Page 27 of A Baron of Bonds
He smoothed the hair matted to my face in sweat and caressed my cheek with his thumb.
I swallowed and blinked my tears away, letting them fall down the sides of my face without any effort from me to stopthem. “I’m sorry,” I choked. “I never should have gone. I’m so sorry. I love you.”
Pain crossed his face and he leaned down to kiss me softly. I tasted the blood on his mouth and savored it, the sharp swell of iron helping me focus even more.
He pulled away from my lips and slid out of me, rolling to his back and tucking me onto his chest. He grabbed my trembling leg and draped it over his hips as I always loved to do.
I buried my face in his neck and whispered, “Please forgive me. Please say something.” I wiped at my eyes and continued hurriedly, “I know it is difficult to love me. I know I don’t make it easy, but I?—”
He lifted my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes and cutting me off. “It is not difficult to love you, Karus. It hasneverbeen difficult to love you. What is difficult is keeping you safe. Often from yourself. It is difficult not to lock you up and keep you from your own reckless decisions. It is difficult to not tether you to myself with a leash or a chain, so that I can watch over your every move. So you cannot get yourself into situations like this.”
He sighed, gathering his thoughts, his jaw tightening again. “That is what is difficult. It is easy to love you. It is easy to give my heart to you, regardless of how much you or I break it.”
I hated myself. I hated witnessing what I knew I had done to him. Seven years of torture from one reckless decision. Two more weeks of the same from my determined curiosity and fierce selfishness.
“I don’t deserve you.”
“I don’t believe that, but it doesn’t matter anyway. You have me.”
I kissed him again and believed it still.
He pressed his forehead to mine. “Are you hurt?” he whispered, the crackle of his powerful cage akin to a fire burning in a dry summer heat.
My lips trembled and I pushed his hair behind his ear. I couldn’t speak of it yet. I couldn’t admit the truth of what I had witnessed and what I had learned. The looming pressure of leaving this intimate place he had made for us pressed on my thoughts. I knew we had much to face outside of it.
But at least we’d face it together.
“Okay,” he murmured understanding me entirely. “You can tell me when you’re ready.”
He sat up, bringing me with him, our clothes in shambles, our hair matted and streaked with sweat. He pulled the sleeves of the pink dress back up my shoulders, realizing what I wore for the first time.
Raising a brow, he chuckled and buttoned the remaining one, just enough to cover my bare chest. He smoothed the ruffles of the collar gently as if to preserve the delicate lace from the aftermath of our ravishing of each other’s bodies.
“It’s borrowed.”
“I figured.”
“It’s very pink and unflattering on me.”
“I didn’t seem to notice.Sarchio.”His enchantment worked in a slow turn. The buttons that had flown across our space hovered in the air, encased in his blue light, mending themselves back onto the dress, the fabric smoothing out from its puckered state.
I grinned, laughing softly, watching his eyes alight with the mischief I loved. “Sarchio,”I mumbled back, smiling myself at the repair of his shirt while he stood and pulled on his pants, offering his hand for me to rise as well.
He pulled me close, his hands caressing my back as they should always do and I lifted my arms around his shoulders. My eyes fell to the cut of his lip and I lifted a hand over the wound. “Sarch?—”
“No.” He caught my hand and brought it to his broken lip. “This stays. We don’t mend this. Let them see.”
“She’ll be more than willing to try to punish you now. Maybe even punish both of us.”
“If you’d like to leave, I can send you back to Felgren.” He moved back from my body and made a movement with his hands I had not seen before.
A glowing viridescent portal opened in our magical enclosure—just my size.
“I’ve never seen you do that,” I gasped.
He shrugged. “I told you once that portal magic is rare. I had only begun my lessons on portals before Heimlen died. I had to learn the rest myself. If you’d like, you can return to Felgren and I’ll deal with this mess here.”
“You won’t go with me? Why don’t we just leave right now and handle this mess from our home?”
