Melissa Marr - Fragile Eternity

“Shouldn’t you tell her?”

“How? She won’t even let me in the door.” He frowned. “I need her in my life. Without her…and without you being—I’m not good at things. I try, but I need her to believe in me. To not have either of—”

“Don’t.” Aislinn didn’t want him to follow that thought any further. The peace between the courts was new and tenuous. It was better if Donia and Keenan were at peace with each other, but talking to Donia alone made her anxious. They’d become friends of a sort, not as close as Aislinn had initially hoped, but close enough that they’d spent afternoons together at first. That had ended when spring began. When things with Keenan changed. They could avoid talking about it, but it took constant effort for her and Keenan not to touch each other.

“I can try, but if she’s upset with you, she might not be willing to talk to me either. Lately, she’s bailed every time I’ve tried to make plans with her,” Aislinn admitted.

Keenan poured them both glasses of water while he talked. “It’s because Summer is growing stronger, and Winter is weakening. Beira got surly every spring—and that was when I was still weak.”

Keenan held out a glass to her—and she froze.

It’s just water. And even if it were summer wine, it wouldn’t affect her like it had the first time. She pushed away the thoughts.

“Ash?”

She started, caught off guard by his uncommon usage of her shortened name. She pulled her attention from the glass and glanced at him. “Yeah?”

He ran a thumb over the outside of the glass as he held it up higher. The liquid was crystal clear. “It’s safe. My intentions are not to harm you. Ever . Even before, I didn’t wish you harm.”

She blushed and took the glass. “Sorry. I know that. Really.”

He shrugged, but he was so easily hurt by her moments of panic. She suspected he felt them sometimes, as if their sharing the court was creating a bond neither of them was prepared for. No one else in the court could see through the facades she erected—only Keenan.

Friends. We are friends. Not enemies. Or anything else.

“I’ll talk to Don,” she told him. “No promises. I’ll try, though. Maybe it’ll even be good for us…. She’s been so short-tempered with me the past few weeks. If it’s just a spring thing, maybe it’ll be good to talk.”

He took her hand and squeezed it gently. “You are good to tolerate the positions I put you in. I know that this is not yet easy for you.”

She didn’t let go of his hand, holding on to him with the strength she had gained when her mortality was replaced by this otherness. “I’ll only tolerate so much. If you keep another secret like you did with Leslie”—she let the sunlight that lived in her skin slip out, not a loss of temper but a show of her growing control over the element they shared—“it would be unwise, Keenan. Donia was what made freeing Leslie possible. You failed me. I don’t want that to happen again.”

For almost a full minute, he didn’t answer; he just held on to her hand.

When she started to pull back, he smiled. “I’m not sure this threat is having the result you’d like it to. You’re even more alluring when you’re angry.”

Her face flushed as the words she should say and the words she could say weren’t the same, but she didn’t break her gaze. “I’m not playing, Keenan.”

His smile vanished, and he let go of her hand. A serious look came over his face. He nodded. “No secrets. That’s what you are asking of me?”

“Yes. I don’t want to be adversaries—or play word games.” Faeries twisted their words to allow themselves every possible advantage.

The faery before her spoke quietly, “I don’t want to be adversaries either.”

“Or play word games,” she said again.

The wicked smile returned. “Actually, I like word games.”

“I’m serious, Keenan. If we’re going to work together, you need to be more open with me.”

He had a challenge in his voice when he asked, “Really? That’s what you want?”

“Yes. We can’t work together if I have to wonder what you’re thinking about all the time.”

“If you’re sure that’s what you want.” His voice was wavering between teasing and intensely serious. “Is it, Aislinn? Is that what you truly want of me? You want my total honesty?”

She felt like she was walking into a trap, but backing down was not the right approach if she was to be his equal. She forced herself to look him in the eye as she said, “It is.”

He leaned back and took a sip of his water, watching her as he did so. “Well, so you don’t need to wonder…I was thinking—just now—that sometimes we get so caught up in the court stuff, Donia, Niall, your classes…It’s easy to forget that nothing I have would be mine were it not for you, but it’s never easy to forget that I still want more.”

She blushed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“So you’re going to play word games now?” There was no denying the challenge in his voice this time. “You can decide when my honesty is welcome?”

“No, but—”

“You said you wanted to know what I’m thinking; there weren’t conditions. No word games, Aislinn. Your choice.” He sat his glass on the table and waited for several heartbeats. “Have you changed your mind so easily? Would you prefer we have secrets or not?”

Aislinn felt the edge of terror approach her, not in fear of physical safety, but in fear that the friendship they’d been building was tumbling around her.

When she didn’t speak, he went on. “I was thinking that no one else could’ve handled any of the things you have. Even adjusting to being fey…Not one of the Summer Girls adjusted so quickly. You didn’t mourn or rage or cling to me.”

“I knew about faeries. They didn’t,” she protested. She hated the faery inability to lie more and more as he spoke. It would be easier to lie and deny how painlessly she had become fey. It would be easier to say that she wasn’t adjusting to her new life far faster than she’d ever thought. It would be easier to say she was struggling.

Because then he wouldn’t be doing this to me.

He’d given her space, given her time. He’d been a friend and not even approached the boundaries she’d set.

Run. Run now.

She didn’t.

And Keenan moved closer, invading her space. “You know it’s more than that. I know now that it was right that I didn’t find my queen all these years. Waiting for you was worth everything that I thought I couldn’t endure.”

He had a hand in her hair now; sunlight slid down her skin.

“If you were my queen, truly my queen, our court would be stronger still. If you were mine, without mortal distractions, we’d be safer. We’d be stronger if we were truly together. Summer is a time to rejoice in pleasures and heat. When I’m around you, I want to forget everything else. I love Donia. I always will, but when I’m near you—” He stopped himself.

She knew what he was not-saying. She felt the truth of it, but that part of her wasn’t something to give over to her court’s health. Had he known they’d feel this way? Had he known that her insistence on approaching queenship as a job and not a relationship was going to limit their court’s growth? She didn’t want to know the answer.

“The court is stronger than it’s ever been in your lifetime,” she murmured.

“It is, and I’m grateful for what you’ve given our court. I’ll wait as long as I must for the rest. That’s what I’m thinking about. I suppose I should be thinking about the list of things we have to do, but”—he leaned closer, holding her gaze—“all I can think right now is that you’re here with me where you belong. I do love Donia, but I love my court too. I could love you as we’re meant to love one another, Aislinn. If you’d let me, I could love you enough that we’d forget everything but each other.”