Chapter 503 There You Are

Chapter 503 There You Are
(Caelum Ashborne) 

"We need to talk." Cael told her.
She answered him with another kiss. Slow. Unhurried. The sort of kiss that asked him to forget the rest of the world for just a little longer. 
When she drew back, she was smiling again. 
"It can wait." 
His chest tightened. "It can't." 
She laughed softly, her fingers tracing absent circles against the centre of his chest. 
"Everything important has wanted to talk to me today." 
She kissed beneath his jaw. 
"Prophecies..." 
Another lingering kiss. 
"Queens..." 
Her lips travelled slowly along the line of his neck, feeling the frantic pulse beating beneath his skin. 
"Bindings..." 
She smiled against him. 
"I'm tired of thinking." 
He closed his eyes as her mouth found the hollow beside his collarbone, a kiss soft as prayer and twice as damning. Gods, let him have one more minute, one more stolen fragment of eternity where nothing existed but her, and the world’s demands could burn. 
His hands tightened almost imperceptibly around her waist. 
"Adelaide..." 
She looked up at him, and the affection in her eyes was so open, so trusting, that he almost forgot why he'd come. 
"I just want my love," she whispered, "to quiet everything else for a little while." 
Her fingers slipped behind her back, finding the delicate fastenings of her gown. 
"We don't have to solve the world tonight." 
One ribbon loosened. 
"I don't want another prophecy." 
A second. 
"I don't want another secret." 
The fabric eased from one shoulder. 
"I just want..." 
She smiled with heartbreaking tenderness. 
"...you." 
Cael's breath caught. Every instinct screamed at him to forget the truth. To kiss her again. To let tomorrow become tomorrow. Instead, he reached for her hands. Gently. Stopping them before they could loosen another fastening. 
"Adelaide..." His voice was barely more than a whisper. “Please… We really do need to talk." 
She looked at him for the longest time, her fingers still resting beneath his hands where he'd stopped them. 
Then she smiled. Not playfully. Sadly. 
"I know." 
Before he could answer, she rose onto her toes once more. 
This kiss was different. There was no teasing in it now. No attempt to distract him with laughter or lightness. She kissed him with quiet certainty, as though trying to remind him of something he had forgotten. Her lips lingered against his, gentle at first, then longer, refusing to let him retreat into whatever darkness had swallowed him since the council dinner. 
Cael tried to pull back. He lasted barely a heartbeat. Then every ounce of discipline he'd spent the afternoon rebuilding collapsed all over again. His hands found her waist. He kissed her back. Not because he'd changed his mind. Because he couldn't bear the thought that this might already be goodbye. 
Just let me remember her like this. Just once more. 
His fingers tightened instinctively against the fabric gathered at her waist as she stepped closer, removing what little space remained between them until he could feel the frantic rhythm of her heartbeat answering his own through the bond. The warmth pouring from her wrapped around him with such complete trust that, for one impossible moment, he almost convinced himself he could still choose silence. 
He couldn't. He knew he couldn't. But for one stolen moment... He let himself pretend. 
Adelaide's arms slipped around his shoulders as though she had never intended to let him go again. She smiled against his mouth, and the relief flowing through the bond was so overwhelming it almost brought him to his knees. 
There you are. 
The words weren't spoken. He felt them anyway. He answered by gathering her into his arms. 
She gave a small, surprised laugh as her feet left the floor, her arms tightening around his neck without the slightest hesitation. She trusted him so completely that she never thought to brace herself. She settled against him as though there were nowhere else in any realm she wished to be. 
He carried her the few short steps until her back met the pale volcanic stone. Carefully. Always carefully. 
He claimed her mouth again, longer this time, not rushed but desperate, as if he could brand her into memory, as if he could carve her into his soul before fate tore her away. Every kiss was a plea, a promise, a defiance of the gods who would see them parted. 
His hand slid slowly up her back before settling between her shoulder blades, holding her close enough that every breath became shared. She answered with equal urgency, her fingers disappearing into his hair while the bond flooded with so much affection it almost hurt. 
She wasn't holding back anymore. Neither was he. Not because tomorrow no longer mattered. Because tomorrow mattered too much. Tomorrow she would know. Tomorrow she would look at him and see a liar. Tomorrow every memory they had built together would become something she questioned. 
So tonight, for these few stolen heartbeats, he craved a memory unsullied by betrayal, a single moment the gods themselves could not corrupt, a sanctuary carved from the ashes of tomorrow. 
Adelaide drew back only far enough for her forehead to rest against his. 
"I love you." The whisper was so quiet it scarcely disturbed the air between them. 
It shattered him completely. 
Every muscle in his body locked. Not because he didn't want to answer. Because he did. More than anything. But the words lodged somewhere behind the grief crushing his chest. 
How could he tell her he loved her while standing inside the lie that had brought her here? How could he accept those words knowing that, in a matter of moments, she would wish she'd never spoken them?