“I will not allow your people to suffer any longer.”
“But how? How can you promise that?”
My list of challenges is growing. I pull her close and grip her hands. “Do you trust me?”
“I want to.”
“I understand and if that’s all you can give, I’ll take it.” I step into the tunnel, pulling her with me.
The confusion I feel doesn’t lessen as I travel beneath the castle. It does intensify when I exit the small door and stand at my full height. Bunny is already there.
“Did you…” I start to ask Nevis, but she shakes her head.
“We’re short on time,” she says, looking between the two of us. “Follow me.”
I’ve learned a lot about my sexuality over the past few months. I’ve learned its power and the control I have over my mates. I’ve learned about energy and electricity. Love and compassion. Force and passion. I glance at the man walking next to me on the smooth, dirt path through the village. He’s the only one that has truly hurt me. But then I wonder, as he slips his glasses up his nose with his one good hand and the other lies limp by his side, maybe he’s also the one that has sacrificed the most.
Nevis takes us to the far reaches of the community, to a small but sturdy hut. The walls are made of red clay and the roof thatched from hay. She stops at the door and says, “This is our wedding house. Newlyweds come here to celebrate and consummate their relationships. You’ll have the quiet and peace to figure out your next step together.”
“Thank you,” Bunny says, as though he’s not the least bit surprised. Did he know it would come to this?
“I’ll sound the gathering bell when time is close. It’s important we’re back in the castle and ready when the Queen sends for you.”
I nod. “Yes. We’ll be ready.”
She gives me a tight, understanding smile. “Good luck and may the gods bless you.”
She turns and walks down the path. I watch her go and then spin to face Bunny. He’s already opened the door and holding it wide for me. With a knot in my belly and a grim set to my jaw, I step past him and enter the house.
The cottage is sparsely decorated. A queen-sized bed is the focal point, a white, hand-stitched quilt covering the mattress. There’s a small kitchen with a table and a stove. A claw foot tub sits in the corner.
“I never thought our relationship would end like this,” I say to him. “Forced. A cog in a wheel bigger than both of us.” He smiles wistfully at my description. “Actually, the weird thing is I thought you’d be my first.”
“In a different life I probably would have been.”
We stand before one another, neither dressed in our finest as we were just the night before. At the banquet there had been at least a sense of danger. Of desire. Definitely desperation as the Darkness surged in me and needed quenching. If we’d been pushed together at one of those times I easily would have succumbed, but now I’m cleansed. Clean from that dark energy—primed for the Morrigan’s binding.
Now I just feel helpless. Hopeless, despite what Casteel told me in my room upstairs. There are too many balls in the air; my guardians, the warriors they bring with them, Nevis and her people and the whole gods-damned world back home that doesn’t even realize they’re on the edge of a knife. There are too many people counting on me, relying on me, and I’m nothing but a girl.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say to him in a whisper.
He lifts his hand and tucks my hair behind my ear. Instinctively my body reacts to his touch; butterflies flutter in my stomach, my knees tremble, and my nipples tighten in anticipation. His pupils dilate, the dark center spreading over his copper iris. I feel his fingers clench in my hair and I lean into his palm.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t.”
He tilts his head and his hair falls into his eyes. His tongue darts out and my traitorous lips quiver, thinking about kissing him. “You don’t have to. It’s okay i
f you don’t. But we’ve got to do this, okay?”
I nod. “Okay.”
He grazes my neck with his hand, the pads of his fingertips rough from use. A chill runs down my spine—the good kind—and he brushes his warm lips against mine. There’s no hesitation, there’s no time for that. I’m thankful because it’s time to turn off my gods-forsaken brain for just. One. Fucking. Minute.
My body responds to his like a flower to sunlight. I lean into him, tasting his mouth, sucking his tongue. The layers of conflict fall between us, like the shedding of our clothes. I unbutton his shirt, slipping the wide metal buttons through the slits one after the other. The solid curves and planes of his bare chest peek out at me along with the taut ladder of his abs. His body is unfamiliar to me, I haven’t had the pleasure of spending time exploring him and today would be no different.
He bunches my dress in his hand, lifting it up my body, his knuckles grazing my stomach. My belly clenches and there’s no denying the warmth between my legs. Our mouths part but our breath mingles as we remove the final barriers between us.