Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 139662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
“In exchange for what? What do you want from me?”
“Many things, but nothing in exchange for this.” He scans my face again and again. “It’s a gift—yours, whether you end up in the palace or not and whether you stay with Sebastian or not.” He huffs out a dry laugh and gives me a wry grin. “All we have to do is keep the queen from destroying it.”
“Why not keep it for yourself?” I ask. “What if Sebastian ends up on the throne? You need a home as much as I do.”
Finn lowers himself to the floor, leaning back on his elbows as he watches the stars. There’s a subtle, pulsing energy that rolls off him in the starlight, as if he draws his power from the night itself. It’s stronger since the curse broke, stronger still here in the Court of the Moon. It’s not anything I can explain with the vocabulary I have, but it’s there—and I can sense it as surely as I can see the moon shining above.
I follow his lead, taking a place beside him on the cool, tiled rooftop.
“Do you remember the night you helped me rescue Jalek?” he asks. “We sat outside together afterward and you told me your mother taught you to wish on stars.”
Abriella, every star in that sky shines for you.
I swallow hard. The physical attraction to Finn was there from the first moment, but that night was the first time I realized there was something more than that between us. “I remember.”
“That night I realized how much I wanted to bring you here.” He blows out a breath. “I was trying to figure out a way I could do it safely, without being detected by Mordeus. Jalek and Kane both thought I was crazy. I told them it was a way to earn your trust so that when I finally suggested the bond, you’d say yes . . . but I knew. Even then, I knew I couldn’t do what I needed to.”
“You mean you couldn’t kill me.”
Turning his head, he meets my eyes and nods.
“I hate that I’m the reason for this mess,” I say softly. “This is all my fault.”
“It’s not. Not at all.”
“Seems like it’s a lot more mine than it is yours.”
Turning, he narrows his eyes at me. “How many times did you tell me no?”
“What?”
“How many times did you refuse to bond with me?”
“You didn’t—”
“I didn’t ask. I never asked. I never even tried to make a compelling argument. I was so damn busy trying to think of a solution that didn’t—” His mouth snaps shut, and he turns his face back toward the sky.
A solution that didn’t involve hurting me, I realize.
He lies flat on his back and closes his eyes for a beat.
“I don’t understand, Finn.”
He takes several deep breaths before he turns his head and looks at me, his eyes so bleak. “What don’t you understand?”
“You are covered in tattoos,” I whisper. “You are forever marked by the evidence of the sacrifices you made to save your kingdom.”
He grimaces. “How do you know I wasn’t just worried about saving myself?”
Because I know you. Because you’re better than that. But I won’t let him distract me with that argument. “Why was I different?” I ask. I know I shouldn’t. I know it’s tacky to fish out someone’s feelings like this. I shouldn’t want him to feel anything for me, let alone pressure him into saying it out loud.
“You would’ve said no. It doesn’t matter.”
“Probably,” I whisper. “But you could’ve done more to make sure I never said yes to Sebastian. You could’ve lied to me and made me think he supported those camps. You could’ve bought yourself so much more time. Kept a wedge between me and the other male trying to steal the crown. It would’ve been easy for you. You had every opportunity.”
He huffs out a breath. “Now you sound like Jalek. He laid into me that day you found out about the camps. He said I acted like I didn’t even want the throne.”
“Didn’t you?”
He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again, taking a few more moments before he replies. “I think part of me has always known that I have a role to play in protecting my court, but maybe I’m not meant to be on the throne.”
My heart tugs. Has he had to convince himself of this? Because of me? Because of Sebastian?
“But that day wasn’t about the throne. It was about you. Jalek couldn’t understand why I had to defend your prince, but he wasn’t looking into your eyes. He didn’t see how crushed you were to hear what the queen was doing.” He swallows. “I didn’t want to lie to you.”
“And you didn’t want me to die,” I say.
He squeezes his eyes shut. “That’s true.”