“But that isn’t true,” she surprised herself by saying, “because you did break away from the king, obviously. You live here now, on Kingdom. You serve a prince, not the king you were destined for. You can break out of the mold.”
“Yes,” he growled, but not at her, his eyes were distant, staring far off into a memory she could not see, “and it nearly broke me to do it. The only reason I did was because Dionysis would kill our species off in his madness. We are an immortal race. But we can die, though it isn’t easy. Disease will not take us, but the cruelty of our king could. It is difficult for my kind to breed. Children are rare and valued, treasured. So to kill us off meant he’d extinguish our flame, our species, eternally.”
“So Rumpel fought him?”
“No.” His lashes fluttered and he finally looked at her, laughing softly but not sounding as though it were funny. “Dionysis was too powerful, and most warriors did not do as I did. They remained loyal to their king. Rumpel was banished for daring to speak out against his father. A few of the royals felt as he did, and the murmurings of a revolution were enough for Dionysis to kick him out of Delerium and all who followed him.”
“Why not just kill him?”
“Because royals are powerful, imbued with magics beyond imagining. And, should the king have taken a sword to the dark prince, he’d known the revolution would have risen. It was one thing to brutalize the serfs, but quite another to attempt the same with a sovereign.”
She sighed. “It makes no sense to me. So Rumpel spoke out against a wicked king and only those of you at the castle in the sky were bold enough to agree that the king was evil? Here in Kingdom we call it like we see it, and should I ever come across the Red Queen, I’ll cut off her head with my claws.” She flicked her fingers at him.
Her silly threat failed to illicit even half of a chuckle from him. “Kingdom is entirely different. It is why I’m not surprised that you do not understand me.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, knight,” she said, looking at him gently, “it’s just that I can’t. Rumpel seems to have adapted well here, so why can’t you? Why must it be duty or nothing? There is more to life.”
“Rumpel was born a prince. What he wanted he always got. But when you are born to believe that you are owed no more than what’s been given, and everyone believes as you do, you cannot break away easily.”
“And yet…” She touched his cheek briefly, trying to make him understand her point. “You did. You followed Rumpel. And…all things considered, he seems a helluva lot better than Dionysis.”
Grabbing her wrist, he squeezed it gently before pushing it away.
Biting onto the tip of her tongue she reminded herself not to touch him again. It was so easy to forget that they hadn’t been friends forever; when she was with him things felt so natural. Just like being with her brothers.
Except, of course, for the fact that she wished to lie naked with Giles and explore his body while he explored her own. She sighed, damning her foolish bargain with Rumpel all over again.
“I will never regret following Rumpel, but I swore to him that I would never do anything to dishonor him. This journey we’re on, it takes precedence above all.”
She sensed a ‘but’ in there and waited for it.
When he didn’t continue talking, she spread her arms. “So that’s it? This is what you grappled with while I was gone? None of this is really much of a surprise to me. At least tell me why we journey as we are. To what purpose? Why must we fetch that chalice, because the dark prince wishes it, or is there more?”
“Because his son is dying.”
Giles wasn’t being as honest with her as he pretended to be. Lilith looked entirely too lovely sitting before him, her dark-as-midnight hair lifting gently in the breeze, her pale ivory skin gleaming like milk in moonlight, and his fingers itched to trace it.
He did feel.
He did want.
Though he should not. And he’d told her all those things, not just to make her believe it, but himself as well.
Speaking with Danika earlier, he’d come to a startling and terrifying conclusion. For the first time in centuries Giles wanted selfishly.
Her full pink lips tipped upward. “The chalice of hope—one drink from it and whatever the heart desires, the heart shall have,” she whispered. “I can see now why this quest is so important to you. I am sorry to have been such a thorn in your flesh through this, Giles.”
He hated to see the sparkle in her eyes dimming, damning himself even while he reached out a hand to trace the velvety softness of her cheek. He shook his head. Trying desperately to ignore the trembling in his heart at the touch of her.
Lilith’s lashes fanned across the tops of her cheeks like the darkened tips of a paintbrush.
“Lilith, don’t,” he murmured, wishing for the first time in his life that he was someone else, someone who was free to fall in love.
Danika’s whispered words, that Lilith would make him happy echoed through his skull. In all his years of pretending he’d never wanted, that was the one desire he’d most secretly yearned for. Desired above all else.