He was so close—and getting closer—my elbows slipped back onto the pillows. He came down with me, his lips pressed into the bare skin of my shoulder.
“I promise to tell you everything. After you sleep.” The feel of his lips brushing against my shoulder was so overwhelming that I let myself fall into the pillows as his broad chest hovered just a breath away from mine.
Before I could wrap my arm around him, he shifted to prop himself up on his elbow, then looked down at me. “You really saved me back there, Ivy.”
I willed my pounding heart to slow. “Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.”
He lowered his face into the pillow, right above my shoulder. “You held me in that water”—his voice was muffled—“and I knew everything was okay somehow.”
My hands moved up into his hair. Feeling the wet strands between my fingers, I longed to bring his lips to mine.
Lust.
Zach lifted himself off and lay on his side. I rolled over to face him, our knees touching. He inched closer, wrapping our hands together, our foreheads meeting. “Go to sleep, princess.”
I moved closer until my face was between his neck and the pillows. “Will I be awoken by a kiss?”
Zach chuckled, and I felt the vibrations in his throat and chest. “We’ll see.”
I let myself relax in his arms. I’d been only half teasing.
…
Much to my disappointment, I did not receive a kiss. Zach was sleeping, his arms still around me, when I woke in the wee hours of the morning.
Briefly, I considered kissing him awake like I’d wanted, but then thought better of it.
It was finally something I didn’t want to force.
My head whirled from the realization.
Whether it was a kiss of Lust or a Royal’s Kiss, it should be something he chose. I wanted him to trust me enough as a partner to believe that our power could save people.
If it were a kiss of Lust, I shouldn’t have to second-guess his attraction to me any longer. Whether it was through flirting while riding, a dance by a bonfire, or an almost-kiss in the forest, I needed to know once and for all if he wanted what I wanted.
But how could I ever swallow my pride and just ask him?
Carefully, I leaned over him to find a bowl of cold stew on the floor. Bromley must’ve come to drop it off. I groaned, knowing he would’ve found Zach and me sleeping practically on top of each other. I could almost picture Brom’s smug face, as if to say, told you so. As I moved back, Zach stirred and flinched, sitting up, causing me to lose my balance and fall over his knees.
“What the—” Zach smoothed back his unruly hair when he saw the early morning darkness outside. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“Well, you did… We both did.” I picked myself up. With a clear head I realized how foggy my mind had been last night and just how much the proximity of his body caused me to feel dizzy with desire. “We should get moving.”
Zach wiped at the freckles on my cheek. “Easy there, Your Highness. I promised you I’d talk. Don’t you want to know?”
I wanted to know everything, but Zach was so close to me I couldn’t think straight. I needed a clear mind when he told me about the golden magic.
His eyes were locked on mine. His fingertips brushed my jaw, and heat rose in my neck.
I moved away from him, off the bed, before I could change my mind—no matter how much I wanted that heat, now was not the time. Maybe it would never be.
At that thought, my gut twisted.
“Please don’t.” I backed away from the bed. “What you did in the forest—what you’re doing now, and—and last night…I don’t know what—” I tucked hair behind my ears.
What had I been thinking last night? Even this morning, in his arms, surrounded by his warmth and scent, I’d been delusional. We couldn’t afford to be distracted by Lust. We had an egg to find and a dragon to slay.
If anything were to happen between us, it would have to wait.
At his look of confusion, I said, “Never mind. There are more important things. Tell me about the Golden Effect and the Romantica’s theory.”
“Ivy—” Pain flitted across his face, then it was gone just as fast. His jaw tightened. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Just tell me.”
“The Golden Effect, as you call it, happens when a power defeats the Forces, whether it’s a monster or a curse like the one we broke yesterday.”
“What power?”
Zach ignored my interruption. “The Romantica began to develop this theory about seventy-five years ago, when they started finding…patterns. They noticed that whenever a curse was lifted by the Royal’s Kiss, three more curses in other villages would pop up within the span of a moon’s cycle.”
“Coincidence.”
“And if the villages were right next to each other? Ivy, try to hear me. This Golden Effect…its magic is ten times more powerful than any Kiss. If we hadn’t broken the amulet, then these villagers would never have properly healed. They may have even died from another curse that would have taken its place.”
It took me a moment to understand what he was saying, and once I did, I felt sick.
On one hand, I could not dispute the facts I had seen with my own eyes. On the other, I refused to admit that the Royal’s Kiss was truly pointless—because…because that would mean all this time—all these years…
Zach was suggesting the Kiss caused more curses and monsters to pop up. That it was actually evil.
There was no way. No.
“There were more instances as well,” Zach continued. “Trolls’ caves that the Royals took down with their magic turned into a breeding nest for dark serpents. From the dead earth where dwarves were slaughtered a wraith emerged… There are hundreds of examples.”
“Do you have any proof?”
Zach gritted his teeth. “That I could show you right now? Of course not. I’m only telling you how our theory started. Believe what you want, as you always have. All we know is that when we began fighting monsters without Royals, we were able to clear areas that stayed clear.”
My stomach rolled. I grabbed the edge of the dresser to keep myself from swaying. I didn’t believe him. There was no way I could. “You told me the gold happens because of a power. What is it?”
Zach took a deep breath, looked me in the eye, and said, “Love.”
I pounded my fist against the dresser. “That’s not funny.”
“Am I laughing?”
“You’re saying we broke the curse on the amulet through Love? Zach, that’s—”
He stood and seized my arms. “Down in those waters, when your mother almost shut the door on you, and I held your hand, what did you feel?”
I stared up at him, speechless.
“I’ll tell you what I felt when you promised you’d be with me. I was happy. I wasn’t so lonely that I felt like I could’ve just disappeared. I felt lov—”
I tried to escape his iron grip. “We got through the enchantments. That’s why the jewel broke!”
“How did we break through the enchantments?”
“S-strength,” I stammered.
“If that’s what you want to call it—fine. Then what about the griffin?”
“What about the griffin?”
“What power defeated it? Caused it to disintegrate into gold dust?”
“I don’t know!” Anxiety crawled up my throat, choking me—it was like I was back in that cursed well water again. “It had to be magic.”
“Magic from who? There was no one else in that forest.”
“You don’t know that. It was all such a blur—you jumped in front of me and saved me, and that’s when it burst into gold.”
Zach stared two burning holes into me, willing me to understand. Waiting for me to put the pieces together.
When the griffin’s talons buried themselves in his chest, saving me but sacrificing him, what power had been released then? What triggered the golden magic? Was it Zach himself? Maybe the question was why he had leaped in front of the griffin’s talons when it was sure to kill him.
Because he…
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Denial
“You don’t love me,” I whispered.
Zach backed up and sank onto the bed. He rested his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees.
We were silent a long time.