief. It was real and hot, washing through me as he gathered me against him, tucking my head under his chin and ceaselessly hugging me. I melted into him, ignoring the silk robe slipping from myshoulders, savoring the heat of his bare skin, the scent of him. I was lost in his arms, and I never wanted to be found.
“You remembered,” he said into my hair before kissing my head.
He pushed us up, pulling me onto his lap, my legs immediately enveloping his waist. I snuggled against him, wrapping my own arms over his and digging my fingers into his long hair. I refused to let him go. Not yet.
Maybe never.
My time in the Unseelie Court was blurry, but based on what I could remember I didn’t want to remember it clearly. I pulled back to look at him, cradling his face in my hands as his eyes washed over my face. I was seeing the real Keres for the first time with all my faculties, and my heart intact. I’d always found him beautiful, but he was...painfully gorgeous. The way the light glazed his black skin with a silver sheen that accentuated every muscle, the curve of his lips, the line of his jaw. I struggled to look away. He was Dark Fae, as he’d said, in every sense of the term. So inhumanly beautiful.
A line of blood trailed down his throat.
“You’re bleeding.” An insatiable urge to check him over for other injuries flashed through me as my hands roamed over his shoulders.
“It’s nothing.”
“I...I’m so sorry,” I said through another sob. “I couldn’t help you.”
He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to mine. “Never apologize again, Ms. Greene.”
I pulled back enough to glare at him as a smile crept across his face. I must have looked completely confused.
“Glorious creature, you broke the curse.” He held my chin firmly in place.
I wasn’t prepared for the ache his gaze left in me. The smile slipped from his face as his eyes fell to my lips. I didn’t wait for him to kiss me. I crashed into him, hungry for the taste of him. Hemoaned into my mouth, the sound sending sparks of heat through me as my fingers followed the lines of his neck to his bare chest. I eased back from him breathless, remembering the moments before he pulled me through the portal.
I remembered his name. That wasn’t what broke the curse. I’d told him I loved him. I’d confessed in front of the Hag Queen.I loved him.It didn’t matter what face he wore; I lovedhim. Somehow, a Dark Fae wormed himself into my angry heart, and I didn’t know how or when, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. He was my midnight apple, and I loved him.
“Rosalin?” The sound of my name from his lips was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard.
I smiled as I kissed him again.
––––––––
I’d struggled to help Keres to his suite. After using so much of his magic to escape Bevgyah and then to open the gate back to the human world, he was beyond exhausted. I’d forced him into bed to rest. Even though he’d begged me to stay with him, I feared my presence would only be distracting. I knew I, for one, would struggle to keep my hands to myself.
Instead, I told him I was going to see if I could find anything in the library on warding the portal, or his Gatehouse against anyone coming through, and he reluctantly let me slip away. I don’t know what I thought I was going to find, but when I entered the library the braziers flared to life, a stack of books waiting for me on a side table next to a comfortable chair.
“I missed you, too,” I said to the ceiling, the nearest brazier flickering in response.
