The way she clenched her jaw and swallowed made my own throat thick with grief. It wasn’t a conversation I would ever wish to have about my own sister, and I felt sick to ask, but… if she was manipulating me and the truth as much as her mother had, I needed to know.
Eventually, she shook her head. “That unseelie man didn’t harm my sister in any way, including assaulting her. He loved her and she loved him. When she fell, he tried to throw himself into the river after her, but of course, thanks to Mother’s enchantment, he couldn’t. Does that satisfy you?”
I drained my glass, trying to wash away my empathy. Wrong, perhaps, but practical.
“Why did you tell me all that? When your mother told me her version, she had her own agenda for doing so. What’s yours?”
“My mother is not what Bastian believes her to be. That story is the best illustration I have. She killed her own daughter to ensure she couldn’t escape her control or bring an unseelie child into the world as her heir. Her own daughter.” The intensity of her gaze was enough to silence me for long moments. “Why do you think I tried to take the throne? If she can do that, she isn’t fit to hold so many lives in the palm of her hand.”
“Why wait so long to stage your coup? That had to be almost twenty years later?”
Her jaw twitched. “I was pregnant. With my daughter on the way, I knew I could secure the Moon Throne with myself and an heir. And… although she’s not unseelie, I couldn’t risk the queen deciding she wasn’t good enough for the line of succession.”
Everything about this felt unsafe. I had a feeling the queen would consider merely knowing this story some form of treason.
“Did you tell Bastian?”
She huffed, looking away. “No. He isn’t ready to hear it. He’d find some way to disbelieve me. Accuse me of using some spell or illusion that showed me lying to him.” She rolled her eyes. “Anything, however unlikely, to make it so his queen is what he believes.”
My throat tightened. I’d picked up on things about the queen that had made me uncomfortable, but this story? It was a lot to take in, and I wasn’t even as invested in the Night Queen as Bastian was.
He needed her to be this great queen, because if she wasn’t, what had he spent all these years loyal to? What had he killed his father for?
I rubbed my throat, though my necklace was far from it. “If you want me to convince him to betray the queen, I’m afraid this has been a wasted afternoon.” That had to be what she was driving towards.
She gave a stiff smile and poured herself another glass of wine. “That’s not why I brought you here, but I understand. I hear you have a sister of your own—a queen, no less. Tell me about her.”
I delayed answering by taking a long sip of water, but I couldn’t see any danger in giving her a few of the public details about Avice. She seemed satisfied with that and asked me a few questions about her adventures and gift, but nothing that seemed probing. No doubt she wanted to remind me of my sister while the tragedy of hers was still fresh in my mind.
It was hours before she dismissed me, and I left in shackles, thankful for a lifetime of hiding my feelings. I would certainly need it next time I faced the Night Queen.
Assuming I lived that long.
67
Kat
When I returned to our room, I found Bastian by the windows, looking out over the gardens. Perhaps it was the angle of his head or the way he leant against the window frame, but I knew he was thinking about escape. Assessing the route, watching for guards, weighing the risk.
The man who’d given so much of himself for others—his queen, his court, me.
The man who carried someone else’s traumatic memories and all the guilt that went with them.
The man who knelt for no one, but had for me.
It hit me with all the force that arrow had, this time not missing my heart.
I knew him.
And I loved him. Gods, I loved him.
And maybe he knew me too, because he turned and gave me this look—this look, so intense it stole my breath before I could get a word out.
So, instead of speaking, I acted, crossing the room with a determined frown. I wasn’t sure what I meant to do, exactly, when I reached him, but he must’ve understood, as he came this way, shadows at his heels.
There was a moment when his arms closed around my waist and mine looped around his neck. A moment that strung out for hours, days, months. A moment empty of breath but full of wild and reckless hope.
Then, somehow, my lips were on his.
At last. At long fucking last.
Not almost. Not interrupted. Not stopped by the realisation that it was a bad idea.
Because it wasn’t.
It was warm and soft and yearning, like neither of us quite realised it was truly happening or we both expected it to be snatched away in an instant.
Then he smiled. I felt its angles, felt the soft huffing laugh on my lips, lighting me up like embers breathed back to life.
He was kissing me.
Kissing me like there were no regrets. No reason not to. Just a lot of wasted opportunities he now wanted to make up for as he gripped my hair and angled my head and deepened what we shared.
I lost myself in exploration and being explored, taking his tongue, curling mine against it, swiping into his mouth and running the length along one sharp canine. I whimpered at that last part, the scrape of pain bright and beautiful.
At the sound, he crushed the air from my lungs, and I had to pull away just to catch my breath.
All of this is real.
Fuck. It was. It was.
“Katherine,” he murmured, an inch away.
“I’m sorry.” I swallowed and tried to step back, but my feet weren’t on the floor. “I shouldn’t ask this of you. I just… The way you looked, it…” I couldn’t tell him how I felt. That would be unfair, just like running across the room at him had been. Hadn’t I said I wouldn’t take this from him? “You told me where you stood, and I need to respect that.”
“No, you don’t. Shouldn’t. In fact, I’m begging you not to.”
“Oh.” Bastian begging and asking me not to respect him.
“I have been a fool. A fucking fool. Trying to resist. Pretending that if I don’t kiss you and that if only my shadows have you, then I’m not breaking any rules.” He ran his fingertips over my scalp and I shuddered at the touch. He made a soft sound, part pleasure, part amusement.
“You do remember that I’m… married?” I couldn’t help my nose wrinkling at having to bring it up. But I was committed to not being a regret—not for him.
He made a low sound, a glower shading his eyes. “I was planning to wait until that man was out of the way, but… I can’t wait—not anymore. Not when I’ve been waiting a lifetime for you.”
I opened my mouth but couldn’t speak. What he was saying—it felt big. Too big to contain in a moment. Too big to hold in my skin. So big and bright and precious, I might explode with it.
“I was trying to say this morning… The race, the poison, the Horrors—every other time you’ve faced danger, there’s always been something you or I or we could do about it. But yesterday… I thought we’d run out of chances.” His silver eyes gleamed as he went on in a whisper, “I thought you were dead.”