Page 46 of Blackwarden

Keres

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I woke to Rosalin reading in a chair beside my bed. My throat tightened. I had almost lost her forever, and I still wasn’t sure I deserved her at all. The fact that my actions over five hundred years ago had been the catalyst of all her pain was overwhelming.

Her soft pink cheeks glowed with more life than they had in the Unseelie Court.

Her green eyes shining much more intensely.

Perhaps I saw her through a different lens, but she was achingly beautiful—human and imperfectly perfect.

I smirked at how her lips moved as she read.

Those fucking lips. Heat simmered deep in my core at the thought of them on my skin.

Why had I waited so long to kiss them? Why had I pushed her away?

But I knew why. I’d been forbidden. My heart had been locked in Bevgyah’s clutches for centuries.

I’d lost hope that I could give it to anyone ever again, knowing what the Hag would do when she inevitably found out.

This wasn’t the only reason, though. I worried no one could see past my face to the person beneath.

And even if they did, I was terrified of what they’d find.

I’d been a true monster once. The purest, most dangerous beast, hidden beneath a beautiful face.

I’d betrayed people—manipulated them. I’d done vile things to get what I wanted.

My arrogance had gotten me to this place and in all honesty, I deserved every moment I spent chained to Bevgyah’s side.

I deserved her torture, her sadism, her hatred.

She’d been a young queen, easily wooed by a handsome Dark Fae, and I’d taken advantage of my status as her lover.

I’d found all the ways to lie without words.

I’d made her what she was with every manipulation, every traitorous act.

I knew one thing for sure. My punishment had changed me, and I never wanted to go back to being the Keres Blackwarden I’d been all those centuries ago.

I shivered at the thought of the things I’d done; the people I’d destroyed to get what I wanted.

Even now, I wasn’t sure I deserved the second chance I’d been given.

Especially since that second chance included the rare creature beside me.

A human who’d been able to see past her own hatred of my kind, past the monster I tried to be in an effort to push her away, to see the me that hid in the shadows.

I swallowed hard, unsure if I deserved the happiness she brought me just by staying by my side while I recovered from using too much of my magic.

I don’t know how long I lay there watching Rosalin read. I would have watched her longer, but she glanced up, her eyes brightening when she met my gaze, a smile melting onto her lips.

“Hello, dark stranger,” she said, reaching a hand over and resting it on my arm. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I brought twenty people through the portal.”

She smirked. “Well, you only brought two people through, but one of them had these massive wings.”

I rolled my eyes and reached for her. She giggled as she snuggled in next to me, fingers tracing over my bare shoulder and sending goosebumps over my flesh.

She pulled back suddenly, eyes going wide.

“Something the matter, Ms. Greene?”

“The mark...” She pulled her hair away from her shoulder so I could see .

I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, at first. A tiny serpent with wings twisted around itself into the shape of a very familiar symbol.

“It hasn’t always looked like that has it?” I asked as I ran my fingertips over her skin.

She shook her head. “It changed. I think when we came back through the portal.”

There were ancient stories about marks left by magic.

Stories of things like Fate Marks and brands that showed up when two Fae claimed one another as mates.

But Rosalin wasn’t Fae. Still, I couldn’t deny what the symbol looked like.

It was the Blackwarden family name in Old Fae.

I touched my chest. I’d left my pendant behind in our mad rush to get through the portal.

Not that it mattered. I knew what it looked like.

I swallowed hard. The guilt that welled in my chest as I realized I might have claimed her without her consent was painful.

It burned deep, like a thousand fire demons trying to rip their way from my ribcage.

I squeezed back tears that I refused to shed.

I couldn’t feel sorry for myself, I needed to do better, to be better.

I never wanted to ensnare someone after I’d been chained to a heartless bitch for five hundred years.

I hadn’t exactly asked Rosalin what she wanted when I bit her neck in a moment of vulnerability, and I refused to take someone’s choice away from them.

Never again. I would let her choose, even if it meant she’d likely return to her family and leave me alone with my Gatehouse.

I would always let her choose.

“I don’t entirely know what it means.” My words were misleading, but true. I didn’t entirely know. “Is that all that’s troubling you?”

She watched me carefully, her glittering eyes burning into me. I was certain she could see the tears I’d refused to shed, the pain that was searing a hole through my lungs. She knew I wasn’t telling her everything. After a long moment a smile tugged at her lips.

“You know, right now, I can honestly say there’s nothing. ”

It took all my strength not to let out a massive sigh of relief, a sudden need to have her closer, to have her skin against mine gripped my insides.

“There is one thing wrong,” I said as I lifted a corner of my blanket. “You’re entirely too far away from me right now.”

She snuck beneath the covers and straddled me, her lips immediately falling on my neck, hands smoothing over my chest. Her lips found mine, a slow and lingering kiss heated my blood as her tongue explored.

This hadn’t been my intention, but the last thing I was going to do was push her away.

I’d been forced to do things I didn’t want to do, with people I definitely didn’t want to do them with, for so long that being kissed by her was like being kissed for the first time.

And I refused to be embarrassed by how she made my body respond.

I gasped at her touch, so soft and gentle, as though she knew that it wasn’t just my overuse of magic I was recovering from.

She sat up, her hands whispering across my chest, eyes wide as if asking permission.

I struggled to pull myself up to her lips, but she stopped me, pushing me back down onto my pillow with a slow head shake.

“You’re recovering, Keres.” A mischievous glint overshadowed the look of seriousness she tried to wear as she kissed down my chest, slipping beside me and pulling the blankets back as she continued to my stomach.

“Rosalin...”

“Yes, Keres?” she asked as she circled my navel with her tongue then kissed lower, her fingers feather soft as they pulled my pants further down.

“You don’t have...” The rest of the words slipped away as she wrapped a hand and her lips around me.

Every muscle in my body tightened as her other hand splayed across my abdomen. Fuck, her mouth was...

“That’s...” I couldn’t hold back a whimper as she licked up the length of me. “...so good. So...”

“Something the matter, Keres?” she asked before she took me back into her mouth .

I tried to speak, but all I could manage were breathy moans.

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When the curse broke, other things changed.

I didn’t entirely understand how, but I felt different.

Perhaps it was because I was in the human world, wearing my own skin and not a glamour created to make me seem less Fae.

Every lie I’d been forced to wear had been stripped away.

I had the overwhelming sense that while I’d been given a rarely bestowed second chance, it could so easily be taken away.

I stood in front of the portal, hands clenched tight at my sides. I couldn’t risk Bevgyah coming through. Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d send an assassin to do her dirty work, but I couldn’t take that chance.

There were more portals. Ones that lead to the other courts. There were ways Bevgyah could get here even without using this particular portal, which made me all the more certain of what I needed to do.

“Here you are.” I flinched as Rosalin slipped her hand into mine and leaned her head against my shoulder. “I know what you’re thinking, but I worry if you destroy this portal, you’ll...” She choked on her words.

I already knew what she was going to say.

I would no longer be immortal. I’d lose my connection to the Unseelie Court.

As a Fae, I needed a tether to the Earth Mother’s magic and the way I did that was through this portal.

My portal. Which meant, I wouldn’t have my shadows either.

I swallowed, wondering if the Gatehouse would suffer as well.

It wasn’t entirely made of Dark Fae magic, but something much older.

“But that means...” Rosalin gazed up at me, fear in her eyes. “You’ll grow old and die.”

“Grow old and die, with you ,” I said as I leaned my forehead against hers. “Maybe I don’t mind that so much.”

She stepped away from me, that adorable frustration wrinkling her forehead. “Keres, I can’t ask you to—”

I pressed a finger to her lips. “Ms. Greene.”

She just stared at me with wide eyes, and I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my lips .

“You didn’t ask. The last time I opened my heart to someone, I didn’t have an opportunity to give myself to her entirely before she was taken from me.”

Heavy words pooled in my throat. Ones I should have said to her before I took her to the Unseelie Court. Ones I had given up on ever being able to tell her.

“I didn’t think anyone could love me, the real me beneath this face.”

I tried to keep myself firm as she stared at the center of my chest. I could feel her emotions, but love meant different things to different people. Humans lived such short lives that I wasn’t sure if they were capable of love in the same capacity.

“The moment you stepped into my Gatehouse, I felt something different about you, but I didn’t understand what it was.”

She looked up, green eyes rimmed in tears.

“You could see me, all of me , and you didn’t run and hide.” I took a deep breath. “No, you asked your infuriating questions until I craved them.”

She smiled at this, a tear slipping down her cheek. Her emotions had melted into something so dreadfully soft and caring; it caught my breath fast in my throat. Perhaps it was Fae who struggled to love, because she was clearly very capable of it.

I turned to the portal. There would be a way to fix it if needed. It had been created once; it could be created again. I clutched the highest point I was able to reach and pulled.

It tipped precariously, and at first, I thought it might wobble back into place.

After it seemed to float, suspended on one corner, it swayed forward, falling in slow motion until it shattered into millions of tiny pieces that spilled across the floor like brilliant crystals.

The sound had been so loud, echoing through the Gatehouse and snuffing out the braziers in the room.

After what seemed like an eternity in thick silence, a single brazier on the far side timidly illuminated. I turned to find Rosalin, eyes wide with fear .

I couldn’t go back now. I’d made my choice.

The weight of that decision pressed the breath from my lungs, and I swayed in place.

The magic that had been a part of me—my very essence—was stripped away in an instant, leaving me raw and exposed.

The last fragments of my shadows melted into the air, and I was left with the unfiltered reality that I could never reclaim them.

The fragile remnants of my being had been cracked open and spread out at Rosalin’s feet.

With deliberate slowness I walked to her, the stone beneath me far more solid than it had ever been before.

For the first time, I couldn’t feel her emotions swirling around in my mind, tugging at my own.

That constant connection that had tethered me to her was gone, and in its place was a terrifying silence.

It left an empty space that was immediately filled with fear, and excitement, and anxiety that I’d never felt before.

I cradled her face in my hands, trembling as the reality of what I’d given up settled over me.

Wishing I could put all my own emotions into words, but so many of them felt too fresh and precious.

I had given up immortality for this life.

For her. My Rosalin.

I stood straight, my hands falling to my sides as I stepped toward her. “Can I grow old with you, Rosalin Greene?”

She closed her eyes, another tear slipping over her cheek as she smiled. She leaned up to kiss me.

Every kiss we’d shared I’d had both our emotions clawing their way into my heart. This time it was only my own, a heat so strong I needed to pull her closer. She gasped as I deepened the kiss, wrapping my arms around her, fully intent on keeping her with me forever if she so chose.

When she finally stepped back my cheeks were wet with tears I’d held back but couldn’t any longer.

“Are you crying, Keres Blackwarden?”

“Are you answering my question with a question, Ms. Greene?”

“Yes,” she said with a smirk. She wrapped her arms around my neck to lean closer, her breath tickling my ear as she whispered, “And yes.”