I floundered, wanting to deny him, but unable to. “Loki, a connection isn’t enough to build a life on.”
“I don’t care where I come from or who your people are,” he said simply. “I can make you happy, and you make me happy. We could have a happily ever after.”
His eyes were on mine, and even in the dim light they glimmered gold. A slow wave started to wash over me as relaxation flowed through me. Just when I realized that Loki was trying to knock me out, the sensation stopped.
“What happened?” I asked, as the fog lifted from my mind. Loki stood inches in front of me, and I knew I should move away, but I didn’t.
“I’m not going to do that to you,” he said quietly. “What I told you before is still true. I want to know that when you’re with me, it’s because you want to be, not because you have to be.”
“Loki—” I started to protest.
He put his hands on my face, and they felt warm on my skin, even though they should’ve been cold from scaling the wall. He leaned in to me, but he paused before his lips touched mine. His eyes met mine, searching them for any resistance, but I didn’t have any.
His mouth covered mine, and warmth stirred inside me. He tasted sweet and cool, and his skin smelled of fresh rain. My knees felt weak, and my heart battered against my chest. His hands moved back, tangling in my hair and pressing me to him.
I wrapped my arms around him, and he felt strong and powerful against me. I could actually feel his muscles, like warm marble, and I knew he could crush me if he wanted to. But the way he touched me was passionate and delicate all at once.
I wanted to give in to him, to his invitation, but a voice of reason gnawed at me. My stomach fluttered with butterflies, then twisted with knots.
“No, Loki.” I pulled my mouth from his, gasping for breath. I put my hands on his chest and took a step back. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Wendy.” Loki watched me walk backward away from him. His expression was so desperate and vulnerable, it made my chest ache.
“I’m sorry. But I can’t.”
I turned and ran to the palace, afraid that I would change my mind if I hesitated any longer.
TWENTY-SEVEN
sacrifice
The next few days were a blur. I did everything I could to keep my mind off the kiss with Loki, or the horrible ache inside me that I knew I might never see him again. I just had to put it behind me and move forward with my engagement.
The training with Tove left me with a constant dull headache in the back of my skull. Making arrangements with his mother left me with pain in the remainder of my head. Willa tried her best to work as an intermediary, but Aurora didn’t seem ready to let our earlier conflict go.
Elora was feeling better, so she joined us one afternoon. I thought having her there would help dispel the tension, but it didn’t. When Aurora wasn’t busy picking at me, she was picking at Elora. And when she wasn’t doing that, they were both picking at me.
I spent most evenings in the library with Duncan, studying as much as I could about the Trylle way of life. I’d found a Tryllic dictionary, and I had to keep leafing through it as I looked through older documents. It was impossible to guess what it meant, since Tryllic didn’t use the English alphabet. For example, the word Tryllic looked like this—
With the small desk lamp as the only light in the room, I sat at the desk with my nose buried in a book. Duncan was at the shelves, combing through the acres of books to find ones that he thought would be best. He did know more about Trylle history than I did, but not much more.
“Burning the midnight oil?” Finn asked, scaring me so much I nearly screamed. He stood at the edge of the desk, and I hadn’t even heard him come in.
“Yeah, I guess.” I stared down at the faded pages of the book, keeping myself focused on them instead of Finn.
I hadn’t talked to him since I’d kissed Loki. In a bizarre way, I felt as if I’d cheated on him. That was really silly, considering I was engaged to Tove, and what little Finn and I had together was long over.
“I have something I need to go check on,” Duncan said, taking his cue to exit.
He didn’t need to, since I doubted that Finn and I needed privacy, but it was nice that he tried. He gave me a hopeful smile before he slipped out, leaving me alone with Finn.
“What are you looking up?” Finn asked, nodding to the stacks of books on the desk.
“Anything. Everything.” I shrugged. “I figured it was about time I got to know my history.”
“It’s a very large history,” Finn said.
“Yeah. That’s what I’m finding out.” I leaned back in my chair so I could look up at him. The dim light from the lamp left most of his face in shadow, but his expressions were so unreadable anyway, it didn’t really matter.
“The engagement party is tomorrow,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be upstairs primping and preening with Willa?”
“Nope. I get to do that in the morning.” I sighed, thinking of the long day ahead of me tomorrow.