Page 17 of Go Luck Yourself (Royals and Romance #2)

My body is heavy and deeply relaxed, every limb sinking into the mattress in the density that comes on the border of sleep. A dream is there, something about paint splattered on a wall, fingers dragging through it—

Loch moves against me, and I come fully into consciousness.

I slept. And for the first time in I don’t even know how long, I’m not exhausted.

I’m happy.

His head is in the middle of my chest, one arm slung over me, pinning me to the bed. His shoulders steadily rise and fall, the muscles down his back contracting and releasing in rhythmic breaths, the sheet draped across his waist.

As carefully as I can, I grab for my phone on the bedside table. It’s barely morning. Of what should be my last day in Ireland. My room is a mess with the food trays we hauled up yesterday, most of the bedding is knotted around us, pillows scattered. Everywhere is marked by the undeniable signs that we did absolutely nothing all day yesterday except each other.

I scroll through missed texts. Nothing pressing.

Except that it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and the guy who should be overseeing this Holiday now is dead asleep on my chest.

I set my phone back down and brush my fingers through his bright hair. “Hey. Loch.”

He stiffens, a panicked waking up, before he remembers where he is, who he’s with, and channels that alertness into peering up at me.

A groan, and he drops his face to my sternum. “No. It’s na morning yet.”

“I’m afraid so.”

He nestles into my chest. “Mm. You smell like me. My cologne.”

I can’t stop my dopey smile. “I probably smell like sweat and sex and need another shower.”

“ Nah. Stay like this.” He glides up and kisses my neck and I’m inclined to agree with him, especially as his hand slips beneath the sheets and closes around my morning wood.

My back arches. “Shit, Loch, rabbits envy your stamina.”

He laughs, reverberations setting off small earthquakes across my skin. “It’s your fault, boyo. You’re too hot. Had to go and be my dream guy made flesh.”

His—his what ?

I grab his chin and pull him up to kiss me, rolling us so we’re on our sides, early light white and crystalline through the sheer window curtains. My heart chokes all the things I want to say, the questions I want to ask, and I kiss him because that’s less terrifying and my head rings, rings, rings with those words, my dream guy.

We’ve said a lot of things since I came back from Belfast. This is real now, isn’t it? We’re together, everything confessed.

Why does it still feel like there’s something being held back behind a bulging door?

“I’m supposed to leave tomorrow,” I murmur. “But I could… stay. Help you settle things with Malachy. Or prepare for your coronation. You’ll have one, right?”

“Yeah.” Loch releases my dick and moans halfheartedly. “Finn and Siobhán will na let me escape without celebrating this.”

“Good. They shouldn’t.” I pause. “Do you… do you want me to stay after today, then?”

Loch pushes up onto his elbow, dragging his hand up my hip, my side, to my shoulder, leaving a trail of shivers in his wake. “I canna be selfish,” he whispers, eyes on the fraction of bed between us.

“No. You should be. Keep me here so I can be selfish, too.”

His lips crack in a smile. But it’s tainted again, that aching shadow that’s been circling him since yesterday morning.

“You have no idea,” he says to the mattress, “how selfish I’ve been already.”

There’s a knock on the door. A booming, insistent, panicked knock, and Loch’s up and snatching on his pants before I can even twist free of the sheets.

He eases the door open a sliver as I’m stumbling through my suitcase, yanking out clothes that aren’t paint-destroyed.

“What?” he snaps into the hall, and I frown at his back, the way he’s a mix of terrified and angry.

“Malachy’s here,” comes Siobhán’s voice. “He’s screaming about our magic and you and—”

“Get down here,” Finn barks. God, they’ve both come. “We’ll keep him in the hall. Put some more clothes on.”

Their footsteps thunder away.

Loch holds still in the barely open door. I rip on a shirt, but when he looks back, his eyes don’t meet mine.

“I have to—”

“Go,” I tell him. “Go. I’ll meet you there.”

“Kris.” Now he does look at me. Through his anger and fear, he’s pleading. “If I asked you to stay away—”

“I’d tell you to shut up, you idiot. Of course I’m going. Get dressed or I’ll be down there first and yell at your uncle myself.”

He crosses the room and kisses me. I rock into it, briefly thrown into an abyss by the demanding control of his mouth.

“You’re a stubborn arse,” he says, almost mournfully, but he finally leaves.

Loch beats me down to the foyer, racing in, tugging on another Aran sweater as I round the corner.

Malachy is standing under the blazing chandelier, red-faced and screaming at Finn.

“—told me about your little meeting. Eamon’s asking questions now, questions he’s never asked before. What the fuck was that meeting about? What the fuck do you think you’ve been—”

The moment Loch appears, his uncle rounds on him, and I’m sucked back to every argument Coal had with our dad. Every time I watched the two of them yell at each other and all I could do was stand there and hope to god Coal wrestled even a minor victory out of the situation. I wanted to intervene, every fucking time, but anything I could have said got stunned in terror so I was helpless to watch my brother take it all for us.

“ You. ” Malachy is all poison and fury. He’s uncapped now, his hair mussed, eyes sunken, suit jacket unbuttoned and shirt wrinkled—what decorum he’d had last I saw him is fraying at the seams. “You owe me answers, you little shit.”

Loch stops. His hands fist, and I hang back behind him.

Siobhán and Finn move off to the side together, both of them as wound as I am, watching Loch with tense jaws and wide eyes.

Finn’s gaze slides to mine. She nods, once.

When I turn back, Malachy is glaring.

At me.

Loch steps between us. “It’s over, Uncle,” he says. He’s talking fast. “I’m taking St. Patrick’s Day back. This Holiday is mine. ”

“The fuck you will. You think you can take it from me? Our court will—”

“Finally know that the position was never fully yours,” Loch finishes. “I did meet with them. I didn’t talk about you at all. All I did was tell them what I’ve done for our Holiday, and if that made them start questioning what was left for you to do, well.” He shrugs. “And now, if you cry to them about how I took this Holiday from you, what do you think will be their first question, eh? They’ll ask how I managed it, when the only way a Holiday can be transferred is through joyful willingness. When it isn’t joyful, this happens.” He points between them. “It’s a fucked-up tangle of power that was so easy to undo, I canna believe it’s taken me all these years to snatch it back. So go on, then. Tell our court the original transfer to you never fully went and I was able to pull it back. You wanna explain to them why it didn’t take for you? That you manipulated me into giving up the throne?”

Malachy’s face grows redder. He runs his hands through his hair in an aggravated, cornered lurch. “You’ve screwed up, Lochlann. You—”

“You’ll tell the court you returned the throne to me,” Loch says, calmer now, but I can see tiny vibrations in his clenched fists. “You’ll tell them you finally decided it was time to pass it back.”

Malachy’s frantic rage pauses.

“Are you sure about this?” His tone is distorted. Like he has one last move to make.

All those little scraps of uncertainty swirl up, dust caught in a funnel cloud. The sense of something being off with Loch, something he wasn’t saying, something lurking in the sadness of his eyes and the way he kissed me.

Unconsciously, I take a step back from him, to the side, so I can see Malachy better.

Malachy’s eyes snap to me.

Loch dives between us again. “Malachy. Get out of my castle! ”

One lip curls, a toying sneer that strengthens when Malachy asks Loch, “Did you get the Christmas Prince into bed like I told you to?”

I’ve never been punched before.

But his words are a physical fist socking me in the gut.

I realize too late that that question was bait. Bait I’ve taken by the horror and invasion I can’t school off my face.

Malachy tugs his suitcoat over his stomach, a pathetic attempt at regaining composure. “Good play, Lochlann. I told you it’d be beneficial to have him here for the week. Now he won’t seek repercussions for the joy. You can bend him over literally and figuratively.”

“Don’t you talk about him, ” Loch barks.

I barely hear him. Barely see Loch turn to face me, he must look pleading because his voice drops.

“Kris—”

Repercussions for the joy.

I look at him, and I should feel something, but every emotion bounces off a shield of numbness. Loch’s face is blotchy and his eyes are round with all that shame he’s been keeping at bay—that’s what it’s been. Every time he pulled away from me. Shame.

“You were stealing Christmas’s joy,” I state. “You were stealing it to help compensate for what Malachy wasn’t letting you have. So you could keep your Holiday running. You were using it to help your Holiday.”

Somewhere off to the side, Finn curses. It’s far away.

Loch doesn’t respond. He doesn’t agree or assure me that’s what happened. He stands there looking broken.

Malachy laughs. The pop of noise drags my focus back to him.

“Is that what he told you?” he asks. “ Allegedly, who do you think acquired one of those handy little devices to siphon off joy? This prince no one trusts, who has no resources, who had to resort to stealing from me originally, or someone who has spent his life building the largest, most successful business in this country? I will give Lochlann credit where it’s due; he was exceptionally quick to get on board. Though he wasn’t successful at covertly installing the device in Christmas. Even so, the magic he stole went a long way towards paying off what he owed me. Again, allegedly. ”

Malachy is all I can see. A tunnel narrowing, narrowing until there’s just his arrogant face while dozens of pieces shift around me, a kaleidoscope coalescing and parting only to reform.

I suspected Loch of stealing from us. I suspected Malachy of stealing from us.

I never thought it was both of them.

Both of them, doing it so Loch could repay what Malachy said he used last year.

Not to help his Holiday. Not some desperate way to fight back against his uncle.

They were working together.

I’m staring at Malachy, and I jerk my eyes away, unable to get my thoughts to stop pulsing around me.

Did you get the Christmas Prince into bed like I told you to?

“Congratulations on having St. Patrick’s Day now, Lochlann,” comes Malachy’s snide voice. “I do hope this doesn’t start your reign on a bad note.”

“Get out !” Loch’s shout rattles off the ceiling, but so do Mal achy’s footsteps as he crosses the foyer, opens the front doors, and leaves.

He’s not been gone for a second before Loch closes the space between us.

“Kris.” He’s panting. “Look at me.”

His command kicks into all the other times he’s commanded me in the past twenty-four hours.

My eyes lift to his. Dutifully. Hopefully, beggingly .

“You stole Christmas’s magic for your uncle,” I state. “ With your uncle. You gave our magic to him, and he put it into his business, not your Holiday. You didn’t use any of it to help St. Patrick’s Day.”

He doesn’t react at first.

I can’t breathe.

It’s the only thing that keeps me from yelling at him.

Finally, he nods, eyelids pulsing in suppressed misery.

“He told you to… to go after me.” My voice is shockingly emotionless; it makes goosebumps go up my own arms. “He’s the one who wanted me to be here for the week. He told you to get in with me, so I’d be thrown off from investigating the theft. So you could manipulate me. You were working with him the whole time.”

Loch goes green, like he might be ill. “That’s not what this—”

I hold up my hand, staying him, eyes holding on his, burning.

“Did your uncle tell you to go after me so you two could manipulate me?”

“He did, but Kris—”

I turn for the hallway.

“Kris.”

He grabs my wrist.

I whirl back on him. “ Don’t —”

My shout cuts off. I don’t know whether I want to scream Don’t touch me or Don’t call me that. The way he says my name, the way he’s always said it, he might as well be saying sweetheart or baby or love, and I can’t hear him say my name, not now.

“You didn’t tell me.” I’ve been operating on numbness up until this point, my voice finally breaks, my eyes heat.

He listened to me divulge all that shit about my mom, about realizing how abusive she is. I let him read her texts and that letter and he had the chance to tell me that he was using me.

But he didn’t.

That’s what’s gutting me right now. I could’ve dealt with him and Malachy working together—probably. Eventually.

But he didn’t tell me.

“I should have,” Loch says, sounding rushed, anxious. “I dinna know how. Malachy told me to go after you, but that’s never been what it was. Not from the start, I swear.”

I want to believe him. Everything he’s said to me. Everything I’ve said to him. I want to believe him, but all I can see is the lie hanging over our every interaction, a twisting toxic cloud braided through with the doubt I spent so long keeping at bay. The worry that I shouldn’t give up my responsibilities and drop the ball on what Christmas and my brother needed so I could make selfish choices.

I made that selfish choice.

I took that selfish risk.

And he was lying the whole time. He had chances to tell me the truth, and he didn’t.

Loch’s holding my arm. He reaches up with his other hand and touches my neck, testing, then pulling me into him, and I concede, only with a lurching glare.

“ Let me go. ” I don’t wait—I yank back, and he lets me.

Siobhán has her hands to her mouth, Finn scowls, the air is thick with ache and betrayal and I point at Siobhán.

“Do not let him follow me,” I tell her.

“Kris.” Loch tries to reach for me again, but I sidestep him and race for the hall to Siobhán’s shriek of “ What did you do, Lochlann?”

I don’t expect she’ll be able to stop him, not for long, so I tear through the castle, shove into my room, and lock the door. God, it’s a mess, and it throttles me now, every memory in every corner—the bed, the shower, his hands on my body, his lips here, and there, and the words he said, their lingering pressure now a growing stone.

On autopilot, I stuff my belongings into my suitcase, eyes blurring. My chest can’t take the weight and it splinters, actual cracks snaking along my ribs.

I went into this knowing it was him. But I got distracted by his cheekbones and his honor and his wild, artistic soul. And even when he told me he was stealing from us, it was okay—I rationalized it away because he had a noble purpose.

But stealing our magic to give to his asshole of an uncle? Not clarifying where that magic was going, that Malachy tolerated my presence here because he wanted Loch to manipulate me?

Letting Malachy blindside me like that?

The doorknob twists. The lock holds.

“Kris,” he begs. “Open the door.”

I don’t say anything. I get my suitcase shut and I conjure mistletoe.

“ Please. ” He knocks. “Please don’t—”

I use the door to the ensuite. I shove the mistletoe in and magic gathers around me and I don’t think, I don’t think, I go.

The door opens into the foyer of Claus Palace.

I race in, slam it shut, and drop back against it.

The foyer is empty, the lights low. It’s like eight in the morning in Ireland—which makes it, what, five here? All the better, then, for me to slide to the ground, collapsing in the dark, my eyes snapping around like I can find a solution to what an absolute idiot I was.

My dream guy.

Prickling numbness starts in my fingertips, creeps up my arms. I cup my hands over my face to breathe into my palms but the rising panic makes me think of Loch putting that ice on my neck and guiding me down from the spiral.

I rock over my knees, suffocating, no way down this time, no path that’s safe.

“Kris? Shit, dude—”

“Kristopher!”

Coal’s footsteps thud on the stairs; Wren’s heels clack up the hall to my right.

“You gotta warn us before you come back like that! All that new security we set up since the whole break-in thing needs to—Kris? What happened?”

Coal rushes the rest of the way and drops in front of me, his hands going to my shoulders, trying to get me to sit back.

“What’s wrong?” he asks in such an unwavering tone that it eases me upright.

Wren is behind him, already dressed for the day, concern drooping her face. But she steps back, gives us space.

I roll my wet eyes shut because god, I’m such an idiot.

I say that, “I’m such an idiot. I’m such an—”

“Hey, hey—stop, breathe. What happened ?”

“It was him. Loch. He was the one stealing from us. Which I knew, but I—” My head drops back against the door, body sinking, betrayal is an anchor and I am moored in place. “I thought he was doing it to stand up to his uncle, but they were working together . I was so stupid. God, Coal, I played right into their hands —”

“Wait—how do you know? What—”

Haltingly, fighting off that panic, I explain about Loch reclaiming his throne yesterday. Malachy coming this morning.

I leave out all the stuff in between.

Somehow, I think Coal knows anyway.

“Loch admitted he was stealing from us.” My throat gets smaller, smaller. “But he didn’t tell me it was because of Malachy. That he and his uncle have been working together this whole time, they planned to use me this whole time. He let me go on about—about how I felt and—I bet he was laughing at me because it worked. I did exactly what they wanted me to. I dropped everything. I told him I didn’t care about the stolen magic. I gave up all my responsibilities here for nothing. ”

“Kris.” Coal grabs my shoulder. He’s in pajamas, hair flattened—I woke him up. Shit. Why did I do this— “Kris, god, look at me. Stop. You said he took back the throne from his uncle, right? So maybe he didn’t have a choice before. Maybe—”

“Don’t defend him.”

“I’m not trying to defend him.” Real fury surges up Coal’s face. “I’m trying to find any excuse I can not to go back to Ireland and murder him.”

My head hangs down, and Coal tugs on me again.

“Come on. Stand up. We’re not having this conversation in the foyer.”

“I woke you up. Go back to bed—I’m sorry I—”

“Shut the fuck up.” Coal gets me to my feet. “How many times have you scraped my ass off the floor? So shut up and let me be the one to take care of you, because if I don’t, I really will go kill the king of another Holiday.”

I relent. He hauls me up the stairs, Wren following with my bag.

Until we get to the landing, and Coal whirls to Wren as a door slams off the wall behind us.

“New security system my ass,” he hisses.

And then Loch’s voice rings out. “Kris?”

He’s here. In Christmas.

He’s standing in the foyer, his eyes immediately locking on the three of us at the top of the staircase.

“Oh, over my dead body,” Coal growls. “Kris—go. I’ll take care of this.”

But I stay rooted, staring down at Loch and the door open behind him, showing the entryway of Castle Patrick. He used magic to come here.

Christmas’s magic, that he stole for his uncle?

I look away, jaw setting, eyes burning.

“I’ll take your things to your room,” Wren whispers, and she glides away.

Coal hits the bottom of the staircase out of the corner of my vision. “You’ve got a helluva lot of nerve, asshole.”

“I know, I did na come here to— please, Coal—”

“Oh do not address me like that, you son of a bitch, not like we’re friends. ” Coal marches up to him and Loch takes a step back, hands up, and god, if Coal had a single violent bone in his body, I think he might hit Loch. “Get out of my palace before I freeze your ass into a snowman.”

“He deserves an explanation,” Loch says to him. To me. “Kris. You deserve an—”

“I said get the fuck out. He’s not going to forgive you, you sorry—”

“I do na expect his forgiveness!” Loch shouts. “I said he deserves an explanation. You know he does. Please. Then I’ll leave. Kris—I’ll leave, I—”

“Fine.”

My voice cuts over the room from where I’m above them, near the top of the staircase.

Coal holds for a second. He steps back, but he doesn’t clear the way for Loch to come up the stairs.

Loch walks closer to the balcony so he’s almost under me, and I feel his gaze fixed on the side of my face.

“Do you remember”—he takes a quick, rattling breath—“how St. Patrick’s Day’s magic has its basis in luck? For months, Kris, months, it told me to go to that study room.”

That yanks my focus down to him before I look away again.

“So I went,” he says. “I went, and some arsehole kept swiping it from me—but I went back, and back, and then… you. And fuck me, I knew as soon as I opened that door and saw you.”

“You knew who I was even then?” I can’t help the question, chest caving in.

“No, no—I meant I knew that I—” Loch’s face reddens. “That you were what my magic was trying to get me to. You. And you were such an obstinate prick right from the gate, Christ, I could na help but fall for you.”

“Explanation,” Coal demands. “Now. You’ve got one minute, jackass.”

Loch winces and scrubs a hand down his face. “Malachy was furious about the joy I used last year. It did na matter that what I used it for increased our magic intake; he wanted me to pay that magic back . He’d toss us out, cut off Finn and Siobhán’s school, take everything we had left, if I did na get him more. We knew what had been happening in Christmas. Of any Holiday, you lot had joy to spare, and you would na miss a bit. He got the devices and I agreed. I’m sorry, Kris, and I was na lying—I will pay you back.”

I drop to sit on the top of the stairs, staring blankly at the step below me.

Loch moves closer, speaking up at me. “I did na know who you were until your assistant reached out about your apology. Malachy pushed for you to stay longer, to make me figure out what you knew about the theft. And when I started to realize what I had done—I did na stop it when I should have. I thought my magic had been wrong, that you were na meant for me like that. I did na turn off the device until the night I kissed you, in the kitchen. But I knew the damage had been done—the damage was done before you even set foot in my castle. And I got to know you, and I tried, tried so hard, not to fall for you, but Jesus Christ, Kris, I was na lying. You are my dream guy.”

“Stop,” I whisper. No one hears.

“And I was terrified every moment I was with you, because I did na know how to tell you what Malachy and I had done, and I still don’t. I do na know how to—”

I shove to my feet and lean over the banister. “You manipulated me. You used me, Loch.”

“ No. ” He takes a lurching step forward. “Malachy told me to do whatever I had to do to get in with you. But Kris, nothing that happened between us was because of him. I tried to resist you because of him. And it all went arseways. I failed myself. I failed you.”

“You didn’t tell me. You let me find out like that. You asked me to—” My breath knots; I keep going. “You asked me to show you my soul, and you let me. You knew, all this time —fuck, Loch, how am I supposed to get over that? I trusted you.”

He drops his head to his chest for one fortifying moment before he looks up at me, eyes glassy. “I should’ve stood up to Malachy years ago. But I could never… I could never fight through his shite. I was too much a coward. Until you. You did na let me be a coward, never believed I was for one second, and you finally got me to realize how much I had to lose by bowing to him.” He makes a pained noise. “I do na expect you to get over what I kept from you, what I did. I do na deserve you to. But I am sorry, Kris, and you do deserve that. An apology. And you deserve to know that I will never forgive myself. I’m someone who hurt you and I’m despairingly in love with you and I canna bear to be both those things at once.”

“You need to go,” Coal says to him, but it’s quieter. Unyielding, but calmer. “Now.”

I’m frozen in this moment. Loch is, too, looking up at me, strain winding across his features.

He can’t be in love with me.

Not this fast.

Not even if his magic brought us together.

Not even if I’m in love with him, too.

I can’t be here anymore, listening to him, feeling this.

“Go back to Ireland,” I rasp. “You have a Holiday to secure.”

I walk away.

“Kris,” he says. Then, louder, “Kris—”

“You’re done,” is the last thing I hear Coal say before I’m swallowed by the hall, hurrying for my room.

I get maybe two yards when I see Hex against the wall, arms around himself, wearing a gray robe with the hood thrown up.

“Don’t,” I beg. “Don’t say anything.”

He holds up his hands. “I was not going to.”

But I’m the one who stands there, scowling at him, jaw working.

Hex’s head tips, his dark hair spilling over his shoulder. After a moment of silence, his lips part.

“Months ago, I found myself in a similar position to yours, if you’ll recall.”

My scowl tightens, but Hex keeps talking.

“I ended up choosing my Holiday over your brother,” he whispers. “A choice I regretted as soon as I’d made it. You have proven far smarter than I was. To choose him”—he nods back towards the foyer, where Loch has to be gone by now—“over your responsibilities almost from the start.”

A laugh scrapes out of me. “This isn’t smarter. This isn’t—”

“If I had to choose again,” Hex cuts me off, “no matter the repercussions, no matter the situation, no matter what was at risk for Halloween, I’d choose Coal. I’d choose my own happiness.”

My glare finally relaxes, widening in confusion.

He shrugs helplessly. “My Holiday survived before me. It will survive after me. But I know now that I will not survive without him. So I’d choose him, and myself. Even if it makes no sense. Even if it hurts.”

He smiles, but it’s sad, weighted, and I know he knows we have that in common. The burden of overthinking, of self-inflicted responsibility.

“Do not regret choosing yourself,” he tells me. “No matter what outcome is unfolding now—Coal is glad you did. We all are.”

The heat building in my eyes, the tightness in my chest—none of it equips me to handle what he’s saying, so I shake my head, refuting wordlessly, and walk away, faster when I hear Coal’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

I get to my room and slam the door behind me; the curtains are shuttered, the lights all off. I bend double and tell myself I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine—

I’m despairingly in love with you.

The room shifts. I’m on my knees, head in my hands, and I fucking hate him. I hate that I can look back now and see the truth in every moment he pulled away, that he was trying not to hurt me, but I kept pushing. I knew something was off but I was so determined to choose what I wanted for once in my life that I refused to see what was glaringly obvious.

Here I thought I’d changed, when all along, I was falling into the same pattern as before: letting a fantasy override my common sense.

That’s what I did with Iris.

That’s what I did with my mom.

My gut sinks, my head spins, and I think I cry out, that blast of realization searing through me like a knife wound.

I only have myself to blame for this, my stupid, shitty fantasies and my stupid, shitty ignorance because I thought, for a second, that I could fix my mess. But it isn’t fixable, is it? I’m right back where I started.

Only it hurts this time.

It hurts so much deeper than it did with Iris. This wasn’t me trying to mold myself to fit someone else; this was me, all along, choosing something real.

What Hex said… it isn’t that simple. I chose my own happiness, and it still ended disastrously because I can’t do anything right.

Coal’s hand grips my shoulder.

He bends down next to me and puts his arms around me and I hold onto him in the dark, not speaking. I will that silence to bleed into my scattered, tumultuous thoughts, but my brain is a ripped-out control box, all sparking electricity and thrashing wires that keep bringing me back to the same two things.

I’m in love with Loch.

And I can’t believe I thought loving him would be enough.