“You have to take the ring back.”
Kerdik shook his head, his forehead mashing to move my head in time with his. “It’s not safe with me. There are times when I want more power than I have, more dominance. My self-control has lasted as long as I can expect it to. For so long, I needed someone to help me carry this burden. Then you came along, and I knew I’d met the one person I could trust with the awfulness of the world. You would be gentle with it, because you were gentle with me.”
Kerdik’s shoulders did seem weighted at mention of the long journey that had led to him putting the ring on my finger. “Hey, I’m here. This is a horrible thing to have to guard for so long.” I swallowed hard. “I can help you.”
His gust of relief bathed my nose. “Thank you. When I argue with Cailleach and Brìghde, part of me is tempted to set the magic loose, to let their people destroy each other just to get them to cooperate.”
“Cooperate with what?”
Kerdik’s fingers migrated to my shoulder, fingering the lace as if he wanted to slide it off so he could suck on the skin beneath. “I want to make love to you. More than anything, I want to be with you in every way a man can. Every day they don’t remove my curse, it’s a day I’m tempted to set their dark magic loose. I want them to feel impotent. I want them to feel alone in the mess as their land collapses in fits of chaos.”
“Shh,” I cooed, trying to soothe the tumult I could feel rising up in him. “You’re not alone, honey.”
“You’re marrying Bastien,” he countered flatly, retracting his touch from my sleeve.
“Yes, I am.” I was firm on that point, even through my attraction for Kerdik.
“Tell me you’ll save your second life for me.” He grimaced and shook his head. “That’s not how I should’ve asked.” Kerdik shocked me to my core when he stood us both up from the bed, and then slid down onto the floor on bended knee before me. He awakened parts of my heart that shouldn’t be available for poking at when he blinked up at me with rapture and vulnerability shining through.
Confusion tugged the corners of my mouth downward, and my palms started to sweat. “What are you doing?” I began to give way to panic at the unnatural position we were in. “You shouldn’t kneel. People kneel to you, not the other way around.”
Kerdik looked up at me through thick lashes with purpose and poise. “Rosalie Avalon, I’ll love you with all of my many lives. When I saw your kindness, I knew the true scope of your beauty. Before you, I was…” He swallowed, and we both knew just how lost he’d been before our friendship anchored him to something real. “Now there’s someone worth returning to, worth fighting for.”
I couldn’t make sense of the grand nature of it all. There’s something about a man on bended knee that makes you feel simultaneously powerful and scared. It’s too many cards to hold. I swallowed thickly, my veins filling with trepidation and attraction. “Kerdik, get up.”
“No,” he countered with a challenge to his tone. He remained kneeling before me – the most powerful creature in all of Avalon. “Let me do this. No matter the outcome, I need to get this out.” He took my jeweled hand and placed it over his heart. “It’s you, darling. It’s always been you. When your first life is over, will you take me as your husband?”
My heart was the only sound I heard as I gaped, utterly flabbergasted at him asking instead of demanding. Though this wasn’t the time to love him, I did. Oh, how I cherished the enigma that was Kerdik. Part of me knew that no matter how long I lived, I wouldn’t outgrow him, and couldn’t turn my heart off when he looked my way. Even if we could never make love, I still wanted to be his, and for him to be mine all mine.
I leaned over so I could stroke Kerdik’s lips with my thumb. It was a simple blessing that took us to a sweeter place than the desperation-filled air that dragged in and out of our lungs. “I promise.”
Kerdik exhaled with a grin that was so beautiful, I couldn’t look away. “You’ll marry me?”
“Not in this life, but in the next. Yes.” He stood and wrapped me in a hug, his chest swelling with joy. I stepped back, knowing we’d carried on enough. “We can’t indulge in anything right now, though. This was our goodbye. You have to let me live this life with Bastien.”
Kerdik’s mouth hardened into an angry line. “Don’t say his name to me.”
One of us had to break the cycle. I moved toward the center of the room, putting a few feet of distance between us. “It’ll be easier when I take him to Common with me. You won’t have to see us together. The higher magic – all of it will be gone where it can’t hurt Faîte anymore. I won’t be able to hurt you anymore, either. Easy-peasy.”
Kerdik stood and straightened his vest. “None of this is easy, Rosie. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get back to work setting up the aqueducts.”
I blinked at him in surprise. “You’re staying to help us?”
“You say that like you think I don’t care if my future bride has access to water or not. I care, darling. Even when you’re not mine yet, I care.” He was tall and leonine, standing before me like a man ready to take charge and make the world his own.
Selflessness was a trigger for me, activating my ready-to-pounce button I wished Kerdik didn’t have access to. I took another step back to counteract my libido.
I was about to tell him how not worth all of this I was, but a sudden rumbling under my toes stopped me short. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Knock it off, dude. You can’t go bringing down the house like this.”
Kerdik’s wary expression gave me pause as his eyes darted around the room. “That’s not me.”
I took a few steps back as the trembling built up to a full-on earthquake. My heart started to thump unevenly as my hand shot out to steady myself against the stone wall. “If not you, then who?”
Panic shot through me when Kerdik grabbed his chest and howled, dropping to his knees as though he’d been shot straight through the heart. I ran to his side, scooping up his torso in my arms. “Kerdik! Honey, what’s happening?”
He tried to say something to me, but could only mouth his fear. He clung to me, his eyes wide with sudden pain.
Terror raced through my veins as I held him, wondering what could possibly take down the most powerful being in all of Avalon.
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Stubborn Girl
Here’s a free preview of Stubborn Girl, Book 7 in the Faîte Falling series.
1
A Mother and Her Daughter
If anyone ever thought to put together a manual about what to do if an immortal had a full-blown heart attack out of nowhere, I would read that book. Or, more accurately, I’d have someone else read it to me.
Kerdik grasped his chest as I held him on the floor of my bedroom, panting in confusion and fear. It was the latter emotion that clinched in my chest. Kerdik wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything. What hope was there that any of us could stand against something that scared the most powerful being in all of Avalon?
My emerald dress was pooled on the floor around us as I clutched him tight. When his breathing started to even out, I nearly cried from the relief. “Honey, what is it? Kerdik?” I ran my hand over his chest, hoping to calm either one of us.
“Rosie?” he whispered, his eyes wide and worried.
“What happened? We were talking, then the palace started shaking, then you grabbed your chest like you were having a heart attack, and now… What? Are you hurt?”
I didn’t know how much more weird Avalon stuff I could handle. Kerdik had just admitted to me that the ring he’d put on my finger when we’d first met held all of the lost magic in Faîte – both the good stuff and the bad. The ability to turn Fae into Vampires and werewolves had been locked away, along with other, less devastating magic, like the ability to fly or turn yourself invisible
. The higher magic had been locked away when it was clear it was doing more harm than good. No one knew what became of it, except for Kerdik, who’d been waiting for someone he trusted to come along. All this time, an atomic bomb of magic had been perched on my ring finger.
“Something’s happened to…” Kerdik’s pupils flicked from side to side in alarm. He appeared as though he was seeing a scene far away that I couldn’t witness.
And then suddenly, I could. Kerdik was in distress, so our connection made me see what he saw. The first time this happened, I’d seen through his eyes. Now it seemed I was seeing the world through his mind’s eye.
Brìghde was on all fours, teeth gritted as she clutched at the stone floor of a dungeon with her mannish hands. Her pale skin and red hair were filthy. Her dress looked like it was pure earth – made of moss or something – and it was torn at the hem up to her knee. Her face was burned, but worse than pain, one of her cheeks and her forehead were now disfigured. The puckered and shiny skin was immoveable as she spoke. “Ye don’t know what you’ve done, mortal! Once I break free of whatever it is you’ve got tha’s holding me, I’ll take my time tearing ye apart. Whatever protection ye have tha kept me from killing ye, I’ll find a way around, make no mistake.”
The focus shifted upward, and I saw before I heard the cruelty of my birth mother. Morgan le Fae was standing over Brìghde with a sneer that looked well-practiced. She wore a red satin gown with no bustle, her chocolate-colored hair tied up in a crown of braids. Her pinched nose matched mine, though her face looked so murderous, I wished none of my features matched hers. “That was a nice little surprise. I can’t be killed by an immortal, eh? Why, if only I’d known earlier. The fun I could’ve had.” She kicked Brìghde in the ribs, and Brìghde exhaled a puff of black smoke. “Now, summon him.”
“I wouldn’t wish you on Kerdik, and I wish a fair many grave depravities on him. Summon him yourself.”
Morgan picked up the hat Kerdik had given me to wear back when we’d first met. When I’d been thrown into the well, my belongings had been left in Morgan’s castle, leaving the Newsies cap up for grabs. “I’ve got a token from him, so you can use that to call him here.”
“Call him yourself!”
“Why my acid doesn’t control your will, I can’t understand. At least your abilities have been weakened. I can’t be killed by you, but I wonder if you can be killed by me?”
Kerdik and I both shouted for Morgan to stop when she set down the hat on the floor of the dungeon and picked up a knife. Our cries were ineffectual as Morgan picked up Brìghde by her hair and stabbed her through the chest.
Brìghde’s howl had a hawk-like shriek to it, making my spine tingle. For a moment, she went limp, and Morgan released her to slump to the floor. I called out her name, but we were on opposite ends of the country. I could hear pounding and shouting, but those noises were in my immediate reality – no doubt Urien or Bastien realizing we were walled inside the bedroom, and trying to bust through the thick stone. Some people just lock the door when they want a little privacy, but not Kerdik. He’d erected stone to cover the door and window, so we could have a few moments uninterrupted.
I hadn’t been expecting him to propose – to ask instead of demand I spend my second life with him. Neither of us expected me to say yes, but here we were, trapped in my bedroom while the world fell to pieces.
Brìghde began to stir, and my heart nearly stuttered. I didn’t know Brìghde, but her lifeline was the same eternal circle as Kerdik’s. If something could kill her, it might take him down, as well. Brìghde coughed out a raspy, “Harder next time, ye rotten bitch.”
“Oh, I can make it hurt far worse than that.”
“Pain doesn’t mean the same to an immortal as it does to ye. Even what you’ve done to my face will heal.”
“That would be true, if I didn’t have pools more of it, ready to dowse you as soon as you get your bearings back. I’ll have you here for as long as it takes to get what I need.”
“Ye can’t have it. It’s a myth. I can’t make ye immortal.”
I paled, wishing anything else had come from her mouth. Morgan somehow knew about my extended lifespan now. She knew, and she wanted. It was the ultimate power – to remain on her throne forever, to be the second immortal to reign over Avalon.
Morgan’s fist shook around her bejeweled dagger. “I know that Rosalie’s immortal now! Only Kerdik, you or Cailleach could’ve made her that way, and I know it was Kerdik. He turned fool for her long ago.” She stabbed Brìghde through the back, puncturing her lung. Her fury made it seem like she wasn’t just angry at Brìghde, but that she meant the knife for me, whom she couldn’t get at. Morgan spoke above Brìghde’s gasp and scream. “If he can turn Rosalie immortal, then you can grant me that same favor! Do it, or your long life will be spent in my dungeon, howling like an animal.” When Brìghde couldn’t answer because of her punctured lung, Morgan huffed, as if her prisoner was being annoying on purpose. She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for the wound to heal enough for their tumultuous back and forth. “I must warn you; if you don’t give me what I need, I’ll trap Kerdik here next. Don’t think I won’t do it. I’m not afraid of him!”
Only I knew how very untrue that declaration was.
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Other books by Mary E. Twomey
The Saga of the Spheres
The Silence of Lir
Secrets
The Sword
Sacrifice
The Volumes of the Vemreaux
The Way
The Truth
The Lie
Jack and Yani Love Harry Potter
Undraland
Undraland
Nøkken
Fossegrim
Elvage
The Other Side
Undraland: Blood Novels
Lucy at Peace
Lucy at War
Lucy at Last
Linus at Large
Terraway
Taste
Tremble
Torture
Tempt
Treat
Temper
Tease
Trap
Faîte Falling
Ugly Girl
Lost Girl
Rich Girl
Stupid Girl
Broken Girl
Untouchable Girl
Stubborn Girl
Faîte Falling: Faîte Rising
Common Girl
Blind Girl
Savage Girl
Dangerous Girl
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Mary E. Twomey also writes contemporary romance under the name Tuesday Embers.
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Untouchable Girl: A Fantasy Adventure (Faite Falling Book 6) Page 19