Spellbinder (Moonshadow #2)

He chuckled as he wiped his eyes. “Okay, but I still hurt you, and I can’t take that back. I wish I could.” Standing, he stepped back from the house to look up at her. She had crossed her arms as she leaned on the windowsill, and she looked so vulnerable and beautiful at once, he wanted to claw his way up the side of the house to her. “I’m sorry it took me a few weeks to work through it. I had a lot of baggage I needed to clear out of the way, and a lot of years of struggling against the geas. Those years taught me I wasn’t supposed to trust anyone who held me in their control, but I trust you anyway.”

Her gaze flared wide, and her expression came to life, but not with the kind of emotion he had hoped so much to see. “You—trust me?” she repeated bitterly. “How could you be so stupid? I don’t trust me!”





Chapter Twenty-Four





It took a second for that to sink in. He demanded, “Why not?”

“When I saw you walking down the street toward me earlier, the first thing I wanted to do was order you to stay!” she shouted. “That’s why I ran! That dumb god never should have offered it to me. You can’t trust me with the geas. But I also don’t ever want to see you look at me the way you did back in the great hall.”

“Please believe me, if I could take that back, I would.” Frustration gnawed at him. She still kept her distance. She still wouldn’t walk down to open the door for him.

But she had opened a window.

Striding away, he turned back to the house and took a running leap at the window. As he grabbed hold of the windowsill, she stumbled back. Quickly, he hauled himself inside. When he straightened, she sat on the edge of a bed, staring at him, both hands clapped over her mouth.

Kneeling in front of her, he gently pulled her hands down. “Stop denying what we both want. Don’t try to push me away anymore. I know now that you love me, and that’s why you let me go. You thought you were doing the right thing, and hell, at the time, you probably were. I needed to absorb what had happened. But I’m here now, and I want you more than I’ve wanted anything in my life.”

Longing filled her gaze, along with a lingering reserve. She stroked his cheek. “What if I activate the geas? What if I accidentally say something it takes as an order—or what if I actually give you an order? Go to the store, and get some milk. Pick me up a sandwich on your way home. Order a pizza for tonight, will you? People say things like that all time.”

“I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.” Giving in to what he had been wanting to do for a long time, he pulled her into his arms. The rightness of her body aligning with his brought such relief, he sighed and laid his head on her shoulder. Her arms tightened around him. “If you activate the geas somehow, I’ll tell you to cut it out, and you’ll stop. We can’t live our lives in fear of it.”

Her breath shuddered, and she tightened her arms. “We could if you left. You could have the entire world—everywhere except for where I am.”

“I don’t want the entire world.” He pressed his lips against her neck. “I want you. I’m not going to lie to you, Sidonie. I think it will probably get messy sometimes, and I know we’ll make mistakes. Neither of us has lived a normal life, and even when people have the best of intentions, they still hurt each other. But do you know what that damn puck said to me the other day?”

She nestled against him. “What?”

“He said, ‘What would we have if we didn’t have forgiveness?’” Closing his eyes, he breathed in her scent. With her becoming a lycanthrope, it had changed. It was deeper, wilder, and it resonated with all the wild places inside him. “We can make this work. We have to make it work. I want you too much to let go, and I will do anything I have to do in order to keep you. Anything.”

“I want you too, so much,” she whispered.

He murmured in her ear, “Then take me.”

*

Take me, he said.

It had been so impossible. Now could it really be that simple?

Pulling back, Sid searched his face. She saw nothing but love and determination.

“That whole resurrection thing is totally on me,” she told him. “But this one is on you.”

Laughter, like fire, lit his gaze. “I’ll take full responsibility,” he promised. “You can throw this back in my face every time we have an argument.”

“I’ll plan on it.” Sudden tears flooded her eyes. Their separation was still too close and raw for her to joke very much.

He saw the tears, and his expression changed. Cupping the back of her head, he cradled her close. “Shh,” he murmured. “We’re good. It’s all good. It’s so much better than I could have hoped for.”

“I love you,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you too, darling girl. With all my heart.” He cupped her face and kissed her softly.

Not many men could pull off “darling girl,” she thought hazily, but somehow when Morgan said it, it sounded warm, natural, and right.

He pulled back. “Hard as the past few weeks were, the time to reflect has been good for me. I’ve been thinking a lot about the orders you gave me in the great hall.”

Anxiety flooded her expression. “I screwed up, didn’t it? Did I screw it up?”

“Not in any way.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “But the more I think about it, the more I find the way you phrased things intriguing.”

She touched the lean line of his jaw. “I was trying to set you free completely.”

“I could see that, but at the time I was too close to living under Isabeau’s control to believe it. I thought anything you said could be countermanded if you changed your mind, but the way you phrased things stuck with me. You said, I order you to rediscover what it is like to live a life of your own choosing. I order the geas to rest forever and never compel you to do anything again. These words I speak are paramount. Nothing I can possibly say at any point for the rest of my life will ever override the orders I give you right now.” He paused, his gaze lively with curiosity and speculation. “And I can’t help but wonder—you were trying to turn the geas into something written in stone, and not to be revisited. What if you managed to do it?”

She blinked. “Is it possible? I want so much for it to be possible.”

“I haven’t felt a hint of compulsion since you stopped me from leaving in the great hall,” he told her. “And if it’s one thing I know, it’s what the geas feels like when it activates. So… we’ll never know if you managed it unless we try it. Give me an order, and let’s see what happens.”

Her stomach twisted and she recoiled. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” He took her by the shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “We need to know what we’re going to be living with so we don’t run into any surprises. And you need to listen to me when I say this—when you give me the order, anything that happens is okay.”

What he said made sense, but she still hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” He smiled at her. “I’m okay. We’re okay. So go ahead and do it. Order me to do something. I want to know what’s going to happen.”

“Well, okay…” She cast about for something to order him to do, but all she really wanted was to get back to the kissing part. Feeling self-conscious and awkward, she ordered, “Kiss me.”

Amusement flashed across his face. Pulling her into his arms, he rocked her as he laughed and laughed. Then he tilted her face up and kissed her with such evident enjoyment, she didn’t know whether to be dismayed or pleased.