Killian’s thick raised skin was the bright pink of newly healed flesh when I last saw it. Now there are dark streaks embedded deep within the wound. Surprise hits me.
“Your arm.” I gesture to it. “Your scar doesn’t look right.”
Killian turns away and fastens his pants with the efficiency of a trained soldier. He snatches up his shirt and shrugs into it, watching me from the corner of his eye as I pull the shift up and start trying to find the ribbons to close the neckline. Like I’m a wild animal he’s suddenly wary of.
My stomach drops. I shouldn’t have said anything about his arm. He’s clearly sensitive about the injury. I don’t want him to feel as though the only reason I desire him is because he can protect me from monsters, human and animal alike, yet I can’t quite articulate what else it is that draws me to him.
I like his bluntness. After Alistair’s honeyed lies and the insincere flattery of the courtiers, Killian’s honesty is a breath of fresh air. He wasn’t kind to me at first, when I awoke on the mountain, but he was truthful when I needed it most, even here at Castle Belterre where I feel as though everyone is lying to me all the time. He doesn’t treat me like I’m stupid or foolish.
There is a sweetness in him, buried deep down. A wounded part of him that’s been roughly treated in life. He’s surrounded it with armor as thick as that scar, but I want to break it open and cradle that part of him in my cupped hands.
Yet he’s suddenly wary of letting me get that close.
He drags me in for a kiss, and the feeling that I’ve made a terrible mistake eases.
“I love you,” I whisper against his ear.
He kisses me hard and lets me go without responding. Dread surges back into my middle. Embarrassed, I hold up my torn dress and examine it ruefully. “Not much to be done for it.”
Should I be worried that Killian brushed off what I said? Or is he simply being his stoic right self, reluctant to put into words what he feels?
“We’ll tell them you were attacked.” He’s strapped on the dragon scale armor as though he needs to protect himself. From me. “It’s mostly true. We can show them the dragon’s tracks.”
I nod and play along. “You arrived in the nick of time. I was cornered. I fell. You fought the dragon valiantly and drove it off.” I ponder the timeline and finally come to a logical explanation for our prolonged absence. “I was upset and didn’t want to return because of the state of my dress.”
Killian sweeps a tendril of hair behind my ear. His gray eyes glimmer with emotion I want to believe in, but might be nothing but the reflection of a rising moon.
“They’ll believe it, or they won’t. Either way, we need to get back. We’ve been gone a long time.”
I clutch the shreds of my clothes and follow him wordlessly out of the forest.
27
Killian
The instant I return to the archery range with Briar, Alistair whisks her into his carriage and, frustratingly, out of my sight. All of Belterre Castle is awash with grief for the dead, fortunately not as many as there were injured, demanding the skills of every available healer. The castle stinks with the tang of magic.
My mood, already foul with distaste for the way I took Briar in the forest and guilt over the way I’ve betrayed Alistair, haunts me through the halls. I finally track Alistair down in his receiving rooms.
The glass eyes of his taxidermized monster trophies mounted on the walls bore into me from all sides. There’s the hydra I defeated. The head of the dragon I slew, with its black scales replaced by replicas so I could use the real ones as armor.
I won’t tell him what Briar and I did, but I won’t let him continue down this path, either. I owe him that much.
I hate lying to him. I’d be lying to myself if I claimed that the idea that my son could be the next king, if I were to let Briar go through with this wedding, doesn’t give me a degree of satisfaction. I hate myself for it.
Some friend I am, cuckolding him. No matter how often I remind myself that theirs isn’t a love match on either side, the fact remains that if his queen is carrying my child, there would be shit all he could do about it, legally, even if the baby was a ringer for me.
And I’m a sick bastard for even contemplating this clusterfuck of a mess. Letting my dick lead me astray.
“Call off the wedding.”
“What the fuck, Kill?” Alistair kicks back in his chair, watching me pace.
“You cannot marry Briar.” I don’t know why I’m trying
“Why the fuck not?”
Because she could be pregnant with my child, and there is no possible way I’m giving her up even if she isn’t. Because she loves me, not you. Because I’m one of her monsters, and I’m going to have her, damn the consequences.
