Page 17 of Between These Broken Hearts (Cursed Stars #2)

Kendrick’s sitting shirtless in bed, leaning against the headboard with a book in his lap. He jerks his head up, his eyes

widening, his lips parting. He scans me as if he’s looking for injury, skimming over my riding leathers and taking in the

sword at my back and the daggers on my hips.

The sight of him and the feel of his eyes on me make me warm deep in my stomach but cold in every part of me that remembers

I can’t climb in beside him. Shouldn’t.

I do it anyway, removing my sword from my back and sitting right beside him, so close my arm’s pressed against his. My heart aches too much to deny myself.

He stares at me like he can’t quite believe I’m real. Maybe because I’m not. I’m not who I used to be, and I won’t live long

enough to become anyone new. I’m not anyone anymore.

“Jasalyn.” My name, said with relief, with gratitude, with worry.

I curl into his side and rest my head on his shoulder. “It was just a bad day,” I whisper.

“Where have you—”

I shake my head. “Don’t. I don’t want to do this again. I’m fine. I’m working to fix what I broke. I just...” I wrap my

fingers around his arm, reveling in the size and strength there. I’m safe. Right here. Right now. I’m safe. “I wanted to see

you.”

“Like you did before.”

I lift my head. “You remember?”

Kendrick pulls me onto his lap, moving me like I’m no more than a child, but I don’t care. I let him wrap his arms around

me and rest my head against his chest. Hands stroking my back, he buries his nose in my hair and breathes in deep. “I might

not remember it, but I knew why I’d gone to the keep and when I found myself in the Ironmoore infirmary, the scent of you

was still there. It’s clung to me since. And now...”

His chest shudders with his next inhale. “Tell me you aren’t going to leave this time.”

I can’t lie to him, but I won’t waste this night rehashing the same conversation we had in the infirmary. “I’m here now,”

I say, hoping that will be enough.

“We have a plan for the ring.” He touches a finger to my lips and I shiver. “Once we have the Stone of Disenchantment, I’ll be able to kiss you again.”

I close my eyes. I’d like that. Just once before this is all taken away from me, I’d like to know Kendrick’s kiss again.

I lightly brush the pads of my thumbs on the bruises beneath his eyes. “You aren’t sleeping.”

He cocks his head to the side. “How could I possibly sleep when everything that matters is so unsure?”

“Crissa,” I say. They still don’t know what happened to their queen.

He huffs out a breath that was probably supposed to be a laugh, but there’s no amusement in the sound. “Yes. I should be losing

sleep over my queen. I should be losing sleep over the fact that we haven’t had one hint of where she might be and over the

future of the realm I’ve been tasked with saving.” His jaw works for a moment before his arms tighten around me, but instead

of feeling like a prison, they’re like a blanket, offering warmth and comfort without trapping me. “But I’m losing sleep over

you, Jas. I’ve been out of my mind trying to find you.”

His eyes are so blue. So pure. They are the eyes that saved me, his is the voice that saved me, even when his hands couldn’t.

“You didn’t have to pretend to be human.”

He stiffens because, of course, he still doesn’t remember that I know. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t have to be a human for me to trust you.” I skim my fingertip across the delicately pointed shell of his ear and he shivers. “I would’ve needed your friendship in those dungeons whether you’d been fae or human or goblin. I’m not angry that you’re fae. I’m angry that you lied.”

“That’s why you left? Because you found out who I am?”

It hurts—being erased like this, knowing that in so many ways this ring took my life before the date I agreed to. “I don’t

want to have this conversation again. I just want...” I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of him. Leather. Soap. Fresh

air.

“Tell me.” His fingers are so gentle as he tilts my face to look at his. “Tell me what you want and I will bend the world

to give it to you.”

I want to kiss you. I want to stay here in your arms and forget everything that’s broken—everything I’ve broken. I want to lose myself in this moment. In you. To feel like I did during our night together—to give you the same feelings

you gave me. “I want to touch you.”

His nostrils flare and his lips part. “Jas...”

I slide my hand down his bare chest, relishing the heat of his skin, the tickle of his chest hair beneath my fingertips. “You

don’t remember, but we spent the night together before I left.” I find the waistband of his soft sleep pants and skim a knuckle

across that spot where skin meets cotton.

His eyes float closed and he shivers subtly beneath my touch. “I don’t remember”—his voice is the rasp of desire brushing

against need—“but I have my journal. I know...” He swallows. “I would trade a hundred useless memories for the one from

that night.”

“You don’t need to trade anything.” I slip my hand beneath his waistband and watch his eyes darken as I find him.

I don’t know what I’m doing, not exactly, but my cousins whispered about this enough to give me an idea.

And it’s easier than I would’ve guessed to know what he likes—what makes his lips part and his breath hitch, what makes his hips lift just slightly from the bed. “This?”

He releases an unintelligible sound that makes want and heat curl together low in my belly. “Gods.” He holds my gaze and traces

my lips with the pad of his thumb. “I must be dreaming.”

I explore the warm skin tentatively at first, but then with more confidence. He fights to keep his eyes locked on mine, but

when he loses himself to pleasure, head pressed into his pillow, neck arching, something like pride flows through me. I feel

like I’m glowing.

He pulls my hand away and before I can wonder why, he’s wrapping an arm around my waist and rolling us so I’m on my back and

he’s above me. He scrapes his teeth down the column of my neck, then kisses his way across my collarbone and down to my chest,

pressing his open mouth to my breast and licking me through my shirt.

He draws back, throat bobbing. “You’re bleeding.” He searches with eyes and hands across my belly, over my chest, and down

my arms before reaching my wrist and finding the bleeding punctures from the wolpertinger’s spikes.

I didn’t even notice I got blood on his pants. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” I promise.

He brings my wrist to his lips and kisses the tender spot. “Let me get a bandage for this.”

If he leaves, he’ll forget this. I’m not ready for that yet. “I’m fine. I just want you to stay with me. To hold me.”

He scans my face like he’s looking for answers, like he might remember this if he just tries hard enough. “I’ll hold you as long as you’ll let me.”

I skim my fingers across the stubble of his short beard, making my own efforts to remember this moment, though there’s no

chance I’ll forget.

He lies on his side and pulls me against him, my back to his front. I let myself stay in the warmth of his embrace until the

candle beside the bed flickers in the last of its wax, until his breath falls into the shallow rhythm of sleep.

“You won’t remember this,” I whisper, and the truth of it is like the worst of the darkness on the loneliest night. I thought

I knew loneliness in the depths of my despair, during those years before I got the ring, but that can’t compare to the loneliness

of knowing nothing I say or do now will be remembered. I will walk away and be erased. “I love you,” I say softly. I slide

off his bed, not letting myself hesitate, even when he reaches for me in his sleep.