Page 130 of A Bargain with the Fae King

My brows draw together. “How—”

“I can hear Ambrose’s snores from here.”

Funny, I can’t. The curtain of vine blocks a surprising amount of sound. Likely magic at work, but none of that matters.

He’s alive! Tears blur his night-darkened form.

“Your wound. The poison.” My hand trails along his chest, over the circular scar.

“It still burns, worse than I could have imagined, but I think I’ll live.” His lips quirk up. A calloused thumb wipes away the tears leaking down my face. “I take it this means you don’t completely hate me.”

A small huff of laughter bubbles from my lips. I return a wobbly smile. “Not completely.”

“Good. If you did, I’d be tempted to lie back and let the poison take me.”

My eyes widen as I hold back the urge to swat his grinning face.

“Don’t say that,” I hiss in a whisper.

“May is safe?”

“Asleep—a natural sleep—in the other room.”

“Good.”

I settle down next to him again, our faces only inches apart as he tilts his to the side to stare at me in the dark. The heat soaks from his body into mine, stirring up the pool of warmth that stretches from my chest, down through my stomach and between my legs. It lay dormant, iced over, since Sigurd revealed Riven’s deception to me.

But here, lying closely with him in the dark, all our secrets bared, the hurt and the pain melt away.

Well, almost all of our secrets.

“I love you too.” My truth. The one he didn’t have.

His breath hitches. He searches me, strips my soul bare. “Lia—”

I don’t wait for him to finish. His words are lost against my mouth when I close the space between us, sealing my truth with a kiss.

All my love. All my pain. All my passion.

I pour it out to him, taking all the emotion his hungry mouth gives back. Our bodies melt together, two twined souls embracing their lost other half.

Everywhere he touches comes alight in a spark of life. I need to touch him, to remind myself he’s real, alive. My hands are everywhere, on his chest, down his back, in his hair. We’re a tangle of limbs and desires. No words are needed, and none can convey all that we say as we cling together.

Joy floods my veins as we part—a happy, bubbling spring of hope, filling in and binding the cracks amidst my broken heart.

Our foreheads press together. Heavy breaths mingle.

If only I could freeze this moment and hold onto it forever.

The tangled web of secrets and bitter deception almost tore us apart. But the sharp edge of truth, a knife meant to cut the threads that bound us, welds us together instead, solidifying the tenuous bond between us.

“The wound, the poison, is worth it just to hear those words.” His chest rises and falls with heavy breaths as I lay pressed against him. “You truly mean it? Despite everything?”

“I do.” I add another kiss to his shoulder. “If you died without knowing…” I bite my lip, unable to continue as the tears well up again.

“It feels like a dream. If it is, never wake me.”

“I should be letting you rest.”

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