Page 124 of A Touch of Poison
Her whimper almost destroyed me. The feel of her hot skin against my chest was its own kind of sweet torture. But it was touch, and I’d promised to give her that.
“Katherine,” I said against her ear. I couldn’t stop saying her name—my damnation, my salvation, my everything in between. “I knew that with you, I risked spilling dangerous secrets. If I kept my desire leashed, I could keep control. I started off telling myself that touching you, teasing you was all part of luring you in. When I realised that was a lie, I told myself it was for you. And it was.” I swept my lips down the column of her neck—close to a kiss but not quite.
“Yet it was for me, too. All these years of loyalty to a realm that looks upon me as the man who killed his own father, and there you were treating me like… like a person. You reacted according to how I behaved. When I was an arse, you treated me as such. When I touched you, you reacted not to a reputation, but tome. Stars above, that was a heady combination. So when you looked at me differently… even though I intended to push you away, it was still a knife between my ribs.”
My eyes burned with that image. It was seared in my soul. Her face, hurt and tearstained, the shock, the confusion, the re-evaluation of the man she’d shared so much with.
“I hated myself.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but it rumbled out from somewhere deep inside. “Hurting you like that. Being that person.” Eyes screwing shut, I buried my face in her hair.
“I know.” She squeezed my arms around her waist and reached back, cupping my cheek. “I know.”
We stood there a long while, this embrace somehow turning into something that was soothing me instead of her… or perhapsas well asher.
Eventually, I had the strength to straighten and pull back.
By the time she turned, holding her gown over her chest, I was on my knees.
“Katherine.” My heart was in my throat, finally able to spill what it needed me to say. “I kneel for no one, but here I am on my knees for you. I am sorry.”
Her eyelashes fluttered. “You already apologised. I forgave you.”
“Not like this. What you said about choice has been on my mind, burrowing into it, like you planted a seed and now the roots are in me. I hadn’t thought about it like that. All I could see was how horribly you’d been treated, how much you held back, and how muchIwanted to give you some spark of pleasure to counter it. I decided I would treat you like the precious flame you are and pile fuel upon you until you were truly ready.” I shook my head, queasy with how blind I’d been.
A frown pressed between her eyebrows, and she shook her head. “You don’t need to—”
“I do.” I hung my head. “I do. Because you were right. Was it really a choice if I didn’t give you all the information? If you didn’t know what you were getting into? All I thought about was how I was giving you something more than you were taking for yourself… ThatIwas being better than those other men who’d used you. But…” My breath failed me, trapped in horrible, harsh guilt that I’d been battling for months. “But I did use you to my own ends. I manipulated and tricked you even as I was trying to ‘free’ you. I was no better. I see that now.”
When I looked up, her frown had gone, and now her lips had parted as though she meant to speak but words evaded her.
So I pressed forward with mine before my bravery fled. “I may not ever deserve your forgiveness, but I need you to know that I am sorry, and I swear I’ll never do anything like that to you again. I swear on everything that I am.” I placed a hand over my heart, shadows pooling around me as I pressed my other hand to the floor at her feet. “I swear it on my magic.”
The stone floor answered, old, old power lifting its head from a long slumber, and I could feel the land, the Great Yew outside, the very soul of Elfhame listening.
Kat’s gaze raked over me, passing from one eye to the other, to the hand over my heart, to my knees digging into the polished floor and the hand placed between her feet.
“Do you accept my vow?”
Slowly, she nodded. “I do. That and your apology.”
The land’s magic touched us, sealing it. Kat shivered, rubbing her arms, frown deepening. A profound exhaustion settled over me as that great power ebbed away and with it went the gnawing guilt. Kat’s blood-shot eyes reminded me of the ordeal she’d been through today.
I had no more words left, so I rose and, palm on the small of her back, I guided her to her room and to bed.
Heart full, arms empty, I stood outside her door a long while until there was quiet.
She slept soundly, and so, at last, could I.
46
Kat
The next morning, I woke from the best sleep of my entire life. Every muscle felt loose. My eyes were sore from last night’s tears, but in the morning light, I could remind myself that Ella was alive. A note that had been pushed under my door revealed Bastian’s handwriting.
Asher says Ella is fine. No lasting effects. I hope this puts your mind at rest.
B
It was only after I read it that I spotted another piece of paper barely poking out from underneath the door.
