Happiness.
Doing his duty made him content, but true joy had never been his. His life had always belonged to someone else.
How would it feel to know it, to own it, to know that what your mate gave you, you could also give back to them?
She jerked away from his touch and he bit down on his bottom lip, knowing he needed her to keep away from him and then remembering all over again the life she’d be destined for if she did.
Godmothers did not lie when it came to matters of the heart, it was why Rumpel had such a disdain for them—he was in the business of taking, whereas godmothers were strictly in the business of giving. It was bad for business when godmothers interfered.
And here was one coming now to Giles to ruin everything. There was only one way to fix this mess now.
“Lilith, I know.”
She sniffled, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand and staring down miserably at her feet. It bothered him to see her like that. Bothered him that she was no longer laughing and flirting with him as mercilessly as she had at the very beginning of this long journey. Lilith was always so sullen now, and he knew that, unintentionally or not, it was because of him.
“Know what?” she muttered.
He inhaled deeply. “I know the pact you made with Rumpel.”
Jaw clenching, she refused to look at him. “I suppose you find it funny, then. That your master would take my deal when I was barely old enough to wipe my bum.”
“You don’t sound bitter about it. Why not?”
She let out a small chuckle that sounded like it was mixed with unshed tears. “How can I be bitter? I made the deal. I went to him, I sought him out. Do you know,” she turned to him, “that he gave me three chances to walk away?”
He frowned. That didn’t sound like Rumpel at all. His prince lived for striking deals, for trading the temporary charms of beauty and wealth, or whatever else the patron would ask, for fealty in the future.
“Why?” he finally asked.
She shrugged, rubbing her bicep. “I always got the sense that he understood I’d grow to regret it. So now you know.” She gave him a miserable, watery grin. “Does that make us even?”
Now she sounded angry. Giles cocked his head. “Are you mad at me?”
A rumbling growl that sounded more like it should come from a wolf than a human tore from her throat. “I am angry with myself.”
Flattening her palm on the ground, Giles sensed that once again she was about to flee. Snatching on to her wrist before she could run off, he tugged her back down gently.
“Let me go,” she snarled.
And he knew he should. Damn himself to the seven pits of Delerium, he knew he should. He’d only just been telling her that his needs and wants mattered for naught. Trying desperately to convince himself that what he was feeling would pass, had to pass, that his life could continue on as it had before, but one look into Lilith’s shattered gaze and the hardness that had sustained him for so long failed to show.
“Lilith.” His voice broke with the unspoken words filling up his soul.
“What?” she snapped. “You must know. My gods, what a fool you must think me.” This time when she laughed a tear splashed down the corner of her eye, then another and another. She wiped at them angrily, but he refused to let her hand go.
“Let me go, Giles,” she growled again. “I’m warning you. I’m angry and volatile and humiliated that you should know. I tried to ignore it—I tried to will this away. But the harder I fight it, the worse it gets. And now you tell me that there could never be anything anyway and I just need to go, please. I’ll return in the morning and we can pretend this never—”
Desperate and hungry and raw himself, Giles silenced her words with a kiss. He didn’t think it through. He didn’t stop to question himself. Because if he gave himself even a second to rationalize he’d stop what he was doing.
But he needed her to know the truth; for once in his life, he wanted someone to know his dirty secret.
She mewled into his touch, then her hand yanked out of his grasp and her hands clawed at his back. Somehow she’d moved without him even being aware of it, she was straddling his lap, and her kiss was intoxicating.
Her kiss, like a siren’s deadly touch, he hungered for more even as a part of him slowly died inside. Who was he without his constancy to his prince? His willingness to die for him and him alone?
If someone else wormed their way into his heart, it would make him weak. Make him stupid. It’s what he’d always been taught, what he’d always believed, but now with her lips on him and her tongue moving against his own in a heated caress, he could barely remember his own name.