The Iron Crown (The Darkest Court)

“I could have lost control. I could have hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.” My voice cracks on the last bit and all the guilt and fear I’d felt those long centuries ago surges back up. “Why did you rush in like that? You didn’t even hesitate to reach for me.”

He smiles. “Because it was you. Because those were your eyes staring at me. I trusted you. I always have. Just like you trust me?”

I suck in a breath. I want to be angry with him over this. I want to hold him responsible for his rash decisions, but I can’t, not when I know where he’s going with this.

“Yes, Lugh.” I can give him that.

This entire time, he’s been trying to keep me safe. From Goodfellow. From these shades. From his magick. What a noble, misguided gesture.

Like my accepting the belt. Like all the time we spent dancing around each other and the truth of where our hearts lay.

“Enough that you would risk anything, even losing yourself to the belt, to stay beside me?” he asks.

I nod.

“Then you have to understand why I did this.”

He doesn’t speak again. He waits patiently, assured enough in his beliefs that he doesn’t need to defend himself further.

Eventually, I gather my thoughts. “I do understand, Lugh. I can’t blame you for doing what you think is necessary, not when I’ve done the same. But what’s happening between us now... This has to stop. I’m frightened by the risks you’re taking,” I admit, “but watching you pull away from me this week is far worse, especially after what happened between us at Krigsmöte.”

He makes a low, sorrowful sound. Explaining how my heart works is a struggle, one I?

?ve never dared face until now, when the thought of Lugh walking out of my life scares me deeply enough to try. “When I claim the Iron Crown, Queen Mab will separate us to maintain neutrality. I’ll lose everything. The Winter Court. The Hunt. You.” He tries to protest, so I talk over him. “I’ve accepted that cost. It’s the only course left. Without the Sluagh at our backs, Goodfellow will destroy all of Faerie.” I swallow against the burn of rising tears and allow myself one selfish moment of weakness. “But I don’t want to give you up until I have no other choice.”

He reaches for me and I reach back, until we collide and cling to each other in the face of this storm. His fingers dig into my back and his lips move against my collarbone as he promises, “I’ll never leave you.”

He says it again and again, until the words lose their coherency and nothing but his unbreakable intent remains. He says it when he tilts his face up toward mine to close the gap between us. Those beautiful words rest against my lips with the divine promise of a future we’ll never have, and I don’t care about anything outside these walls anymore. I want to believe Lugh when he says we’ll be together. Perhaps all I have to do is choose it, and we can make it true. If anyone can, it’s us.

Lugh

Keiran kisses like it’s our last time. He surges forward, stealing my breath, only to hold back a moment later so I can regain control. At the surrender, I take his mouth as I want. I take and take and take. Nip his lower lip until he moans. Brush my tongue against his and try to erase every minute of the time I kept us apart. It was stupid to think distance would make any of this easier. He’s been suffering because I didn’t trust him to understand, when he’s the only one who possibly could. I run my hands up and down his back in apology, tracing his musculature from centuries of memories of baths and swims and sharing rooms as we dress. I try not to press against him and give away how needy I am, how my body refuses to slow down, because the last thing I want to do is push him away from me again.

Maybe that’s why his hands at my hips, his urgent tug, and the shocking, mind-blanking press of his thigh against my erection nearly undoes me. Heat suffuses my belly and spreads up my spine. I bite the tendon cording in his neck and release some strangled sound, but don’t tip over the razor’s edge of release.

The sensation lingers, tingling in my palms and through my bones in a moment of soul-stealing resonance. Keiran’s voice is little more than a rumble when he asks, “More?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes.”

He reclaims my mouth with a vengeance before dragging me down to the bedrolls. Every sensation is perfect and newborn like this. He straddles me, his knees on either side of my thighs, and cups my face in a hand as he gives me one more kiss, this one sweet and tender. I don’t want it to end, not when his fingers tangle in my hair and I spread my hands wide against his ribs to feel every hitch in his breathing. He looms over me, a steady, warm weight tugging insistently at the bottom of my shirt. The blankets shift and bunch as I rise up on my elbows and try to struggle free of the offending garment, almost mindless with the urge to offer him my bare skin.

He tosses my shirt to the side, just missing the guttering candle, and reaches behind his head. He draws his tunic up and over before throwing it away too. He’s thicker than me, his rough-hewn muscle covered in a fine dusting of dark hair and riddled with scars. Those marks declare his humanity and I take advantage of his momentary distraction to sit up and press light kisses to the pale lines. He gives a deep sigh and, encouraged, I trace the scars with my tongue, making him shiver.

“Fuck,” he growls. A moment later, he grips my shoulders and pushes me back down. His hair falls forward and his eyes are dark with lust and affection. He brushes fingers down my chest to my stomach, pausing at the waist of my pants.

“Yes,” I say again, the only word I know anymore, and he obeys with a smile.

Every frantic need ignites with the hot clasp of his fingers and callused palm around my cock. His grip is gentle, coaxing, and I whimper and arch against him as he takes me apart. I know nothing except the tickle of his beard when he nuzzles close and bites down the column of my neck, the mixture of his panted breaths and my whines in my ears, the brush of his lips against mine when he whispers, “Please, Lugh.”

He swallows my cry and the sudden hot slickness between us only makes the glide of his hand better. I try to drag myself out of the blissful haze weighing me down and reach a trembling hand to his laces. He notices and stops me, squeezing my hand with gentle apology as he whispers, “Not yet.”

“What do you want?” I murmur. He stills, like he’d never given it any thought, and I pull my hand free of his, resettling it over my head where he can see it. “Anything, Keir. I’ll give you anything.”

He licks his lips. “I want to kiss you—”

I lift my head and press my lips to his. A moment later, his knuckles brush my hip when he works to free himself, but I focus on his mouth. I want him to share in my bliss, however he desires to go about it. His kisses grow more desperate as he strokes himself, until he’s unable to do anything but pant and press his face against mine. I hum my encouragement and brush fingers through his hair, kissing the corner of his mouth. His brow. His cheek. His scars. I hallow his flesh and treasure every moan he can’t contain. His hand moves faster and faster, until he gives one final gasp. His release takes him, leaving him shuddering and spilling over my stomach, and I send up a silent prayer of thanks to the Goddess for the love of this good man. Now that I have it, I won’t let anything—my own stupidity, Goodfellow, my mother, or this damn war—separate us ever again.

Chapter Twenty-One