The Shattered Dark (38 page)

I want to keep kissing him, keep touching him, but Aren presses his lips against mine
one last time then takes a half step back. He looks at me, almost as if he thinks
his hands are deceiving him. He needs to prove I’m alive with his eyes now, so he
takes me in. The relief I was searching for earlier reaches his gaze. It doesn’t completely
chase away the shadows of his pain, though.

“I saw you at the edge of the cliff,” I tell him. “I heard you scream my name, and
it killed me.” I loop my arms around him, pull him close again so I can rest my head
against his shoulder. He’s warm and deliciously solid. “I tried to get your attention,
but Tylan had me. He…”

I lift my head. “He took me to the remnants’ camp. It’s in the Corrist Mountains.”
I draw in a breath to tell him more. “I told Naito—Paige is there. A fae named—”

“No, shhh.” He lightly touches a finger to my lips. “Unless the remnants are going
to attack the palace in the next hour, I don’t want to hear a report. You’re always
putting the Realm before yourself. It stops now.”

With that, he scoops me into his arms. It’s sudden and unexpected, but I’m holding
on to him instinctively. He climbs the rest of the steps and takes me to my room.

To my bathroom. He kicks on a lever, and water begins to fill the round, tiled tub.
When Aren sets me on my feet, I steady myself by holding on to the black pipe that
travels up into the ceiling. A reservoir of water is up there. A palace employee fills
it every time it’s drained.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Aren says, studying me, “but you look like you’ve
crossed the Barren.”

Crossing the Barren, a stretch of land in the Realm where no fae can fissure, is an
idiom that basically means I look like shit, and damn it, I do. Dirt is packed under
my fingernails, the sleeves of my gray shirt are torn and streaked with brown
and black, and, when the
edarratae
flash across my skin, they look dim under the thick layer of grime. I don’t want
to think about what my hair must look like.

“God, no wonder you tried to kill me.” I take my hands off him, step away.

He chuckles and pulls me back. “I wasn’t in my right mind. Even like this, I want
you.”

A million chaos lusters somersault in my stomach, and when he kisses me this time,
I’m undone. Nothing matters but him and us and
this
, the way he makes me feel like I’m everything to him. Sometime in the last month,
he’s become everything to me.

He pulls my shirt over my head, cups my face between his hands, and drinks me in.
Edarratae
leap from me to him in excited, frenzied bursts, and I decide then that I’m never
letting him go.

“I never told you,” Aren whispers against my neck. “How difficult it was.” He plants
a kiss on my bare shoulder, just to the right of my bra strap. “Not to touch you in
Cleveland.”

Cleveland?
Too many thoughts are spinning through my head, too many sensations driving through
my body for me to make sense of his words.

“You scared me then.” His hands are between us, unbuttoning my pants. “I wasn’t sure
you’d wake up until I dropped you into the tub.”

“Ohh.” I mean that “oh” to be silent, but just when I realize he’s referring to the
safe house he took me to after Germany, he pulls my earlobe between his teeth. My
entire body turns molten.

I feel him smiling against my neck, and I fall for him even more. I didn’t think that
was possible, but making him happy makes me happy, and all I want to do is make him
smile.

Make him smile and moan and tremble when I touch him.

That’s what he does when I start unbuckling his weapons belt. Then, he places his
left hand over mine. His right touches my cheek.

“Again, don’t take this the wrong way,” he says, his voice sounding strained. “But
I’m going to walk out of here.”

The way he slides my pants over my hips suggests differently.
I step out of my shoes and let him finish stripping me down to just my bra and undies.
He’s kneeling in front of me long enough that I have to run my hand through his already
disheveled hair. I love how untamed it is, how untamed he is.

“Aren,” I say. I mean to make his name an encouragement, to let him know that this
is okay, that I’m not going to stop him, I want him, but my voice comes out just as
strained as his, and when he runs his hands up my thighs, I can’t manage any more
words. My muscles quiver. I’m barely able to stay on my feet.

But then, he straightens, and, quickly, he picks me up and sets me in the tub.

I gasp when the ice-cold water bites at my calves.

“Sidhe,”
he mutters. “Sorry.”

Keeping one hand on my hip, he bends down to submerge his other hand beneath the water’s
surface. It warms immediately.

I raise an eyebrow when he straightens, then say, “That’s one way to cool me off.”

He laughs at that, and his smile and the brightness in his silver eyes makes my heart
skip.

“Yeah, I…” He clears his throat, releases my hip. “Will you be okay? I’d stay and
help, but I’d have to touch you, and if I touch you one more second…I think you need
rest more than you need me right now.”

That’s extremely debatable.

“I’ll bring you something to eat.”

Or maybe he’s right. Now that he’s brought up the idea, my stomach decides to remind
me I haven’t eaten anything in almost two days. And it’s probably not a bad idea to
rest before I…before we…

God, I really want to be with him.

He gives me one of his crooked half grins, and his gaze and his posture tell me just
how difficult it is for him to walk away.

And that’s one more thing I love about him I realize as he’s closing the bathroom
door. I love that he needs me as much as I need him. Kyol always made leaving me look
easy…

Kyol.

I almost slip in the tub.

He’s the
garistyn
, the kingkiller. I don’t think Tylan was lying when he said that’s one of the reasons
the high nobles aren’t approving Lena. Whatever their opinion was of Atroth, they
aren’t happy he was killed. I just never realized how unhappy they were.

With shaking hands, I strip off my undergarments. I don’t know if the shaking is because
I’m weak and hungry or if it’s because I’m afraid. I try to convince myself that Kyol
will be okay. Lena needs him. She has to protect him, but I know him too well. He’s
too damn noble to let this go on for long. He’ll turn himself in because it’s what’s
best for the Realm and because he blames himself for not being able to find a way
to save his king.

Naked now, I sink into the tub, letting the warm water swallow me. The only reason
Kyol hasn’t already stepped forward as the
garistyn
is because it’s not the right time. He’ll wait until he’s sure Lena’s place as the
Realm’s queen is secure. Then he’ll let the high nobles kill him.

I clench my hands into fists. I won’t let that happen.

I
DON’T INTEND
to fall asleep, but climbing out of the tub and pulling on a pair of fae-made pants
and a soft, loose top siphons my last ounce of energy. When I lie down on my bed,
I pass out, sinking into two sets of dreams.

The first are my usual dreams. They’re dark and terrifying and star more than one
of my enemies. Thrain’s face is foremost. It always is. He’s the fae who dragged me
into this world. He hurt me. He deliberately made me fear him. But I fear others too,
now. Micid, the
ther’othi
who could walk the In-Between. Radath, the king’s lord general who would have preferred
to see me raped and broken in a
tjandel
rather than helping him hunt the Court fae’s enemies. And there’s a third face now,
one that I can’t quite make out in the shadows. I try to force Caelar’s face to fit
there, or Tylan’s. I even try a number of the other false-bloods I’ve tracked down
over the years, but none of their silhouettes fit.

I’m not sure I’d survive the first set of dreams if it wasn’t for the second. Aren’s
in each and every one of them, holding me, touching me, kissing me. Sometimes we’re
in the Realm, my white lightning coiling around our bodies. Other times, we’re in
my world. He’s taking my breath away against a brick wall in London or I’m kissing
every one of his chaos lusters on the Strip in Vegas. And, every so often, we’re in
between worlds, making love as we disappear into a strip of radiant white light.

I hold on to every moment with Aren as long as I can, but I toss and turn no matter
which set of dreams I’m trapped in until a warm body locks me against his chest.

Aren shushes softly beside my ear until I relax. It’s only then, wrapped in his cedar
and cinnamon scent, that I truly sleep.

HOURS
later, Aren shifts.

I burrow closer against him. This feels good. It feels normal. I want this every single
morning.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I’ve been awake for a while.” I grab his hand, intertwine my fingers with his.

“You’ve been asleep for a while,” he says.

“How long?”

“A little more than half a day.” His thumb rubs across my palm. “You’ve missed dinner
and breakfast. Another hour and you’ll miss lunch as well.” He nuzzles my hair. “You
smell better.”

I grin, then roll to my back so I can see him. He hasn’t been this relaxed and happy
in a while, certainly not since we took the palace. He was more comfortable in the
role of a rogue who disrupted the plans of the Realm’s ruler; it’s not quite as easy
keeping the Realm’s potential ruler in power. But I’ve always known this wasn’t a
fairy tale. If it were, everything would have been perfect the second we ousted the
king.

I breathe him in, then draw my fingers along the strong line of his jaw. I forgave
him with a kiss when we were in Nakano’s compound. I realized I should have used words
when I was being held by the remnants. I should have made it absolutely clear that
I’m his forever.

So I make it clear now.

“I fell in love with you,” I tell him.

He raises an eyebrow, gives me one of his half grins. “Just now?”

“No, 16.6 seconds ago.” I lightly punch his shoulder. He laughs and pulls me closer.

“I don’t know when,” I say. “Maybe when you gave me that diamond necklace.”

“Ah,” he says sagely. “I’ve always heard humans could be lured in with sparkling rocks.”

My smile widens. “You are so charming today.”

“Aren’t I?” He presses a kiss to my temple. I feel him shudder when a chaos luster
leaps to his lips.

He sits up. Swallows. His eyes are a deep, steamy silver.

“You should eat now,” he says, his rough voice sending a stroke of heat through my
body. “You’re going to need the energy.”

At first, I think he means that Lena’s going to need my Sight or shadow-reading skills,
but the way his gaze locks on me as he brings my hand to his mouth indicates otherwise.
His tongue tickles my palm before he releases my hand. Then he picks up a tray of
bread and meats off the side table and sets it between us as if that’s the only thing
that can keep him apart from me.

My room has suddenly become hot. I have to concentrate on something besides the delicious
ache that’s settled low in my stomach, so I pick up a piece of bread, and say, “I’m
surprised Lena isn’t beating down my door.”

“She’s meeting with Lorn,” Aren says. “Here.”

He hands me a glass filled with a deep red liquid.

“Cabus?”
I ask.

“Yes,
nalkin-shom
,” he says with a sideways grin.

I make a face as I raise the glass then drink. It really is vile-tasting, but it’ll
make me feel better.

“Lena decided to let Lorn back into the palace?” I ask, returning my attention to
the plate and trying to decide what will get rid of the taste of
cabus
the quickest.

Aren places a pillow between my back and the wall. “Only temporarily. He’s still being
difficult. He’s helping less and less every day.”

“He’d rather cooperate with a band of merry men than a potential queen.”

“A band of what?”

“Never mind.” I pick up the tongs beside the plate. They’re wooden and similar to
the kiddie chopsticks handed out at Chinese restaurants, but they’re a standard fae
utensil. I use it to select the stringy, dark meat sitting on the edge of the plate.
I think it’s
brive
. If I’m right, it’s delicious, even though it looks incredibly unappetizing.

“Did Naito talk to Lena?” I ask. Then I nearly choke when I swallow down the stringy
stuff. It’s
not brive
.

“He did,” Aren says, and something in his voice makes me forget about the horrible
taste in my mouth. He’s stiff, and his expression is guarded, almost as if he’s waiting
for me to lash out at him.

“You know about Caelar,” I say.
And Brene,
I add silently. Aren’s jaw clenches and unclenches, all but confirming my words.

I give him a tight-lipped smile, then grab a wedge of cheese. After another few seconds,
Aren relaxes slightly, realizing I’m not going to make a point about his past.