Page 107 of Throne of Dreams
“Would you want a palace?” he asked.
“I suppose it would be necessary.” She shifted her shoulders. She honestly had given little thought to where she would live. “But I wouldn’t need anything fancy.”
“You may not need one, but you deserve one.” He moved closer. “What would it look like?”
“I don’t really know. I always assumed I would rule Kells.” If she ever had her own palace, it would look nothing like Carman’s fortress. It would be welcoming and beautiful, not intimidating and macabre. “A throne, however…I think I’d like one that resembles the Aurastone. Something that shimmers and reflects the glow of the dawn. A throne of beauty.”
Tiernan was barely a breath from her now. “A throne of dreams,” he murmured.
“Yes.” She sighed when his lips hovered over hers. “A throne of dreams.”
ChapterThirty-One
Tiernan brushed a kiss along Maeve’s jaw while his hand lazily encircled her neck. Her skin was like velvet beneath his touch. Decadent. He stroked his thumb up and down the column of her throat and her head dipped back, allowing his tongue to trail over the tattoo painting her flesh. The breathy little sound she made caused his pulse to hammer and his cock to throb.
“Did you know,” he drawled, while he lightly kissed her lips once, then twice, “I knew you were mine the moment I first saw you?”
She drew back. Her sea-swept eyes, almost hazy with lust, suddenly cleared. “But you were so awful to me.”
“I was.” Guilt toiled through him. It carved him up from the inside out.
She looked up at him from beneath her feathery lashes. “Why?”
This was the moment. He could tell her everything. He could tell her the real reason he pushed her away. He could be honest about his snide remarks and callous insults. But there was no telling how she would react when she discovered she was fated to someone who was destined to die. She’d already lost so much of herself; he didn’t want to make it worse.
“I have done many things in my life that I am not proud of, but there are very few things I would ever lament.” He pressed his mouth to hers, firm, then broke their kiss apart. “Treating you the way I did is one of them. It’s a regret I’ll live with for all eternity.”
He could see her mind working, almost hear her thinking, but he shut out her thoughts. Now was not the time to intervene, to break into her mind without permission.
She gnawed on her bottom lip and then, “Does this have anything to do with the fact that you’ll lose everything if you fall in love?”
Tiernan felt the blood drain from his face. An unsettling kind of dread locked tight inside of him. “Perhaps. But falling in love has nothing to do with it.” He studied her. “What do you know of it?”
She played with the pieces of braided grass in her hands. “Deirdre may have mentioned an ancient prophecy…”
Ancient prophecy indeed.
He would have to tread these waters carefully to keep them both from drowning. “I’d say she romanticized things. It’s not exactly a deal…it’s a vow I made a long time ago.”
“How much of it is true?” There was a tremor in her voice.
“I suppose that would depend on how much she told you.” The harrowing grip of dread took hold of him and refused to let go. He was torn between wanting to tell her everything and keeping her locked in the dark, if only to keep her heart safe. “When my parents were slain in the Autumn woods, grief tormented me. I called out to the gods, to any who would answer, to let me have my vengeance.”
Her breath hitched. “Who answered?”
“The god of death.”
Maeve’s face fell as she processed what he’d told her. She chewed her bottom lip again, thinking, and he found it painfully difficult to stay out of her head.
“This deal you made,” she began, considering each word with care, “what were the exact words?”
Every muscle in his body tensed. It was now. He could tell her now or spare her. “In exchange for the power of absolute destruction, I would lose everything in return.”
A ripple of fear washed over her face. It slammed through him like a gust of wind at the onslaught of a storm, strong and powerful.
“Everything?” She paled. “What do you mean, everything?”
“My power. My magic.” Tiernan’s throat seized. “My life.”
