But how much of the reason he’d intervened could be attributed to guilt?
No, she’d done the right thing.
Even if it was breaking her heart to do it.
She reached out and ran her fingertips along the smooth, cool black marble wall of the corridor she walked through. The oil of her finger pads left smudges; her fingerprints marking this place. A few weeks ago she never could’ve imagined walking through these halls as if she owned them, could never have imagined feeling contentment at the fact she now, in a way, claimed them as her own.
Now that the Shadow King was gone, she felt very at home within these walls. There was a far greater sense of acceptance here, a sort of more open feeling about the building and the people in it. Oh, yes, one needed to watch one’s step. Monsters dwelt in this place. Red caps, joint-eaters, phookas, alps, and more. Dark magick abounded. Yet, oddly, it was more comfortable to her than the starched, shallow hallways of the Rose Tower.
She finally felt like she belonged.
The Book of Bindings was hidden away, secreted magickally by Ronan and Niall, who were both on her committee of advisers. Gabriel and his host were also on it. She might not trust Gabriel with her heart, but she trusted him with her politics and, ultimately, with her life.
Gabriel was a good man. He simply wasn’t a man built for love. Not a man built for her.
She stopped short in the middle of the hallway as the man in question appeared from the shadows at the end of the corridor. Somewhere in the distance, laughter boomed, chatter swelled and then fell away to silence. The Black Tower never slept. There were always fae up and roaming around even as late as this, though the late hours were quieter than the day-lit ones.
Aislinn was momentarily arrested by the sight of him, long and lean, his body half hidden in shadow. They hadn’t spoken since she’d told him she didn’t want him romantically anymore. Every time they’d seen each other since then, they’d had others around them, and she’d been avoiding him otherwise.
Avoiding exactly this situation.
Suddenly she regretted leaving her room to take this walk. He walked toward her slowly and she fought the urge to flee. She wasn’t sure she could remain composed if he was angry at being rejected, and she didn’t want to hear what he might have to say to her.
She swallowed hard as he approached. His handsome features were set as rigid as chiseled stone, his dark brows drawn up. His dark blue eyes weren’t cold and angry as she’d expected; they were hot and filled with confusion and pain. His long dark hair was unbound and shifted around his shoulders. He hadn’t shaved today and the too-long growth shadowed his face.
Aislinn cleared her throat and set her hand flat against the wall of the corridor as if trying to draw strength from the building itself. “Gabriel—”
“Aislinn, I love you.” The words came out angry, accusatory.
Her breath stopped in her throat and shock stole through her. “What did you say?” she managed to push out in a whisper.
“You heard me. I love you. I’ve loved you since the Rose Tower. I couldn’t let the Shadow King have you because by that point you were mine. Mine to protect. Mine to love. I should have told you sooner.”
She glanced away, blinking away sudden tears. These were the last words she’d been expecting him to utter. Was this a game or did he really mean it? She shook her head. “Gabriel, I don’t know what to say to you.”
He closed the distance between them, grasped her wrist, and dragged her up against his chest. “You say what you feel, Aislinn. You stare into my eyes and tell me how you feel. I dare you to look at me and tell me you don’t love me. Do it.”
She raised her gaze to his and he held it firm, challenging her.
“Do it.”
She opened her mouth to lie, and then closed it, looking down.
“I thought as much. Then say it, tell me you love me back. I know you do. I can feel it. Tell me.”
Aislinn said nothing, did nothing. She couldn’t speak. All she could do was hang on while her world listed to the side like a ship about to sink.
He made a frustrated sound and turned her face-first toward the wall. Her breasts, the part that spilled from the top of her gown, pushed up by a corset, pressed up against the cold marble. She gasped and closed her eyes. Overwhelmed by tumultuous emotion, tears slipped down her cheeks.
He leaned in behind her. “Aislinn, don’t you think you can leave me. You’re mine. I know it and so do you. I love you and you love me, too.” His words shivered through her, spoken close to her ear. She was helpless against him, craving his touch and drowning in the words he spoke and in the possessive way he spoke them.
“I need you.”
TWENTY-FOUR
GABRIEL
lifted her heavy skirts, up past the tops of her thigh-high stockings, and, pushing aside the panel of her panties, quested between her legs to find the evidence of her arousal. Making an appreciative sound in the back of his throat, she knew he found it.
“Tell me to stop,” he growled into her ear. He pushed a finger deep inside her, then two, thrusting in and out. “If you don’t want me to fuck you right here, right now, tell me to stop.” His voice shook like he was groping for control and couldn’t find any.
Her breath shuddered out of her as her body reacted to his touch and the sound of his voice, to the sensation of his fingers pushing in and out of her so slowly.
“Don’t stop,” she murmured. “Danu, please, don’t stop.”
He let out a harsh breath that touched her shoulder and made her shiver. Then he grasped the side of her panties and yanked them down to her knees.
He unzipped his jeans, forced her thighs apart, and pushed his cock hard and deep into her sex, rocking her up against the wall. His hand stole between her thighs from the front, bunching her skirts up. Finding her clit, he stroked it over and over as he levered his body up and down, thrusting inside her. He took her like an animal up against the wall, forcing an orgasm from her body.
When she came she had to bite her knuckles against her cries, not wanting to draw attention. He came deep inside her with a groan and her name spilling from his lips.
He replaced her panties, lowered her skirts, and turned her toward him. His fingers were hard as he guided her face up toward his. “You’re mine, Aislinn. Never forget that. I will wait for you, but don’t expect me to be patient or well mannered while I do it.”
Then he turned and walked away.
AISLINN,
you must give us the Book of Bindings.
Aislinn came awake with a shudder and the sensation of icy fingertips tracing down her spine. The breathy, ominous voice still echoed in her head, laced with a malice that clung to her. It compelled her to want to give the book up to the speaker.
For the briefest of moments, that was all she wanted in the whole world.
Irrational
. Her lip curled.
The glow of the fireplace filled the room, the wood snapping and popping. The apartment was otherwise quiet and she felt no presence, alive or otherwise, in the room. No soul that she could perceive.
It had been a dream and she’d caught only the tail end of it. Yet it hadn’t been an ordinary dream. This one had been filled with malice and maybe even threaded with . . . magick. She frowned. Was that possible?
Of course that was a dumb question to ask, when she’d called up an army of the unforgiven dead to fight the Shadow King on her behalf. Judging from that, anything was possible.
She shivered and slipped from between the red silk sheets and sapphire blue comforter. Everything in her new bedroom was in contrasting jewel tones, while the elegant living room was in shades of gray—from dark to dove to nearly white.
Her nightgown stuck to her body, clammy from the dream, so she went to the fireplace opposite her bed to warm herself and chase away the last of the nightmare. It wasn’t very cold outside, but she far preferred the light of a fire at night if she could get it, so she’d had Hinkley order fires for her every evening. She knelt on the heap of pillows on the floor before the hearth and reached her hands out toward the flames.
Those flames reminded her of Gabriel. And reaching out to him so he could warm her was exactly what she desired. She wanted him and he would come to her if she asked.
Because
he loved her
.
The words still made her shiver when she remembered how he’d said them, how he’d annihilated any doubt she’d had in her mind about what he felt for her. Kendal had told her that he’d loved her, too—
but not like that
, not with emotion infusing every syllable, not with that look in his eyes. And Kendal’s words had never made her feel the way Gabriel’s did—soft, hot, vulnerable, and achy . . . and so filled up, so complete.
Like anything could happen to her but everything would be okay. Like his love provided her with a shield, made her bulletproof.
He’d told her he needed her. And she needed him. Especially right now.
Every instinct she had screamed at her that she shouldn’t be alone tonight. Every fiber of her body yelled for Gabriel’s presence. She’d wasted enough time on her fears; now it was time to embrace the man who’d told her he loved her so vehemently and truthfully.
If she got hurt in the end, then she did. That human saying was true—it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Even if letting Gabriel break her heart would slice her open emotionally from chin to gut. It was worth it to her to take a gamble.
What she felt for him was worth the risk.
The phone sat on the table near the hearth. She took it from its cradle and dialed his number.
“Gabriel?” she said when he picked up and sleepily murmured hello. Then all of a sudden her words left her and she couldn’t say anything more without dissolving into pathetic tears.
The soft rush of his breath filled the quiet space that separated them. “I’ll be right there.”
Moments later he was at her door. She opened it and immediately said, “I love you, too.” The words were spoken loud and clear and there was no taking them back once she’d uttered them. For better or for worse, they were true.
He crossed the threshold and embraced her, lifting her up and burying his nose in her hair. He kicked the door closed with his foot. “I won’t hurt you, Aislinn. All I want is to love you,” he murmured into the curve of her shoulder.
She shivered against him and let out a long, shaky breath of relief.
She retreated into the darkened apartment, back to the firelit bedroom. He followed her to the bed. The glow of the fire licked at only half his face. “Is that why you called me here? To tell me that?” he asked.
She pressed herself against the length of his body and breathed in the delicious scent of him, that quintessential combination of his cologne, soap, and the added ingredient of man that was uniquely his. “I woke up and wanted you with me. The need to see you and touch you was nearly overwhelming, like an empty space inside me I needed to fill.”
He took her hand and kissed her palm softly and slowly. The action warmed her more than the fire ever could and chased away the last clinging vestiges of the nightmare. “That’s what I’ve felt every single night since you pushed me away.”
She ducked her head. “You betrayed me once. And Kendal—”
“I get it, but I’m not Kendal.” There was a note of anger in his voice. “I’m a lot of things, especially before I fell in love with you. You were right to be cautious about me at first, but I’m not Kendal.”
“I know that.”
He pressed her down onto the mattress and covered her body with his. His knee slipped between her thighs. “I know I don’t have the best track record with women, but
you’ve
got me, Aislinn, body and soul. I’ve never felt this way for anyone before. It has nothing to do with your station as Shadow Queen. If anything, I wish I could take that weight from you. I just love you, every part of you, any way I can get you.” He kissed her forehead, then trailed down slowly to kiss her eyelids, the tip of her nose, and her lips as he murmured, “Every hope you have, every fear, every inch of you from the top of your head to your toes, and every inch of your soul besides.”
She relaxed into the blankets and the mattress, feeling bolstered by the support and strength that Gabriel gave her. A little of the tension of her new position eased. “I gave you my heart long ago, back when I thought it was the dumbest thing for me to do.”
“You can’t control who you fall in love with, it just happens. I promise to take care of your heart.”
“And I will take care of yours.”
“You already have. You made it come to life again.” He paused, looking toward the fire. “There are things you should know about me, Aislinn. Things I should have told you a long time ago, but the circumstances never gave me an opportunity.”
She sat up a little. “What?”
“Right after Piefferburg was created, times were hard. Many fae—most fae—were suffering from Watt syndrome and the other effects of the Great Sweep. I was young at the time and after my mother died, I was alone. I had no money, no way to feed myself.” He swallowed and waited a heartbeat before continuing. “But I was attractive and I was half incubus.”
Her throat went dry as she made the logical leap.
Danu, no
. The horrors he must have endured as a child and the humiliations. Her heart ached for him, for the boy he’d been and all he’d had to go through to survive.
“I—”
She leaned forward, enveloped him in her arms, and kissed him. “I understand,” she murmured against his lips. “You did what you had to do. I love you, Gabriel. I love you no matter what. I only wish I could turn back time and make things different for you.”
He kissed her. “It was a long time ago. I healed the worst of those wounds years ago, but you just stitched up the last of them.”