“They were able to close it quickly,” Arcas said from a chair in the corner. “Your maidens did not seem too worried about him.”
“Thank you for staying,” Lunelle said.
Arcas shrugged. “I can stay longer if you need to attend to whatever the fuck put that sister of yours out.”
“Careful how you speak about the Lunar queen,” Lunelle mumbled, her brow arching.
Both men tilted their heads toward her.
“We all have the same amount of information,” Lunelle said, waving her hand. “My mother is assembling the family in half an hour, think you’re up for it?”
Mirquios sat up straighter, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“If I start now, I should be able to make it,” he laughed.
“I’ve been summoned to help you hobble,” Luxuros said, strolling in from the hallway.
“Ah,” Mirquios laughed. “And who are you this evening? The Solar prince? The Lunar king?”
Luxuros pushed gently at his shoulder. “I’m your only hope at hearing just how the Nether all of this happened, Your Highness.”
Lunelle leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her king’s cheek, patting his back as Luxuros pulled him out of the room.
Arcas wandered closer to her. “And who will you be when the dust settles? A Lunar princess? Mercurian queen? Rebel officer?”
Her fingers twisted in front of her, the cast of blood against her leg only now starting to make her stomach churn.
“I don’t see why I can’t be all three.”
He scoffed, tucking his hands behind his back.
“And besides,” Lunelle murmured as she circled him, dark shadows beneath his eyes. “Your title is of far more interest to me.”
“And what title is that?”
“Precisely,” she whispered. “Your sister will be crowned queen if my sources are correct. What does that make you?”
“Free,” he replied. “At least, until someone offers to bind me into the rebellion.”
Lunelle’s heart leaped out of the way for that certain black mist within her, thatthingthat begged her to touch him.
Arcas opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand, silencing him.
“I do not want riddles. I do not want guessing games. I need you to tell me truly, once and for all, if you actually intend to commit?—”
He was across the room before she could finish her sentence, his lips on hers in a kiss that twisted the very Shadow within her into a knot so tight she did not imagine it would ever breathe again. When he released her, he stepped back, his hand covering his mouth.
“That is all I know,” he sighed. “I have no other answers. That is what I can offer to you, and if it is not enough?—”
“It is not enough. You know it is not,” she gasped between them as his hands grabbed her neck and brought her back into another kiss. Lunelle pushed him away, but he only wrapped his arms around her tighter, melting her into him.
“I love you,” he hissed, his eyes narrowed, absolutely horrified to say it aloud. “Is that what you need to hear? Because youknowit, youdemandit, and I cannot do a damned thing about it.” His hands gripped around her sides, his finger pointing at that space, the one that rested beneath her heart. “We will never have what the rest of them get, what you have with your sparkling beam of light with your gallant king, but I live within you, buried in the darkest night of your Shadow, I am there, waiting, hoping,dyingto be yours, in whatever capacity you will allow.”
Arcas released her from his grip, stepping back, putting space between them.
“And if you must hear it from me, you were right. At every turn. At every criticism. The Prince of Pluto was indeed a coward, but he left that cowardice with his crown. I will follow you to the ends of the realms, Lunelle. I will listen and learn and fight, notforyou, but because of you. Because of what you’ve plucked out of me and cleansed in your divine fire.”
He took a sharp breath.
