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Yet I couldn't have him. I couldn't let myself be what he wanted me to be.
This bond between us was unnatural. It was suffocating and oppressive.
I couldn’t deny our connection. Or that my desire for him threatened to overwhelm me.
And that's why I had to break away.
Because it wasn't real. Whatever we seemed to feel for one another, whatever Draven had nearly just said he felt. It wasn't real. It was the product of this artificial union. Ourmarriage.
The pain that knowing that caused me was almost unbearable.
Knowing this could never, ever be.
And yet beyond the hurt and the anger, the longing was still so strong.
With an involuntary impulse, I felt my feet drawing me back to him.
I looked up at him and the regret I felt was palpable.
Emerald eyes framed with heavy black lashes stared down at me.
“If only,” I whispered, touching a hand to an obsidian lock of hair and tucking it gently behind one pointed ear. “If only it didn’t have to be this way. You're all I think about. You're all I see. I'm so tied to you I barely know who I am anymore.”
“And I to you,” he whispered. “Is that such a bad thing?”
I leaned up. Kissing him with everything I had left to give him, my heart aching with longing and resignation.
Our lips met, a collision of fire and silk. Every longing and unfulfilled promise weaving into a tapestry of desire.
His hands tangled in my hair, pulling me closer and drawing a gasp from my lips.
He kissed me the same way he did everything. The way that was his nature. With a ferocity that stunned me, with a forcefulness I couldn't deny.
Perhaps it was the bond. Perhaps it was because I had channeled through him. But I felt it. I felt the current between us. And it left me dizzy.
An indescribable, wonderful heat filled my body, aching and beautiful, as his lips touched mine. I twined my fingers around him, claiming him with my mouth, my lips, marking him with my teeth.
I clawed his back, running my hands through his hair, consumed by the moment, the kiss, this man. My husband.
And then I forced myself to break away.
When I stepped back, I was panting.
The water was trickling down my face again. Fucking Siabra ceiling.
Draven was staring at me, his eyes wild.
“I felt it, yes,” I confessed, before he could ask. “I felt it but it's false.”
“There's nothing false about it.” I had never seen his eyes like this. Desperate and pleading. “Do you want me to say it again? I’ll shout it through the palace. I’ll never stop. I won’t let you go without a fight. Morgan, please. Don’t do this. I love you.”
I’d been expecting the words and yet still they hit me like a blow.
“Kaye needs me more than you do,” I said simply. “And your people don’t need me, Draven. They need you.”
I glanced over my shoulder.
Behind me lay the ring of paintings. Not of the goddesses and gods, but of the lands.
