His lips pressed down, warm and sweet. He rested his forehead against mine. “I want you. I’ve wanted this for so long.” He bit his lip. “But there could be consequences of… that.”
The chaos retreated from my mind, replaced by the cool feel of logic. “You mean a child?”
He nodded and let go of my wrists. “If we had a child, it would be as bound to this place as I am.” Smoothing back the hair from my face, he said, “Then what would you do? Stay out of obligation and give up life on the outside? Or be like your mother, and only visit when the mood strikes you?”
I jerked away from him. “Don’t say that – I’m nothing like her.”
He sat back on his heels, his face unreadable, and the combination of our emotions was a tangled web that I was having difficulty sorting through. I stared at him, and eventually it came to me: anticipation. But of what? What did he want me to say?
“You need to decide what life you want,” he said, his eyes searching mine.
I covered my face with both hands, frustrated. “I can’t do this, Tristan. I’m not like you – I can’t plan out every moment of my future, every decision I’m going to make.”
Silence.
“Of course not.” His voice was cold, but the shock of his grief stung through me like an icy spear. “After all, you never chose to come here. Never chose any of this. Who could blame you for wanting to leave? And what sort of fool am I for wishing that you would stay?”
A chill swept through me. “Tristan, that isn’t what I meant!” But he was already pulling his shirt over his head, the boat moving swiftly under an invisible force back to the tunnel entrance.
“I love you,” I pleaded, but the words sounded weak even to me. “I wouldn’t leave you here alone.”
“So you say.” His voice was emotionless, posture stiff, but the pain I had caused him made me sick. “But you’re human, Cécile, so why should I believe anything that comes out of your mouth?”
“Tristan.” I reached for him, but he turned away, moving to the front of the boat.
“We need to go back. They’ll be missing us by now.”
The boat bumped against the steps, grinding to a halt, and Tristan leapt out. It was magic, not his hands, that lifted me out of the boat, and it was magic that steadied me as I climbed the slippery steps back to the tunnel. After everything that had happened to us, it seemed that words from my own lips had done the most damage of all.
CHAPTER 29
TRISTAN
I stared bleary-eyed at the trunk of the tree, absently letting my power flow without providing it much direction. “Please, just hold it up,” I mumbled. “I don’t care how you go about it, just don’t drop any rocks.” It was the wrong way to manage the magic – the structure was architecturally complex, and with the amount of activity in the earth as of late, it required my full attention. Which was rather difficult, given that Cécile was the center of my every thought. Every day, every hour, every minute. Every bloody waking breath, which was a substantial number of breaths, considering I’d rarely had more than a few consecutive hours of sleep in the time since she’d arrived.
Which had clearly caused me to lose my mind. What other explanation could there be for my hoping she would stay? We’d kidnapped her from her family and forced her to marry someone she didn’t even know. Something that wasn’t even human. I’d treated her dreadfully for nearly our entire marriage. And still she’d saved my life. Told me that she loved me.
But what did that even mean?