Page 53 of Fractured (Royal Sins #3)

thirty-two

“We’ve had sex in caves three times now.” Though we’d technically been outside at the Mercove, but still. “Damn.”

My whisper echoed in the ceiling because we’d come to the other side, close to the entrance hole—both to eat and to lie down.

Raja had indeed brought a bag full of bread and cheese, nuts and carrots, even a handful of dried apricots that tasted amazing.

Rune ate with me, which meant he hadn’t eaten at all recently.

He only ever ate once in two days before—but I wasn’t complaining.

We’d found a big enough spot to lie on where there were no sharp edges on the stone floor of the cave, had set up the queen’s cloak underneath us as a blanket, and had lain down with one of the two metal bottles full of water we’d found in Raja’s bag.

My head was on Rune’s shoulder, my hand on his cheek, playing with his stubble, and both his arms were wrapped around me.

We’d both put our clothes on because we had no idea when Raja or Vair would be back, and I was tired indeed but not tired enough to sleep.

Not with all these thoughts going through my head .

“Talk to me,” Rune whispered, putting his hand over mine and leaning his head to the side to plant a kiss in the middle of my palm. “Tell me what you’re thinking. You look miserable, wildling.”

“I’m not.” Though I was. “I’m just…I’m scared, Rune. Which is only natural.”

“Tell me what you’re scared of,” he said, pulling me closer until the tips of our noses touched. The bird he’d made me was sitting on the edge of protruding crystals over our heads, but there was plenty of light to see his eyes.

“Everything,” I whispered. “The fact that Lyall turned out to be so… evil. And that a fucking building can literally hold you captive in this place. And that I am a vessel carrying half the soul of a dead queen for some reason.” I shook my head, sighed deeply.

“And it’s not even in a cool way. Like, I wasn’t even the chosen one like in the stories.

I was just…empty enough and touched by magic. ”

“That sounds like a choice to me,” Rune said.

“Magic is a very…smart thing, if you will, and I’d reckon the soul of a queen would be, too.

It wouldn’t just choose to exist in the wrong person.

It would choose someone…like you .” A kiss on my lips—and just like that, I felt far more special than I actually was.

“That was smooth,” I muttered, a goofy smile on my swollen lips.

“It’s the truth. And you do not have to worry about Lyall.

He wouldn’t dare attack me. He had his chance, and he chose the coward’s way—to throw me to someone more powerful and hope for the best.” He closed his eyes for a moment.

“Even if he comes and finds out, you don’t need to be afraid of him.

I promise you that. With that frostfire you have in you, you can win against him even if you were all alone. ”

My stomach turned. “I know the difference. The way it feels is different, too, when it comes. It’s so strange, Rune…”

My voice trailed off and I raised my hand to look at it. It looked so normal. Nothing about my skin was any different than it had been my whole life.

“Frostfire is very powerful. You should learn to master it at will, Wildcat. It’s one of the most powerful weapons a fae can wield.”

Shivers raised the flesh on my forearms, and I lowered my hand again. “Except I’m no fae.”

“But you’re not mortal, either.” A kiss on the tip of my nose, which unfortunately didn’t ease my sudden anxiety as it should have.

The questions that remained were to blame. The fucking reason why— which, by the way, why did it even matter so much at this point? I didn’t understand my own self.

Another deep sigh, but that didn’t work, either. I touched the side of his neck, the ink that marked his skin, trailed the patterns with the tips of my fingers. How cruel for a father to do something like this to his own son.

“What is your purpose, Rune?” I whispered. “What was it that you’ve always wanted to do? What you always aimed for?”

And he said, “You.”

My heart fell on her face like she sometimes did when Rune spoke. “No—I mean like in general. Before me.” But I’d be the biggest liar in all the worlds if I didn’t say that that was the perfect answer.

“There was nothing before you. I woke up. I survived. I went to sleep,” Rune said, kissing my lips gently every few words. “Now, I want to wake up and live and go to sleep—with you. You’re my purpose. ”

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. “Smooth, Mister Moody,” I said with barely any voice before I kissed him.

Not just because I believed every word he said, but because it had somehow become the same for me. I knew it in the Illusion Game when that mist over the river showed me what I wanted most in life— him, smiling and carefree, unworried. Living.

I wanted to wake up and live and go to sleep with him, too.

“I need you to believe me when I say that I will do everything in my power to make this right, to make all this suffering up to you, to get out of this situation we’re in once and for all,” he whispered, and my heart hurt so much.

It hurt like hell because I knew he meant it, and I knew he couldn’t make anything right because of the past. Because of what he himself had done.

The image of him as a little boy with that knife in his hand and his skin covered in blood while the dead queen lay in front of his feet haunted me. It made bile rise in my throat, and these tears that came to my eyes now were different. Heavier. Bitter.

“Will you do something for me?” I whispered because I no longer wanted to talk about it. I no longer wanted to have to carry the pain. Not until a new day came. We could talk about plans and routes and best ways to hide then.

“Anything,” Rune said. “Name it and it’s done.”

I kissed his lips one more time. “Can you read for me if you still have the book you bought me?”

Rune was surprised. He leaned back to look at me as if to make sure that I meant what I said, and when he saw that I did, he smiled. A full smile, showing me all his teeth, and his eyes brightened up all the way, too.

“It will be my pleasure,” he said .

His shadow pocket came to life right over us, and he reached out a hand inside it, pulled out the book he’d bought me in the maze market, in a time that wasn’t too long ago, but that to me felt like years because so much had happened since.

Tales of the Wild and the Brave was old and well used, and I was actually excited to hear the stories, to distract myself from the real world.

Rune lay on his back and pulled me so that my head was over his chest. The bird found an edge to sit on closer to us so that I could see the letters, too, and Rune began to read.

I wasn’t sure how long I lasted, how quickly I fell asleep, but I remembered at least the first two stories.

His voice and the scent of him and the feel of his heart beating under the palm of my hand made for the perfect heaven for me, and I didn’t think about death or blood or souls at all, even as I drifted into sleep.

When I woke up, everything had already changed again.