Jack went first, drawing the blade over his palm.
“Bone of my bone,” he said as his blood welled. “Flesh of my flesh. Blood of my blood.”
Adaira took the dirk’s hilt when he offered it, then did as he had done. The blade reflected the firelight—and a fleeting glimpse of her face—as she cut her palm, repeating the words back to him.
“Bone of my bone. Flesh of my flesh. Blood of my blood.” She laid her scored palm against his, and their fingers intertwined.
They remained like that for a few moments, on their knees, their hands fastened, their mingled blood dripping to the floor. Adaira could feel the enchanted bite of the wound, how it swiftly began to mend. It would leave a cold trace of a scar behind, for which she was glad. She wanted to remember this night, to feel its ridges on her palm. To remember how simple and true it was. How Jack looked at her. She had never seen such hunger in his eyes before, and it made her blood sing.
“I want to feel your skin against mine,” she whispered. “I don’t want anything between us.”
“Then undress me, Heiress,” he said.
She unwound her fingers from his. She unbuckled his belt, pulled away his tunic, unlaced his boots. She laid him bare on her floor, and she shivered when she felt his hands begin to loosen the stays of her dress. When he drew away her raiment until she wore nothing but firelight on her skin.
Only days ago, she had lain on this floor. Alone and poisoned and writhing, weeping into her hands. Only days ago, she had been uncertain and quiet and riddled with doubt.
She had not known her place then. But she would carve it into stone now. She would find it in the stars when the clouds broke. She would trace it in the lines on Jack’s palms. In the cold echo of his scar. In the taste of his mouth.
Adaira sighed as she took Jack deep inside her. She moved and breathed and closed her eyes, feeling his hands on her waist, the floor bruising her knees. She had never felt more alive, and she wanted to chase that fire.
“Adaira,” he whispered.
She opened her eyes to see he was watching her, as if he wanted to memorize her, gleaming, gasping. When he breathed, she exhaled, as if they were passing the same air between them. He moved with her, his nails biting into her skin as though to claim her, to mark her. A desperate expression was on his face, and Adaira knew he was unguarded. She was seeing him whole, down to his very heart.
She let him see the same in her. The hunger, the longing, the scars. The words she wrote but never sent. The shape of her soul that didn’t seem to fit anywhere. For once, she wasn’t afraid to surrender those pieces of herself, to let them twine with Jack.
She let them all go because he was her home, her shelter. Her endless fire, burning through the dark.
Chapter 34
When the night passed into its oldest hour, the Breccan clan gathered quietly in the arena stands. Adaira stood on the balcony, watching them come by torchlight. A plaid was wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill, and a thistle bloom was tucked into her braided crown. Her eyes drifted down to the freshly raked sand, through the mist spinning in the air.
She felt Jack touch the small of her back.
A few hours earlier, they had lain entwined on the floor, covered in a blanket and sharing news of how their dinners had gone. Jack had been shocked by what transpired between her and Moray; she had been saddened by how his brief time with his father went. She didn’t know what she would say to Jack if Niall was defeated. Trying to imagine it—to prepare herself for such an outcome—made her feel weary, as though years had passed in a single evening.
What can I say? What can I do?
These questions echoed through her. Her inability to interfere with the culling should it veer the wrong way kindled her anxieties. For Niall, and also for Jack. But deep inside she harbored a spark of hope. She hoped the stories Jack had told Niall, the words he had said to him, would carry his father through one more fight.
Just before the bell chimed midnight, Innes joined them on the balcony.
The laird sat in one of the chairs and crossed her legs, fingers laced together on her lap. She wore her circlet, her plaid, and her sword, and she appeared calm and poised when Adaira glanced over her shoulder at her. She looked as if this were any other night, not the night destined to rend her heart no matter the outcome. Either she would lose Moray and be honor-bound to pardon the man who had stolen her daughter, or she would be compelled to keep her son imprisoned in the dungeons.
When Innes met her gaze, Moray’s words rolled through Adaira’s memory again. You are her weakness. The gap in her armor.