Page 110 of Yearning For Her

Then he switched on the lights. Willow’s eyes widened as she looked around the room, stunned.

The rest of his apartment was all blacks and grays, but here, there was color. So much color. Paintings covered nearly every inch of the walls, and easels, some with cloth-shrouded canvases, stood all around the room. The tarp spread across the floor was spattered with paint of every color imaginable, and the big table that held dozens of jars and tubes of paint, paint brushes, and palettes had fared little better.

But as Willow studied the paintings and absorbed what she was seeing, her surprise only deepened.

Many of the works were moody, dark, favoring shades of red, black, and gray whether they were abstract or contained figures. A few were lighter, with greens, blues, and yellows. There were landscapes scattered here and there. The familiar Memoree skyline under a night sky, viewed from the overlook he’d taken her to. A rugged coastline during a storm. A river flowing through a canyon. And several more of places that were too lovely, too alien, to be real. Places with colors too pure, with white trees and flowers unlike anything she’d ever seen, with a sky that seemed to bleed into the crystal-clear surface of the lake beneath it.

Willow lightly traced her fingers over one of those paintings. “Are these…?”

“Memories from beyond the Veil,” he replied. “Hollow attempts to recreate the hollow beauty of that realm.”

“They’re wonderful. Magical.”

He laughed gently. “They’re also as close as I ever want to get to Tulthiras again.”

She looked back at him to find that he’d not moved any farther into the room. “You really never want to go back?”

“I have everything I need right here, Willow.” His eyes were fixed on her, leaving no question as to what he meant.

Her heart quickened, and a whisper of pleasure coursed through her. She looked away from the scorching intensity of his gaze, inhaled deeply, and forced her attention back to the artwork. The paintings of the Evergarden were so surreal. Like vivid, impossible dreams.

As she wandered farther into the room, the color purple became prominent in more and more of the paintings.

She swept her eyes around the walls, following the apparent progression. First, abstract purples with splashes of green. More colors gradually crept in, and a figure began to take form—a figure that was startlingly familiar to her. A woman with lavender hair and green eyes.

Willow’s lips parted in wonder.

She saw herself in a variety of poses, under a variety of lighting, against a variety of backdrops. Saw herself captured in breathtaking realism and passionate stylization. But in every painting, she was vibrant, even when there was clearly sadness in her eyes.

Each stroke had been made with such care, with such thoughtfulness. With such purpose. Several of the paintings depicted her in the very dress she wore now. Others showed her in lingerie—some of the same lingerie she’d worn in her boudoir photos years ago—or with cloth tastefully draped over her private parts, while a few more had her erotically baring everything. She recognized moments she’d shared with Kian in some of the paintings, though he wasn’t in any of them. Moments when she’d been laughing, smiling, or staring into the distance contemplatively.

In every painting, in every pose, she was…beautiful.

She was seeing herself through Kian’s eyes.

Willow stared at the final painting. It was the largest canvas in the room, resting upon an easel next to a glass door that let out onto the terrace. In it, she stood on the bridge near Central Boulevard, the wind tugging at her skirt and hair, all the reflected lights making the dark river below look like a road paved with stars. There was a hint of sorrow and pain in her eyes. And yet, somehow, the image instilled in her a sense of hopefulness. A sense of possibility.

It was like the Willow in the painting could hop onto that starry path and follow it to happiness, to her destiny. To anywhere she wanted to go.

That bridge was where she and Kian had first spoken. It was where she’d made an impulsive decision that wasn’t supposed to have meant anything, but which had changed everything. A decision that had brought them to this moment.

“Kian…” She turned toward him. “These are all of me.”

He nodded, and finally walked deeper into the room. His gaze settled on the earlier paintings in the sequence, the more abstract ones in shades of purple. “After I first had you, these colors tormented me. I could not put brush to canvas without using them. Violet and emerald…”

Kian stopped in front of a portrait of Willow and lovingly ran his fingertips over the face on the canvas. “Before long, I realized it wasn’t the colors at all. It was you. You were haunting me. Your voice, your face, your body, your taste, your essence. I prowled the streets, desperate to feed, but not once could I find even a spark that would enable me to take what I needed. Only when I let you dominate my mind again could I feel any arousal, any excitement, anything beyond the bitterness, frustration, and desperation that was swallowing me.”

Slowly, he continued forward, shrinking the distance between them. “I didn’t understand then. Even when I found you again, even when I realized you were my mate, I didn’t truly understand. But I do now. My soul itself yearned for you, Willow, because you were meant to be mine. Because you are mine.”

Willow remained still, unable to look away from him, hardly able to breathe. She’d known of his need for her. He’d told her that she was his mate. But she’d never realized the gravity of it, not until now, not until his confession. Not until seeing all this.

“You haunted me then, and you haunt me now.” Finally, he reached her, and caught her chin with his fingers. “How could I ever do you justice on a canvas? A dozen paintings, a hundred, a thousand… I will never be able to encompass all of who you are.

“I cannot even choose which of your features is my favorite. Is it these eyes, that sparkle when you laugh?” The light of his gaze warmed as he stroked her bottom lip with his thumb. “These soft lips, that can disarm me with a single smile or crush me with the slightest frown? Your hair, as vibrant as your soul, or your hands, so gentle but sure? It is an impossible choice. But if I had to choose, Willow… I would choose your heart. With all its joy, all its compassion, all its love. Your heart, which leads you to put others before yourself. Your mortal heart, which has claimed mine completely.”

He slid his hand up along her jaw, guiding his fingers beneath her ear and into her hair as he leaned his face closer to hers. “I have met many beautiful creatures, Willow. But you are the only one I’ve known who is utterly captivating both inside and out. You shine brighter than all the rest, be they mortal or fae.”

Tears stung her eyes. She touched her fingers to his brow, tracing it, before caressing his cheek. “I don’t know what to say to all that.”

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