Page 109 of The Moorwitch

His hands rise up my bodice, his thumbs tracing slow, tentative circles, small questions that sink through the fabric of my dress and curl like fire over my skin. Even if I told him I hated him—I don’t—that I did not want this—I do, oh Fates, I do—my lies would be betrayed by my body, which trembles at his every touch.

We turn slowly, eyes locked, until my hips rest against the edge of the bedframe. Then he lifts me, gentle as if I were a spring lamb, and sets me on the bed.

It is like the faerie revel, only this time, the urges controlling my limbs come from within, not from some cobweb of spells. It is my own heart driving me, my own desire flushing my skin with heat and desperate, primal need. I needhim, his touch, his lips on my bare skin.

My hands slide up his arms, his neck, to his face. My fingertips trace the rough stubble on his jaw and the softer skin under his eyes, exploring every inch of his face as if he were a complex pattern I were trying to unravel. The details of him hold all my attention: the creases of his dimples; the small bump on the bridge of his nose; the coarse, dark hairs of his eyebrows. I sink my fingers into his hair, pulling him closer.

His hands similarly explore my body, the ridge of my spine and the curve of my hips. He smooths my skirt over my thighs, and I shudder, my hands knotting in his hair. My knees fall apart, and he fills the space between them, and still, still it is not enough. I need himcloser. Warm and dark as embers, his eyes trace my features as if I were the first human he has ever seen and my every change of expression were a wonder to him.

I have never been touched like this. Held so tenderly, so intimately. It is the sort of thing the older girls whispered about in school, between giggles and blushes. Those were never the sort of conversations I felt part of, for I could never imagine beingwantedin such a way. I closedmyself to the possibility of it, resigned to a life that would be as solitary as its beginnings.

But oh, Fates, the possibilities that flare in my mind now.

They bring heat rushing to my cheeks and neck and stomach, my skin drawing tight with feverish want. I pull him closer until his body folds over mine, and I am enclosed in his arms with his mouth on my neck. He kisses my throat, and a soft sigh slides from my lips. His nimble fingers trace up the buttons on the back of my dress, undoing buttons one by one, until the fabric parts and I feel his palm against my naked back ...

When the time is right,hisses Lachlan in my memory,all you’ll have to do is ask.

The faerie’s voice strikes me like an arrow, and I gasp.

Fates damn me, I never meant for any of this to happen. How was I to know, when I found him unconscious on the side of the road weeks ago, that I would become his undoing? How was I to know that as our souls were slowly being knit together, that I would be the very instrument by which Lachlan destroyed him?

Everything was so much clearer before. I knew what I wanted. What Ineeded. And I wasn’t going to let anyone get in my way.

But now here I am, with him looking at me as if he were the desert and I the rain. And there he is, ready to give me the world if I asked for it.

It is just as his lips bump softly to mine, the first, tender invitation to a kiss, that I push him away, my hands on his chest.

Conrad blinks, his brow knitting inquisitively. “Rose ...?”

“The Briar King sent me here,” I whisper. “He sent me to help him destroy Morgaine.”

Conrad doesn’t move; not a single feature on his face changes. He only stares at me in exactly the same way, as if he’s been turned to stone. For half a heartbeat I think perhaps he did not hear me, that I only thought the words and never spoke them. Fates damn me! I did not intend to blurt the truth out like that, but to ease into it—to explainmy reasons, my desperation, to make him understand I had no other choice. I was driven by forces more powerful than me. I am no more than a pawn.

But then, I know these would only be more lies, as much to myself as to him.

I had a choice from the very beginning, the moment Lachlan put his cold hand on my shoulder in my uncle’s study and told me his terms. I had a choice then, and fear made it for me. Years went by and I thought I would escape the consequences of my choice, but when he appeared in my boarding house, I’d madeanotherchoice, and again fear spurred me in the wrong direction. The entire road from there was paved with wrong choices and I, driven by fear, leaped headlong from one to the next. I cannot put all the blame on Lachlan. As he has told me time and time again—Ichose all of this.

When the change in Conrad does come, it is slow and terrible, like watching the sun go dark at midday. The corners of his mouth sink lower, and shadows crawl into the hollows of his face. The very room seems to darken around him, the fire in the hearth shrinking to embers and the candle flames flickering. A shudder rolls through him as he steps back, his hands withdrawing from my waist.

I see every moment we ever spent together scroll through his mind, every touch between us, every soft word, every lie I told. I canseehis opinion of me shift like a rockslide, slow at first, a few loose stones tumbling, but then faster and faster, until it is a thunderous roar echoing through him.

He inhales sharply, the first breath he’s taken since I spoke, and steps back again. He looks at me as if I’d stuck a sword in his belly, with my hand still upon the hilt, twisting.

“I have no excuse,” I say, hot tears burning in my eyes. “Only my story. I was eight years old when I met him. I was alone and terrified for my life, and he helped me. He offered me a bargain and I took it. And now he’s come back for his due and I—”

“The truth knot,” he says, his voice a strangled breath. “No one could have beaten it.”

“I did tell you the truth then, or at least ... enough of it. I didn’t know who you were, Conrad, I swear. He never told me about you being the Gatekeeper, or that he was this Briar King. He intended it that way, so that I would win your confidence even without realizing I was doing it.”

“Myconfidence,” he scoffs, in a horrid dry voice, his hand dashing caustically through the air. Here is a Conrad I’ve never met before, not even the morning after the faerie revel. He is wholly the Gatekeeper now, defender of Elfhame and bondsman of the faerie queen.

He is her weapon as I am the Briar King’s; we are the swords they raised against one another.

I slide off the bed and raise my hands beseechingly. “Conrad, I regret every second of it. I know it is no excuse. I deserve every ounce of your hatred. I know that I am the villain here. But I swear, had I known the depth of Lachlan’s—the Briar King’s—cruelty and cunning, I would never have agreed to this. He is not what I thought him to be.”

Conrad’s acidic laugh underlines the irony of that statement. He turns away, his anger an iron rod down his back. Around him, the air simmers, and a candle at his elbow flickers out with a sputter of hot wax.

He’s drawing in energy, just like that night in the stable.