“You’re right.” Her eyes closed, she took a deep breath. “Aryn, I’m sor—”
He cut the apology off with a hard, rough kiss.
“No,” he whispered against her mouth. “You owe me no apologies.”
“You were hurting so badly,” she said, the words husky. “I knew it, could feel it. I wanted to stop it, but I just didn’t have the strength.”
“No apologies,” he said again. “Ever. Not over this, not over any of it. I understand.”
She looked into his eyes, saw the fierceness there. Slowly, she nodded. “About Irian…”
Her hesitation had him stroking his hands soothingly up and down her arms. “He’s gone,” he said roughly, struck by just heavily it hit, acknowledging the truth of it.
Tyriel closed her eyes, head lowered. “You’re certain? Did he tell you…anything?”
“No.” Aryn’s gaze focused inward on that strange dream. “But I just…knew. After he told me about the…bridge, darkness pulled me under and my final, fading thoughts were that I’d never see him again.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“No.” He cupped her face. “He told me more than once that he was bound here until he’d balanced some scale, righted some wrong. Whatever he did to us as we slept… Tyriel, he did what he’s been trying to do for millennia.” Pressing a kiss to her brow, he murmured, “And more importantly, he helped give you the strength you needed. So don’t be sorry.”
A brisk knock on the door kept her from responding. She grimaced and glanced down to make sure she was decently covered, but when she went to slide from Aryn’s lap, he gripped her thighs. She glanced at him but he was already calling out, “Come in.”
Alys peeked around the door, a wide smile blooming on her face as she caught sight of them.
She pushed the door open wide and stepped to the side. “We knocked,” she said with a wink at Tyriel. Then, with a quick glance at the tall, slim man at her side, she added, “But I couldn’t talk him into waiting any longer, beloved. I’m sorry.”
Prince Lorne’s throat worked as he stared across the room at her.
“Da,” Tyriel whispered huskily. She went to pull away from Aryn, but froze, remembering that under the coverlet, she wore nothing.
Alys bustled over, already talking cheerfully about the meal she’d ordered, set to be served in Tyriel’s small, private dining chamber, the doors already thrown open as several servants moved around the room, gathering up the accouterments of a sickroom. “Here’s your robe, my dear,” she said, tossing it around Tyriel’s shoulders and gesturing to Aryn.
He responded automatically, easing Tyriel around to face the Royal Consort before he realized he’d even done so.
“Up we go,” Alys said, speaking in the brisk, no nonsense tone of a healer. She tugged Tyriel up and the coverlet fell away, but Alys was already tugging the robe closed, so Tyriel had no time to process her nudity, much less concern herself over it.
“Now.” Alys rested her hands on Tyriel’s shoulders and blinked back the tears that turned her eyes diamond bright. “Go. Your da is about to lose his mind and if he doesn’t embrace you, I fear he’ll shake the very castle around us down into nothing but small stone.”
With a watery laugh, Tyriel turned.
And her father was right there, hovering at the foot of the bed, the patience he’d cultivated over his some-odd twenty centuries of life decimated under the weight of grief and the keening edge of joy as his beloved daughter was somehow restored back to life and health.
Tyriel took two steps and she was in his arms.
“My beloved child,” he murmured.
After long moments when she didn’t even try to hold back her tears, the High Prince finally eased his grip and Tyriel drew back enough to meet his gaze. “Hello, Da.”
“Hello, Da.” He closed his eyes and lifted his face as if praying to the Nameless One. “Silent all these weeks and you tell me, Hello, Da? Is that all you have for me?”
He was smiling when he looked back at her, though.
She grinned, a remnant of her normal mischievous humor glinting in her eyes as she looked back at Aryn.
“Well, I could introduce to the only other man who has a hold on my heart.”
Lorne’s smile took on a bittersweet edge as he glanced past her to look at Aryn. The swordsman had climbed from the bed while they were distracted and accepted a pair of trousers from the ever-resourceful Alys, so at least he wasn’t bare-assed as the High Prince looked him over. “I’ve met the man, beloved daughter.”
Lorne tucked her against his side, one arm offering casual support in case her strength waned. Shrewd eyes of pale gray, like fog on the mountaintops, locked on Aryn.
“This…human has a hold on your heart, does he?” Lorne murmured, still staring at the man with tumbled, tangled blond hair and a scruffy beard, his naked, scarred chest bared for all to see.
Some might see a ruffian.
Lorne saw a warrior, and a man in love.
Letting go of Tyriel, hesitating only long enough to make sure she was steady on her feet, he stepped forward.
Aryn didn’t move a muscle, but Lorne sensed his wary alertness.
With a faint smile, he offered his forearm. “I am forever in your debt, Master Aryn. If there is anything you desire, anything you need, if I can offer it, you need only ask. And it will be yours.”
Aryn accepted the offered forearm, grasping it in a strong hand as Lorne grasped his in return.
“There’s only thing I desire, one thing I need, Prince Lorne,” Aryn said with a faint smile. He glanced to the woman standing just behind the fae lord before meeting the prince’s eyes once more. “But as Tyriel alone is control of her heart, she’ll have to be the one to decide if I may have that particular boon granted.”
“Hmmm.” Lorne released Aryn’s arm and stepped aside. “A wisely worded choice.”
As the two lovers embraced, Lorne met his consort’s gaze. “Let’s give them a bit more time alone.”
Alys lifted a brow.
Lorne smiled. He’d seen his daughter, touched her face, seen the vitality he’d thought forever gone. She was alive. Her strength would return.
And he remembered being madly in love.
“We’ll have the servants bring your dinner up shortly,” he said, holding out a hand for his consort. “Tomorrow, we’ll sit down together for a meal and celebration. Tonight is your own.”
Whether they heard him or not, he didn’t know. With his consort on his arm, he turned for the door.
The servants fell in behind him, all of them smiling.
The doors closed as Aryn wrapped his arms around Tyriel’s waist and lifted her, spinning in a slow lazy circle before falling back on the bed.
She smiled down at him as he threaded a hand through her tumbled hair.
“Tonight is ours,” he said gruffly. “What should we do?”
Tyriel’s smile took on a wicked edge. “Oh, I can think of a thing or two to keep us occupied, lover. Would you like me to tell you?”
“Please do.”
So, after kissing him senseless, she did just that.
When she lifted her head from his ear, it was to find him watching her with hot, gleaming eyes.