Jak eyed the flames, too, then her, a glint of wariness in his dark gaze. “That was really expensive whiskey.”
“I’ll buy you another.”
“My royal patron.” He waved a hand foppishly in the air, making a grand and courtly bow. “So kind, so generous.” He straightened, eyes hard and black. “So cruel. I still don’t know why you’re here. Destroying my stuff and all.”
“I wanted to finish our argument, but you’re clearly too drunk. Forget it.” She spun on her heel, heading for the door, cursing herself for listening to Rhyian, of all people.
“Uh-uh. I’m not that drunk.” Jak caught her around the waist, easily lifting her and carrying her back to the fire. Depositing her in a chair, he leaned on the arms of it, effectively caging her there. “I let you run once. More than once, come to think of it. You came to finish this—though, funny, I thought you did finish it between us, before we even got started—but go ahead. Tell me what you have to say. I’m listening.” He hissed the last word with an edge as lethal as any of his blades, his face set, his thoughts dark as his eyes.
She gazed at him, her mind suddenly blank. She had no idea what she wanted to say. In truth, she only wanted to run her hands over the corded muscles of his arms, to taste his skin again, to trace the lines of his lean chest and abs. Maybe she thought he’d tease out her words, as he usually did, that he’d take the reins and guide her through this treacherous conversation. But he only stared at her, fierce and expectant, waiting her out.
Don’t fuck this up. Go back in there and fix it.
She didn’t know how to fix it. If she could, she’d walk back time to before she ruined everything by being afraid. Start over. Instead, she’d have to tell him what she’d never told anyone.
“I apologize,” she said softly, but making herself meet his demanding gaze. “You are right and I am wrong. I was—am—afraid, and it was easier for me to push you away, to try to convince you that there’s no place for you in my life, than to face the truth.”
He blew out a breath, then lowered himself to a crouch, hands still braced on the arms of the chair. No longer looming over her, he gazed up at her no less demandingly. “And what is that truth?”
The truth? “Falling doesn’t feel like flying at all,” she told him, knowing it made no sense.
But he nodded, as if it did. “Do you feel like you’re falling?”
“All the time,” she confessed. “Bracing to hit the ground.”
He searched her face. “I’m trying to understand.”
“I’m not explaining it well.” She dug her nails into the velvet covering the arms of the chair. “I don’t know what kind of life I should have. Some people think I’ll be queen of Annfwn, but I don’t see it. Jak—I can’t see anything about my own future past a certain point.”
He cocked his head in question. “You said you had seen it. Pieces, ever shifting, but there.”
“I lied,” she confessed. “I’m not that good at seeing the future, not like Aunt Andi, and when I do—I don’t see myself. I’m forever hurtling toward a single place and time and after that is nothing. Jak… I think maybe I don’t live very long.”
With an encouraging nod, he firmed his jaw. What she’d said clearly pained him, but he was listening. “Have you… seen your death?” he asked with careful neutrality. A vivid image came from him, of the intelligence of the alter-realm, swinging its blunt sword like a club.
Had she? “Not exactly, but what I see is… awful in its own way.”
“All right. What is that?”
“I’ve never told anyone.”
Folding down to his knees, he took her hands in his. “You can tell me.”
Maybe she could. “I’m in a tower, with no way out, surrounded by an endless field of lilies.” He waited patiently, and she blew out a breath. “And that’s it. It sounds silly when I describe it, but…”
“It doesn’t sound silly,” he corrected. “You’re alone in the tower, maybe in the whole world.”
“Yes,” she breathed, beyond grateful that he understood the quiet horror of it. “And there’s no future for me after that. It just stops, there in that tower.”
Nodding absently, he studied her hands, stroking his thumbs over the backs of them. “It sounds like an alter-realm, though one we haven’t seen yet.”
“That only recently occurred to me, too.”
“How soon?”
“I don’t know. Sooner than it used to be.”
“You haven’t told even Astar?”
“I’m too noble,” she replied wryly, throwing his accusation back at him. “I don’t want to worry him.”
Jak lifted his gaze to hers. “I apologize for that. I shouldn’t have said it. You are the least-selfish person I’ve ever known.”
Extracting one hand, she laid it over his cheek, stroking the silky beard. His gaze on hers, he turned his head and kissed her palm, lingering there, sending renewed shivers through her body. “It was a well-aimed strike,” she admitted. “It is easier for me to wall everyone out, rather than to risk…”
“Risk what?” he asked, searching her face, rubbing his cheek against her palm.
“I know you laugh at me, but I don’t want anyone to be hurt when I’m gone and don’t come back.”
“Oh, my star.” He gazed at her, emotions welling through him like the swells of the ocean. “So many people would grieve your loss. And that’s how it should be. It’s not wrong to be loved.”
“I know that in my head.”
“Well, know this in your heart: I’m not letting you go. Where you travel, I’ll be with you.”
“In my vision, you’re not there.”
“Because you didn’t let me be with you until now. But this,” he said, squeezing her hands, “this is forever. I’ll always be right here, guarding your back.”
Her heart squeezed as if he’d taken that in his hand too. Perhaps he had. “All right,” she said. “I want you to be with me, no matter what.”
“I want to promise that I won’t hurt you,” he said solemnly, “but I know that I did. You’ve been crying.” He lifted a hand to stroke a gentle finger over her cheek. “I’m sorry for that.”
People argue. The more they care, the more painful it is. “Well,” she said, a smile breaking through to crack her lips, “it’s your heart in pieces ground into the rug over there.”
With a groan, he dropped his head into her lap. “Danu, that was overly dramatic, wasn’t it? I blame the whiskey, and misguided Dasnarian poet hopefuls in my ancestry.”
Cupping his jaw, she lifted his head. “Jak, they say three time’s a charm.”
His dark eyes gleamed. “What are you saying?”
“I’m asking for one more start-over. Can we try this again?”
“Ah, my star,” he breathed, “as many times as you like. Again and again and again.” Levering up to his knees, he stroked her hair back from her face, touching her with devastating tenderness. “Though I feel I have to say, we can still go slowly. I don’t want this pending destiny of yours to create pressure.”