“She won’t take another offer. Not when she knows we wouldn’t be asking her for this if we had another choice.”
“You’re not a possession,” I tell him sharply. “Just because you wear her mark doesn’t mean she owns you.”
At that, his expression softens and he touches me. His fingers run along my arm, tracing down until he reaches the back of my hand. “Do you know what I’ll miss most about you, Kam?”
I shake my head. Don’t tell me now. Not when you’re considering giving up your life to her.
But he slides his hand up to cup my cheek and force me to look at him. “I never had to wear your mark to know that I’ll always be yours.”
Then he’s kissing me, his lips soft against mine. “One day, you’ll tell people the story of the faery king and the human girl,” Kiaran whispers. “And how he watched from afar as she lived out twenty thousand human days. And if she listened closely during winter, when the wind was cold and the nights were longest, she could hear him whisper that he cherished her so much he was willing to give her the world.”
I shut my eyes before tears fall. “What if I don’t want the world?” I ask him. “What if I just want you?”
“You already have me. This doesn’t change that.” Another kiss, and then he pulls away and I feel his absence like an ache. “I’m not asking your permission. I’m telling you to let me go.”
Let me go.
He said that to me before on the battlefield in Edinburgh. I had been willing to do it then. But now?
A part of me wishes he hadn’t changed. That he had some uncaring ruthlessness left in him that would tell Sorcha to take her deal and burn it. But then he wouldn’t be Kiaran. He wouldn’t be my Kiaran.
Don’t say the words. Once you say the words, you’ll lose him.
I can’t. Every instinct in me is screaming. I could use my powers. I could make her more willing. But every time I use my powers I know that I have less time. Less time with him.
“Kam,” he says softly. “You have to let me go.”
“I know that.” I can barely speak. “But I can’t stand here and listen while you sell her your soul.”
I turn my back on him and walk away.
CHAPTER 23
KIARAN FINDS me in the bedroom later, sitting in the great leather chair by the window. The fireplace is blazing—a small comfort I allowed myself.
I don’t look over as he approaches. I watch the ocean waves around the island swell and retreat, swell and retreat. I time my breathing with the sound, needing to control something. Anything. Because I know that if I don’t, I’m going to walk out of this room, find Sorcha, and put a blade through her.
I sense his warmth directly behind me, but he makes no move to touch me. “You made the vow.” It isn’t a question. My voice sounds calmer than I feel. I keep my breath even, as even as those ocean waves.
“Aye,” Kiaran says quietly.
My fingernails prick the skin of my palm painfully. “And Sorcha?”
“She’s resting. She’ll take us to the door tomorrow.”
I stand, struggling to maintain my last vestiges of control. “She doesn’t need to rest,” I say, turning to face him. “Let’s just get this done.”
When I try to sweep past him, Kiaran’s hand shoots out to grip my arm. “Kam.”
Don’t let him see. Control your breathing. Control your expression. Don’t let him see.
If I don’t leave now, I won’t be able to hold back my tears. The second my eyes meet his, it’s going to break me. “Let go, MacKay.” The first signs of emotion are creeping into my voice. “The sooner we find the Book—”
“I need one last night with you.”
I look at him, surprised to find his expression laid bare and vulnerable. Like he’s begging me. Stay. Stay with me.
One final night together before we go to find that Book and I lose Kiaran, one way or another. That vow he made to Sorcha is somewhere on his body. She’s marked him. Twice.
“Let me see it,” I say, voice hoarse. “Show me her vow.”
“Don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t do this.”
“Show me.”
With his jaw set, Kiaran roughly removes his coat and drops it to the floor. Then his shirt.
I suck in a breath when I see the new marks on him.
Kiaran’s torso is a map of swirled designs carved into his flesh and healed over into scars. The one that spans his entire back is the vow he made to Catríona, the Falconer he fell in love with thousands of years ago: his vow never to kill humans.
Sorcha’s mark used to lie over his heart in a mess of spiky branches that reached across his skin, expanding to the tops of his shoulders as if it wanted to cover every inch of him. As if it wanted to consume him.
And now it does.
His vow to Sorcha has woven itself around and inside his other vow, across his rib cage, up and up around the muscular flesh of his upper arms and shoulders.
I step around him to see that it continues across his back, disappearing beneath the waistband of his trousers, continuing high up toward his neck where it dips beneath his hairline.
Kiaran tenses when I touch him, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. I try to sense his powers, but all I can feel are Sorcha’s. As if she’s wrapped herself around him, forced herself beneath his skin.
This isn’t just a vow: It’s a mark of ownership. It says, You’re mine forever and I’m never letting you go.
I pull away from him, as if his skin burns. “I’m going to find a way to get that off of you,” I tell him tightly. “Whatever it takes.”
Before I can even blink, Kiaran takes me by the arms and he’s kissing me. It’s heartbreakingly slow at first, his lips light, tentative. But I want more. I kiss him harder. I put everything I feel into it, every part of me. Everything I can’t say in words.
“I’m yours,” he rasps against my lips.
He drags me against him, his fingers frantically pulling at my shirt to feel my skin beneath. I pull away only to let him lift it over my head and then his hands are everywhere, touching, stroking.
“I’m yours,” he says again.
His lips trail down to my neck, my shoulder. Each touch burns. His lips sear a path of heat down my body as he whispers those two words over and over and over again. A reminder. A promise. A vow to me, this one marked on his soul.
“I’m yours.”
It feels like he’s saying goodbye.
CHAPTER 24
KIARAN AND Sorcha are waiting in the antechamber of the palace the following morning. Their heads are bent and they’re in something of a heated discussion. Their voices are low, urgent. They both look up when my footsteps echo across the dark onyx floor.
Sorcha is wearing a stunning red brocade gown and boots with pointed heels, as if we were on our way to an assembly. She even looks like she’s wearing jewelry.
Good Christ, she is. It’s an elaborate necklace dripping with rubies. Like something royalty would wear.
“Are we intending to battle an ancient evil or going to a ball?” I ask as I approach.
Sorcha’s smile is slow, lazy. Victorious. It says, I have everything I want and I don’t care what you think. “I go into a war dressed for the outcome.”