For a breath.
For a sin-filled second.
He closed his eyes and let their bodies be. Together. Perfect. Possibly everything he’d ever wanted. Everything he could have if things were different. If things were different, she’d find him here some days, needing help with who knew what, and she’d take the blade from his hand and set it aside, and instead of honing his unnecessary wildness through the blade, he’d channel it into her, throwing her over his shoulder and cartingher off to their bed. Her hair would fan out like the sunrise on white sheets, and he’d kiss her everywhere the sun shone.
He could see it all.
Even after he opened his eyes, he saw her and him and everything they could have from this moment until dark earth spilled onto their coffins.
He spilled the need and the frustration into the blade, and together they flung it across the room.
It sank tip first into the tree with an echoing thwack, and she spun in his arms, eyes bright as sapphires, and mouth curved into happiness itself.
“I did it!”
He allowed himself one thing—to trail the pad of his thumb down the length of her jaw and settle at the tip of her chin, so very close to the pout of her bottom lip. “You did. Now do it again.”
He left her, taking the chair to the side of the room. Alone.
She ran to the other end of the gallery and retrieved her blade, then tried again and again, and when he could guarantee he would not give away the emotion thick in his chest and throat, he offered instructions for improvement. She missed it seven times out of ten. But she’d get better.
“We will have our meetings here,” he said. “So, you can practice as we discuss my sister’s suitors.”
“I should enjoy that. You truly do not mind?”
He shook his head. “I will be glad to know you know how to protect yourself.”
She’d been aiming at the tree, but she lowered the knife and sat across from him once more. Folding her hands over the blade in her lap and looking out the window, she said, “My mother taught me to embroider. It’s a tedious skill. The stitches must be so close together. When I first began to learn, I would accidentally unstitch my stitches, pushing the needle throughthe same hole I’d just come up out of.” She chuckled. “I was never very good. But when I found little flowers on my sleeves or the corners of my cloak, it… I never felt alone then. My mother was always with me. And when she died, soon after Briar was born… I realized there was no one to stitch those flowers into Briar’s clothes. Or my other sisters’ clothes. Nor mine. Not anymore. So, I began to try my hand at it again. It’s likely more accurate to say I became obsessed. I’d stay up all night, killing candle after candle.”
“Your eyesight, too.”
“Mm. Yes. I remember how blurry the world was after narrowing my sight for so long on such a tiny corner of the world. A needle. A length of thread. A hole in the tiniest bit of cloth. But I got much better quite quickly. At embroidery and at… living without my mother.”
“You poured your grief into learning your mother’s art.”
“As you have poured your various frustrations into learning your father’s.” Her hand crept across the table between them, palm down and fingers seeking. “Thank you for teaching me, Your Grace. And thank you for… seeing me.” She meant the embroidery, but she meant something else as well.
“Thank you for sharing your story.”
Beneath the table her leg brushed against his, and his jaw tightened, the first in a sweep of muscles down his body, tightening, locking down his every cursed desire. He’d had his moment with her, felt its perfection. He’d seen what he feared most—that he could love her.
The moon maiden was not supposed to have existed outside of that night. Yet here she was, as perfect in the sunlight as she had been beneath the stars. Hell, the things he’d said to her…
Fall in love with me?she’d asked.
Perhaps, he’d said.
And now he must forget it all.
Her skirts brushed, once more against his leg.
He stood so quickly his chair toppled over, and she yanked her hand across the table and back into her lap.
And yelped. “Oh! Oh.” She lifted her hand. A ruby blood drop welled at the tip of one finger.
His body raced into a panic, and he hit his knees beside her chair, took her hand as if he had every right to.
“I’m fine.” She tried to pull away.
