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Chapter Ten

The king of the dark woods kept watchful eyes upon his precious bride. She made no cry for help, not even when she faced the worst of his world. She kept her head high and let nothing keep her from the path... the path that would lead back to him. He held his breath... waiting... hoping.

—Anon., Tales from the Twilight Court

K ate felt loose all over. Every muscle had been worked to exhaustion by Roan’s lovemaking, and now all she wanted was to drift to sleep in the arms of the man who had introduced her to such bliss.

She rubbed her cheek against Roan’s chest. The smattering of dark hair that grew between his pectorals fascinated her.

It was soft, even silky. Her lips curved in a drowsy smile.

Sex had been everything Kate hoped it would be.

Roan lay stretched out on his back, an arm folded beneath his head. His other palm rested on her bare hip, while his thumb slowly rubbed back and forth on her skin. Kate studied his face beneath the glowworms that still gently pulsed with blue-green light above them.

She wanted to touch Roan, explore him, feel how real he was in that moment to her.

He was not something ethereal—he was more than feathers, magic, and moonlight.

This was a virile, muscled sex god. She’d grown up hearing such hyperbole from her friends, talking about famous movie stars or popular boy bands, but there was no exaggeration here.

She reached up to gently cup his cheek, and Roan angled his face toward her.

The cleft in his chin called for her kiss.

Just as his furrowed brow, with its permanent sternness, made her want to snuggle close and steal his worries away.

She wondered what a Fae king would even worry about, then remembered that this was not a safe land he ruled over.

Patch had told her something of the fighting between the Seelie and the Unseelie.

Was Roan always worried about war? His lips parted when her fingers traced his mouth and caressed the cleft of his chin.

“What are you thinking about, little one?” Roan asked.

“Me?” She wasn’t used to being asked that.

“Yes.” His rough chuckle sent delicious shivers through her. He wanted to know what she was thinking. Her thoughts were all over the place one minute, and then they’d suddenly snap back to being here with him.

“I honestly don’t know. I was thinking that this is surreal, being with you. Impossible, even. But you’re so very real, aren’t you?”

His smile deepened. “Yes. How does that make you feel?”

“Like I’m dreaming... but awake. Like anything is possible.” But that barely touched how she felt. How could she explain it? Letting down her guard with him, thinking about herself for once... it had set part of her free that she’d never realized had been trapped.

I’ve never felt like this with anyone, she realized.

Of course, she’d never had a chance. She’d worked too hard during high school on her grades and extracurricular activities to have time to truly get to know the few boys she’d dated.

She’d been so burdened with worries about Sandra, her father, and failing their expectations. And when she got to college...

Had she met anyone in college? She had, hadn’t she? Kate swore that she’d met someone during her first semester. Why couldn’t she remember who? It was like that part of her memory was just...gone.

A faint cry of alarm rose up in her. She shouldn’t have a blank space for something like that.

Forgetting car keys, sure, but not whole relationships.

Her hand swept down Roan’s body as she started to sit up, brushing over his cock, which had become stiff again.

Roan caught her wrist, holding it against his lower belly, stroking his fingers over the back of her hand.

It was sensual, intimate, and she was mesmerized by the feel of it.

Her straying thoughts, whatever they’d been, faded, and she reveled in this moment with the very real, very dangerous, and very attractive Fae king lying beside her.

“Are you mine?” The question, meant only for herself, slipped out, and she winced as a wave of mortifying heat swept across her face.

It was a ridiculous thought. Roan couldn’t belong to anyone. He was a dark Fae king with powers she had no understanding of. And she was just Kate, a powerless human woman who was here to temporarily entertain him.

“Kate.” Her name was a low rumble on his lips. He captured her wrist and gently brought her fingers to his mouth, where he kissed her knuckles.

“Sorry. Forget I said anything.” Kate tried to pull her hand away, but Roan only pulled her closer, until their bodies were skin to skin.

His gaze pinned her in place, and that string of thoughts that had made her so unhappy faded away.

The spell in his eyes refused to let her think about anything except how good it felt to lie here against him.

“I am yours,” he said. His words sent a jolt of joy through her so strong that she felt like she was flying.

But it came crashing down a moment later as she realized he couldn’t mean it.

This was just pillow talk. She could hold part of this man, this Fae who was in her life for a while, but only a while.

He was as unattainable as the distant stars.

“You do not believe me,” Roan mused, his sinful smile turning to a frown. “Why?”

Because her desire for him, wanting to claim him on a deeper level, terrified her.

She’d never done that before with anyone, and she also didn’t trust that it would be true.

Why would a Fae king care about her? This, this moment right here, was all she’d really have of him, moments where she could pretend that he was hers.

“Kate, I crave you in a way that I’ve never craved anyone.

The things you make me feel puzzle me, even frustrate me, yet you make me feel all of these emotions I’m so unaccustomed to feeling.

You own me in a way no other ever has. That you must believe.

” His eyes seemed to search hers, for what she didn’t know.

She peered up at him in wonder. How could she ever hope to keep him? “But... but you...” she stammered, trying to find the right words. “Tell me something, anything , something no one else knows. Give me a part of you no one else has.”

He kissed her fingertips again, then moved to lie on his side facing her. His large, muscled body was outlined by the glowing of the cave’s bioluminescent light.

“Just as you do not belong in your world... I do not fully belong here. My father was an Unseelie warrior, but my mother was a princess of the Morning Court. Her powers came from the sun.” He paused for a long moment.

“I know what it means to grow up knowing that those who brought you into the world did not want you. My father believed I would never be strong or ruthless enough to succeed him.”

Kate held her breath, not wanting to reveal that she knew some of this because of Patch. In a strange way they were alike, and that broke her heart.

Roan’s blue eyes seemed to frost over as he spoke again. “But I was ruthless, Kate. More ruthless than my father could have imagined.” His voice deepened with a cold rage. “He told me that with his dying breath as my dagger pierced his heart.”

Kate’s heart skipped a painful beat. “You... killed your father?” The words were barely above a whisper.

The Fae king’s grip on her wrist was firm but gentle as he stroked the inside of her wrist. It made her heart jolt in her chest.

“Yes. He was determined to break the barrier between your world and mine for his own selfish reasons. It would have destroyed both worlds in the process. Someone had to stop him. And you are the only one who knows what I’ve done.

Even my sister believes our father was killed by a Seelie warrior.

The day after he died, we made a treaty for peace.

I swore that my father’s death would go unavenged because it brought about peace. ”

Beneath his determined, steely gaze, she glimpsed sorrow so deep that it could carve oceans out of the earth. “The truth was, I knew he must die. He had caused too much harm as king. Too much that couldn’t be forgiven. It cost me greatly to do what had to be done.”

Kate, strangely unafraid, moved closer to him and placed her head on his arm.

“What happened?” she asked.

“My mother left after my father’s death.

When she did, something inside me withered.

The parent who had actually cherished me left, and I could tell no one what I’d done.

It would throw the Twilight Court into chaos, and others would vie for the throne.

I am a fair ruler, no matter how I came to be king, but I knew others would not see it that way.

” He paused, letting out a slow breath. “My power comes with a price—my solitude.”

He has no one to belong to and no one to claim as his own. Just like me .

“Is there no way your mother could come back?” Kate asked. “Is she truly lost forever?”

She swore she saw Roan’s expression shutter closed, blocking out any other displays of emotion.

It was clear he didn’t want to talk about his mother anymore.

Kate understood that need to curl into a defensive ball against the world, but she had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that Roan wouldn’t shut her out.

Still, he had told her something no one else knew, something dark and sorrowful.

Roan leaned in close to her, his lips brushing over hers. “It could always be like this, if you wished.”

She took in the sweet scent of him, letting it briefly cloud her good sense with heady desire. Would it be so bad to just lie here and kiss him until the stars fell from the sky?

Roan kissed her deeper. “We could stay in this bed forever.”