Too important.
Brea didn’t want to be important.
She wanted to be an impetuous teenager who didn’t have to concern herself with the consequences of her actions. Well, she had the teenager thing down, considering she’d stomped from her own room leaving Lochlan calling after her.
She hadn’t even been able to muster up the pride she should have felt when she managed to throw up a barrier across her doorway, locking him in.
Ha! He wouldn’t be able to get out until his magic returned with the moon.
Sometimes there were benefits to this magic business. Other times, she wished she could flush it all away.
The full force of the Eldurian afternoon sun struck her in the face as she stepped out from under the covered walkway to reach the fountain she now claimed as her own.
The coins representing every unfulfilled wish she’d cast since arriving glittered in the crystal-clear water.
“I’m not making a wish,” she mumbled to herself. They only provided a false hope that any of this would ever get better.
While she was inspiring the people of Eldur and living in a grand palace, Myles was being tortured, and it was all her fault.
Yes, yes, she knew guilt was a useless emotion, but she clung to the desperation choking her, and she couldn’t breathe.
She bent over, trying to catch her breath and rested a hand on the fountain. These waters weren’t like those of Gelsi where creatures threatened to pull her under, but they held dangers all the same because they made her believe in something, even if it was a false belief.
Ripping her hand free, she slammed her foot against the stone. When it didn’t hurt, she did it again.
“These stupid boots,” she screamed, needing something, anything, to take the brunt of her anger. They wouldn’t even let her stub her toe.
She slid to the ground and pressed her back up against the stone as hot tears burned her eyes. Myles’ smiling face filled every space in her mind. He’d once been all she had. How could she let Regan keep him in her clutches?
Her mother might have been family by blood, but Myles was family by experience. He’d been there for everything.
Lochlan was cracked if he thought being a royal and making hard decisions meant anything to her compared to Myles.
She didn’t know how long she sat there alone before the light faded away. “Dusk,” she whispered.
And that meant… she felt his presence before she saw him.
Lochlan was like a single life raft in a crashing sea. Even if they disagreed on this, even if he’d never understand, she needed someone to see her, Brea Robinson, not the princess for just one moment.
Because the princess wanted to ride by Lochlan’s side as he fought for his kingdom. She wanted to sit atop a beautiful horse at the head of the army that came for love and honor, not obligation. Tomorrow, when the gates of the Eldurian palace closed behind the last soldier, the princess of both Eldur and Fargelsi should be with them.
But Brea? The changeling girl raised as a human with a single friend to call her own knew what she needed to do.
Lochlan walked forward and slid down to sit at her side, his shoulder brushed hers as he leaned back against the raised wall of the fountain.
“How’d you find me?” she asked.
Lochlan’s entire body was still, and he didn’t answer her question. “Three years ago I went into the human realm of my own accord. Your mother didn’t send me that time, but it had been months since I’d laid eyes on you. In the time I was away, you’d turned fifteen, but you were so much older than that. I saw it in your eyes.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face, and Brea couldn’t look at him. It had stopped feeling strange, knowing he’d watched over her for so many years. He was like a guardian angel, someone who’d been there when she thought she’d had few who cared.
Lochlan blew out a breath before continuing. “I went to the usual places to search for you. Your farm, your school. I didn’t find you, and I started to panic.”
“You were worried about me? Loch, you didn’t know me. We’d never even spoken.”
“Part of it was because I never wanted to have to tell your mothers anything happened to you, but there was more. I needed you to be okay. Me. Not your mothers.”
“So, what happened?” she whispered, drying her tears with the sleeve of her tunic. “Was I okay?”
“No. I didn’t see you at your farm, but there was a boy there. He was sitting under the tree where I’d seen you and him a hundred times before.”
“Myles.” A fresh batch of tears drifted down over her cheeks.
“Fae are not allowed to reveal themselves to humans. I didn’t have any glamour magic to cover my features because it was daylight, but I couldn’t help myself. I broke one of the most sacred laws of our world because I needed to know where you were.”
“Wait.” Brea turned her entire body toward him. “Are you saying you met Myles?”
“To his credit, he didn’t seem scared of me. I think he was too distraught for that. I asked where the owners of that farm were, and he told me they were taking their daughter to an institution for the mentally unstable.”
Brea shifted away from him, shame filling her.
“Don’t hide from me, Brea.” He lifted her chin, so she met his gaze. “That boy… I mean… he was waiting to confront your parents. That’s why he was there. He was ready to go to battle for you, do whatever was necessary. He’s the only human I’ve ever actually liked.”
“Hey.” She pinched his side.
“You aren’t human, Brea. And Alona was raised fae.”
Brea couldn’t wrap her head around everything he was saying. “So, Myles knew? About fae?”
“Not completely. He knew I was something other than human.”
“That’s why…” The breath rushed out of her as everything made sense. Myles never questioned what everyone else called her hallucinations. “He knew I wasn’t crazy.” She’d always thought he just didn’t care if his best friend had delusions, that he was too kind to hold it against her. This changed everything. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, Brea, tomorrow I leave to fight for my throne, and I want you with me.”
“But I’m a crap fighter.”
“I know.”
“I can’t control my magic.”
“Everyone knows that.”
“Then why does it matter what I do? If I accept Regan’s deal, it will have no impact on your campaign.”
He pinned her with a look, his icy eyes swirling with magic. “You do not know your worth, Brea. You will have an impact on me.” He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You’ve always had an impact on me.”
Brea closed the remaining distance, sealing her lips to his, reveling in the way his cold magic mingled with the heat of hers.
This kiss wasn’t the first they’d shared. The first was nothing more than a ploy to make her angry.
The second only a moment born out of fear for what they were to discover the next day in Iskalt.
But this… she poured everything into the moment, wishing it didn’t have to end. She’d known so many lies in the fae world that it was hard to determine fact from fiction.
Brea Robinson is a lie.
The old feeling crept up in her, because for once, she had no doubt Lochlan gave her all his truths. This time, she was the liar.
###
Desperation clung to them as Brea pushed Lochlan back into her room. A smile curved his lips, but smiles didn’t belong to a night like this.
The night before the heir to the Iskalt throne left to reclaim his home.
The night before a princess of two kingdoms became a prisoner once again.
“Brea.” Lochlan tried to stop her, but she cut off his words with another kiss, and his strength waned as he pulled her tighter against him, his large hands gripped her back as if she’d disappear the moment he let her go.
Brea hadn’t given him the answer he wanted about leaving, not yet. But she’d made up her mind. Tears clouded her visions, and she squeezed her eyes shut, kissing Lochlan with everything she had.
His legs hit the bed, and he sat on the edge.
Brea hovered over him, opening her eyes to gaze into the depths of the man before her. He was beautiful in a way she’d never seen before. Also stubborn and kind of a jerk.
But there was nothing she wished for more than to stay in this spot in time forever.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she blinked tears away.
Lochlan reached up, brushing his thumb under her eye. “I’m going to make you a promise, Brea.”
She shook her head, remembering Griff and his broken promises. “Don’t, Loch. If you promise nothing, you break nothing.”
A crease formed between his brows. “We will save Myles and Alona. I refuse to let you tell me to hold that promise back. Come with me into Iskalt where we will defeat my uncle. Then, with the might of Eldur and Iskalt combined, we will help them. I’ll do anything to bring them back, Brea. Anything except losing you. If you go into that palace in Fargelsi, you will never walk out again. That isn’t the way.”
She pressed a finger to his lips, not wanting him to say another word. Myles might not be able to wait for them to conquer Iskalt, and if she lost him, she’d no longer be whole.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me like tomorrow might never come. Make me think of nothing else. Please.”
Sliding a hand around her back, he pulled her onto his lap, his eyes never leaving hers. “Don’t be afraid of tomorrow, Brea. The dawn always follows the darkness.”
“I didn’t ask you to speak.” She pushed him down onto the bed. “I told you to make me forget.” Not waiting for him, she pressed her lips to his, sinking into him.
The fire that had burned between them since the day they met, the anger and defiance, expanded into an inferno as they both tried to take everything from the other.
When Lochlan slid a hand under her tunic, grazing the smooth skin of her stomach, his touch seared into her, and she needed more.
Sliding the shirt off over her head, she gazed down at him and cut off his protest with another kiss. It wasn’t the time for proprieties he wouldn’t have considered with any other fae woman.
She no longer wanted to be put on a pedestal while the fae world around her turned in a haze of immodesty and passion.
“Lochlan.” She brought her lips to his ears. “We go to battle soon. Act like it.”
His expression was hard as stone, and Brea waited for him to reject her, to tell her this wasn’t right.
But it was. She just needed him to see it. They were both hurting and desperate, but out of all the decisions she second guessed and doubted, this one was as clear as the waters of her fountain.
She’d fought it, fought him, not willing to trust another O’Shea brother, but she couldn’t deny it any longer.
“I want you.” She skimmed her lips up over his cheek. “Tell me you want me too.”
Lochlan gripped her hips and flipped her off him. She yelped as her back hit the bed. He held himself above her and dipped his head, capturing her lips. “We leave for battle tomorrow.” He repeated her own words. He just didn’t know they’d be headed toward two separate battles.
But he would, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever forgive her.
Probably not.
This night might be all they ever had, and she was going to hold onto it, letting it be what she remembered as she became a prisoner once more.