Chapter Seven

Their sleeping bags were rolled out in front of the fire. Kira had found a nice cave to stay in for the night. Perfectly situated, dry, and creature free, it was a lucky find on a night they misjudged the distance to the next town.

“Should we keep watch?” he asked as he got the fire going.

Kira shook her head. “I’ve set up an alarm system to tell us if a wandering creature comes by. As for the other-” Her mouth turned down enough it resembled an ‘n’. He didn’t think it was possible for a mouth to do that naturally. “What good would alarms do against magic? The only hope is that my birthmark warns us again.”

She didn’t look at the little mark on her wrist, but he could see the effort it took not to. Since the encounter with the fey, he often saw her touching the birthmark, poking at it as if she expected it to jump at her in return.

He hated how it was consuming her. This small mark didn’t define her – it never had and it wouldn’t now. All her talents, her fire-forged will and brilliant mind, none of them hinged around this collection of black lines.

Seth wrapped his hand around her wrist, the birthmark now obscured by his hand. “I have every faith in you, mark or not.”

She exhaled, her body relaxing under his touch. With her free hand she traced the veins in his hand, following the faint blue lines where they led.

The fire crackled beside them, the smell of the burning wood wafting in the air. Firelight suited Kira’s red hair and pale skin and made her seem to glow from within.

Where her fingertips trailed, his skin heated. He flipped his wrist to trap her hand with his, but it didn’t stop the warmth from where skin met skin.

She leaned into him, nuzzled the sensitive skin between his below his ear. Her breath was as warm as the rest of her as it caressed his skin.

And then there it was, the smallest brush of her lips.

She touched him, and it rushed through him, the truth he had been ruthless in suppressing. He wanted her. He longed for her, reached towards her like a flower seeking the sun. There was no one in his world for him except her.

Her lips were chapped, and the small roughness sensitized him, made him aware of every inch of her skin as it lay against his. She fit nicely against him, two puzzle pieces that clicked together.

His arms came up to wrap around her back-

When we’re married, I’ll take you on a picnic…

Seth grabbed her upper arms and shoved Kira away. Avoiding her wide green eyes and the betrayal within, Seth turned away to unload the horses.

It had never been awkward between them, ever, not until this moment.

They were on opposite sides of the fire. Seth’s dark hair took on a faint reddish hue, and his blue eyes were suspiciously bright, brighter than the light alone could account for.

She huddled deeper into the blanket. It was a mistake. She wanted one brush against him, one tiny touch to keep in her heart. She wouldn’t lie to herself. There was nothing innocent in her actions, and he had known that, just like he knew everything.

“Kira.”

His voice was low but forceful, and she obeyed, her eyes coming to rest on his face.

Seth was looking into the fire. His lips were a thin, determined line and his eyes were narrowed, but there was an awkward slope to his shoulders, his body curling around himself. They were going to have a discussion, and he hated it.

Whatever it was, she’d endure. What could he do? Make her love him and then turn around and marry another woman? She bit down on her lip to stop the inappropriate snort.

He picked up a twig and tossed it into the fire before he shifted to look at her. “I’ve met Rosamund.”

His words hit her like a glancing blow—hard enough to push her off balance but not enough for her to tumble down. “What are you talking about? We’ve never met her.” Her tone was firm. Was strong. Because she was right, and his words now were some sort of joke.

He ducked his head, rubbed the back of his neck. He wouldn’t look at her; instead, his head canted sideways, observing into the distance as though he decided to take up a watch after all. “It was right before my thirteenth birthday. Do you remember? We got lost in Mathias’s castle in that weird room.”

A shiver hit Kira’s nape hard and zinged down every individual nerve in her back. She’d hated that dark room. Nothing had felt right once they’d entered that wing. Seth had kept pulling her like always, and while six months before she would have stopped and told him—punishment or not—that they were not entering those doors, at that time she’d begun to realize how her feelings were something besides childhood friendship. Because of that, she’d kept her silence and let him lead her into a situation that didn’t feel right.

Seth wouldn’t have lied to her all this time. Not about that. Her world might sometimes feel as though it was perpetually on the verge of crashing down on her, but she kept that truth dear, the truth that said no matter what his duty might force him to do, their relationship was important, sacred, and none could intrude on it.

He couldn’t have a secret with Rosamund. He couldn’t have excluded her.

“I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want to betray her.”

The words punched through her chest. Betray her . Poor, poor Rosamund. That poor pathetic princess, who had only taken everything from Kira. And now she took this.

“Sorry I forced myself on you.” The words came from Kira’s mouth, but she didn’t know where they came from. She never planned on saying this, didn’t even know she felt this. But now that the words had come out, she couldn’t stop them, couldn’t stop the pain pouring through them, couldn’t stop the venom against a woman she had never met – but he had. “If only you had explained the situation sooner, I’d have let you come alone. Stupid me, thinking you needed me or trusted me. Or that I was anything other than a guard to you. Stupid me for thinking I was important. How could I be, when you had your fairy tale princess waiting for you at the end of the story? I apologize for saddling you with my company.”

His head swiveled in her direction, his brow furrowed in confusion. What a ridiculous expression. He couldn’t understand what he just did ? “What are you talking about?”

Her lip curled, and the fleeting thought baring your fangs flitted through her mind. “I didn’t know how close you were with Rosamund. I hope I didn’t keep you from any other secret rendezvous.”

His arms rested on bent knees, his hands hanging down, now curling and uncurling into loose fists. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he began, his voice lowering into that rarely visited range, the one that said he was losing grip of his seldom-seen temper. “But you should stop right there. I’ve met her once, and I kept that one meeting, that one secret from you. Whatever else you’ve made up in your mind is false.”

“Then why keep it a secret?” she challenged. “Why was that meeting so important, so precious that you couldn’t share with me?” What was so special about her that you hid it from me?

It was only a beat, but his face went from edge-of-temper to mournful, an old, deep longing shading his eyes as he stared full deep into hers. “You don’t know why? Will you really have me speak it aloud? Once the words exist, Kira, we live with them as a harsh reality instead of a bittersweet thought. Is that what you want?”

And there it was, where every moment of their lives led them. It had been inevitable, hadn’t it? No matter how hard they tried, this had been inevitable.

The fire threw sparks in the air. Her nose was cold. She rubbed the tip with fingers she only now realized were even colder. “I want to understand.”

Seth closed his eyes, resigned acceptance in every line of his face. He opened them only to look up at the stars. “She was so small and so scared. She’d never seen trees or touched water from a lake. She was kept separate and alone from everyone, and she had this fate that she couldn’t fight. No one would help her. Not her father. Not my father.”

He fiddled with the ring he wore on his pinkie finger, this way and that, connected to this memory he had held sacred, reserved only for himself, the one memory she had no part of.

And yet, how could she hate the little girl he spoke of? How could she rail against this unfairness when that child experienced tragedy beyond comprehension? She who had Seth’s friendship and surrounded by friends and comrades, she half-hated a girl who had less than nothing. Self-loathing pricked Kira’s skin, an ooze no amount of scrubbing would remove.

“I made her a promise that day. I promised her I would not love anyone else, so that she would always be safe from the curse. This poor little girl, and all she wanted was to be safe. How could I not save her? I didn’t realize what I…”

Seth broke off. His eyes locked with hers. They were such a jumbled mass of emotion that Kira couldn’t pull the feelings apart, all except for one thread. Determination. No matter the other emotions, no matter the conflict they inspired in him, his will to see through his decision was highlighted in bright lines.

Whatever fantastical dreams might have been held in the deep, deep recesses of her mind, at that look, they blackened and fell into a waterfall of dark and silent despair.

“I made a promise, and I won’t fail her.”