Slowly, she quieted, under the run of his fingers through her hair and the library scent of him in each breath. She felt the moment he stiffened again, when his touch fell away from her and he took a small step back.
But he kept holding her hand. And that gave her enough stability to take a deep lungful of Wilderwood air, and start from the beginning.
Eammon stayed still and quiet through her story, until she recounted Kiri cutting her. Then his teeth ground hard enough for her to hear it over the flames in the grate.
Her voice faltered when she reached the dungeon. “Can you feel it when a new breach happens?”
Confusion knit his brows. “Used to, back when I’d first become the Wolf. Not anymore.”
“Arick . . . Arick made a breach. More than a breach. He bled on a sentinel, opened the Shadowlands.” A pause. “He bargained with Solmir.”
Silence. Even the fire seemed to deaden its crackle. Eammon’s breath scraped harsh, every muscle tensed, new blood staining the bandage on his hand holding hers.
Haltingly, Red told the story. Arick and his terrible bargain, his blood waking the sentinel branches in the Shrine and pulling them away from the Wilderwood, Solmir taking his place. Eammon barely moved. He didn’t speak. It was more unsettling than if he’d raged.
“He thought I hadn’t taken the roots because I didn’t want them.” Red darted a look at Eammon, unable to stop the angry tightening of her lips. “He thought you’d told me everything.”
The snarl on his face faded to something softer, sadder. “I was afraid if I told you everything, you would take them. You’d try to help me.” He snorted at the floor, eyes hidden behind his unbound hair. “I was right.”
“Of course you were.” He knew her well, her Wolf. “Eammon . . .” She faltered, remembering how he’d reacted when she almost said it before. “I chose this. I chose you.”
“You shouldn’t have.” His voice was a whisper. “I wasn’t strong enough to save them, Red. Even after the Wilderwood had them, I tried to hold the worst of it back, to keep the full weight of it away. It still drained them, every time.” A shuddering breath. “What if I can’t save you?”
“That’s what you don’t understand. I’m saving you.” Tentatively, the hand he wasn’t holding reached up to cup his cheek. “Let me.”
Eammon had held himself tense the whole time she talked, but when she touched his face, all the rigidity faded. His mouth parted, his amber eyes glowed. “Kings.” He cursed like one might call for mercy, and his eyes closed as her thumb brushed his bottom lip. “Kings and shadows, Redarys.”
“You didn’t let me finish, earlier, and this feels important to say.” Her fingers hooked on his jaw, fierce in their gripping. She said it almost stern, almost like a challenge, daring him to contradict her again. “I love you, Eammon.”
He shuddered an exhale.
“I’d like to kiss you,” she breathed, “but not until I know how you feel about what I just said.”
His laugh was sweeter for being unexpected, though quiet and rueful. One of his hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer; the other came up to card through her hair. “Of course I love you.” There was fire in his touch, fire in his eyes as they burned into hers. “That’s why I’m so afraid.”
“We can be afraid tomorrow,” Red murmured.
And then his mouth was on hers, warm and sweet and tasting of honey, and there was no fear in his hands on her skin, no fear in the feel of his lip between her teeth. His hands cupped her jaw like this was something to protect, something holy, and his tongue pushed at hers before his mouth went to her throat, covering the rapid rhythm of her pulse. She gasped, low and ragged, and they were on the floor, hands fumbling with laces until nothing stood between. He stared at her a moment then, lying on the wooden floor of the tower room with her hair loose and tangled, the ring of her Bargainer’s Mark stark against her bared, flushed skin.
The Mark was larger, now, like a representation of the forest blooming in her bones. The ring of root just below her elbow sent tendrils curling away in both directions, reaching from the middle of her forearm to the curve of her shoulder, patterning her skin like lace.
Eammon ran his fingers over it, barely a touch, eyes wide and wondering as they drank her in. “Shadows damn me, you’re beautiful,” he muttered, then he kissed the Mark, lips brushing the sensitive crook of her arm, tracing up to her collarbone.