Page 111 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
“The night after the Inauguration.”
“You couldn’t walk for a day afterward, remember?”
He laughs. “It was worth it.”
“It’s all been worth it, little prince. For me.”
He presses his lips to skin above my heart. “For me too.”
Last time, last time.
“If I asked you not to go to the debate tomorrow, would you listen?”
He groans and rolls onto his back. “Is this about that non-existent Carpathian threat? I saw the files, Ash. There’s nothing there.”
“Merlin says there’s something. I’m terrified there’s something. What if I didn’t go—if I pretended to be sick or there was an emergency or a crisis—would you agree to postpone the debate then?”
“It would throw off my entire campaign schedule. I can’t.”
It’s my turn to groan. “Not even for your own safety?”
“I’ve come too far to fuck this up,” he says, propping his head up on his arm to look at me. “I’m sorry, Ash, but I’m not going to throw away my shot at the White House just because Merlin has a bad feeling. You can play hooky from the debate all you like. I am going to be there.”
“Is making war on Carpathia that important to you still? They’re done, Melwas is gone. Greer is safe.”
Embry looks down at my chest, biting his lip in thought, and when he raises his eyes back to mine, what I see there gives me some hope. “You might be right about Carpathia,” he says softly. “And war. Putting Abilene in the ground today reminded me that even if you’re burying an enemy, it doesn’t feel good. And seeing Galahad ask for her…” he breathes out. “I don’t know if I have a taste for making orphans,” he says, attempting a joke.
I stay serious. “Do you really mean that?”
Can I trust this country with you?
He nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I mean that.”
“But you still want to win.”
He gives a one-shouldered shrug that manages to look elegant even though he’s propped up on one elbow. “Even if I didn’t, it feels too late to turn back now.”
“I’m worried it’s too late for a lot of things.”
It’s like everything is arrayed against me at once, everything has gone wrong, and the one person who could fix it all just by listening won’t.
Is this what fate feels like from the inside? All those tragic heroes Embry told me about in Berlin, is this how they felt as their lives converged in inevitable ruin around them?
Embry leans down to kiss me. “It’s not too late for us to love each other.”
And I almost tell him. It’s what I came here to do after all—to tell him the truth. I almost spill out every last insane detail about this other life, which may or may not be a hallucination, but it’s a hallucination I share with Merlin, and for some reason I can’t help but believe in it. It feels so right to me. So true and so real. I could tell him about a flat-topped hill and an isle called Avalon and about the queen we both loved. I could tell him how it ended in the worst possible way—broken, unfinished, every last one of us betrayed—every last work unraveled by ambition and years-old hurt.
But I don’t tell him, even though it’s what I came here to do, because it still sounds too impossible even in my own mind. He’d never believe me. I barely believe me.
Instead, I let him kiss me, I let him hold me, and in the silvery dark, we make love one last time. He doesn’t know it’s our last time, but I can feel it in every kiss and whisper of flesh, singing as loud as a cathedral choir.
Last time, last time.
TWENTY-EIGHT
ASH
now
