Fragile Eternity

He pulled his hand away from hers, tentative now. “Can I make you well?”

“Yes.” She didn’t ask what he needed to do; that would be a type of doubt, and right now neither of them wanted that doubt in the room. They were friends. They were partners. They could figure the rest out. They had to.

He is why I’m alive right now.

The ice inside would have kept her wound from healing if he hadn’t removed it. In time, the loss of blood would’ve killed her.

Keenan folded back the heavy comforter, taking the decadently soft sheet with it.

She was injured, but still, she felt the awkward tension building. She had an uneasy suspicion that the discomfort wasn’t going to be one of pain, but of pleasure.

“Can you lift up your shirt? I need to see the cuts.” His voice was shaky, either from fear or something she didn’t want to think about.

The door to the rest of the loft was open. They didn’t have closed-door privacy, but no one would come near the room with them in it. Their court would accept their not-dating if they continued this way, but it wasn’t the preference. That was no secret.

Silently, she lifted the edge of her shirt so her stomach was laid bare to him. White gauze covered the place where the cuts were. “This too?”

He nodded, but he didn’t offer to help. He had his hands clasped together, and he refused to look directly at her.

She peeled back the tape and bandage. Dark plum bruises surrounded the red centers of four cuts. They weren’t much more than an inch wide, but they went deep into her. Donia had widened and extended the ice on her fingertips as she drove it into Aisli

“This won’t hurt,” Keenan murmured, “but I suspect it’ll be…uncomfortable in another way.”

She blushed brighter this time. “I trust you.”

Without another word he pressed his palm over the frostbitten cuts. The touch of his skin to hers was electric. In his eyes, waves crashed against a deserted beach under a perfect sunrise.

She felt the jolt of pleasure and drew her breath in sharply.

He didn’t look away as the sunlight soaked into her body through those tiny incisions; he held her gaze and told her, “You healed Beira’s frost with a kiss. I could heal you faster that way, but I can’t…not like this. I want to, Ash. I want to use the excuse to kiss you here”—he glanced at her bare stomach—“I want to take this trust you’re giving me right now and use it to get lost in each other, but I can’t. Not with you being mine-but-not-mine. Healing this way is slower, but better. For you and…everyone.”

“That’s probably wise.” She took a shaky breath. Her heart was beating out a dangerous rhythm; tiny bits of bliss surged through her entire body as the sunlight melted away whatever cold had lingered. And all the while, he watched her with awe in his eyes. It was a look she usually ran from, but in that moment, there was nowhere to run.

Look away. She couldn’t. All she could do was stare at him.

The sunlight grew stronger. She gripped his wrist and shivered, not with cold but with bliss at the electricity zinging in her skin and bones. There was no way to deny that it was sexual. The only touch was his hand on her bare stomach, but it was almost as sexual as what she shared with Seth.

Keenan drew in deep breaths, a steady rhythm that she tried to use as a meditative focus.

“You should stop…”

“Should?”

“Yes,” she whispered, but she didn’t pull his hand away, didn’t let go of his wrist. Her skin was alive with sunlight. His sunlight. Our sunlight. A sigh slipped from between her lips as a pulse of sunlight stronger than all the rest combined slid from his palm to her skin. Her eyes fluttered closed as wave after wave of pleasure rolled through her body.

Rustling flowers stretched toward the light they were casting in the room.

Then he took away his hand.

Glancing down, she felt like there should be a burned imprint of his touch. There wasn’t. There were still four tiny cuts, but the bruising was mostly gone.

“Are you okay?” she asked him softly.

“No.” He swallowed, looking just as vulnerable and confused as she felt. “I don’t want to be without her and without you. She refuses me because of what I feel for you. You both ask me to make choices that go against what I believe I should do. I could be happy with either of you, yet I am miserable and weakened by what we are right now.”

“I’m sorry.” She felt guiltier than she’d ever felt with him.

“Me too.” He nodded. “I’d sooner die than see you hurt, but I don’t think I could ever strike out at her. You’re my queen, but she’s…I’ve loved her for what feels like forever sometimes. If you really wanted me like”—he brushed his fingers over her still bare stomach—“this, I’d say good-bye to her. I knew that I’d need to do that when I found my queen. She knew. We accepted it. A king should be with his queen. I feel that. Every time I touch your skin, I feel it. It’s like—”

“Inevitability,” she finished in a whisper. “I know, but I don’t love you. I shouldn’t have agreed to the healing thing, should I?”

“You were injured. I didn’t tell you it would feel…”

“Like sex?” She blushed. “Did it feel like that when I healed you?”

“Not as much, but those were small injuries and it was winter then.” His hand was not quite touching her but near enough that she could feel the heat beckoning her closer. He didn’t so much as flex his fingers, though. “I wasn’t to love someone who wasn’t my queen. It was to be you I loved, not her, and you…you were supposed to love me.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks, and she wasn’t sure if they were from shame or pain. “I’m sorry.” She kept saying it. “I need space from you. I’m sorry…I just…I’m sorry.”

Keenan sighed, but he stayed almost-touching her. “I had to try. Our being together would simplify everything.”

“But I don’t love you. Donia does. If I could trade places with Donia, I would. I’d walk away from our court if I could. If it would fix everything….”

“You’re stronger than I am then. I want it all: court, queen, and love. Your being my queen gave me my court but”—he pulled away—“not you. Not yet. This rush of being unbound has made me foolish. I just need to stay away from you until we make sense of the compulsion to be closer. Maybe we need to keep the guards near us, or not stay in the loft together, or…something.”

“Will you help me make Seth—”

“No. Never that. I can try harder to give you now, but I won’t curse Seth. Even if I didn’t want you. In time, Aisli

“So what next?”

“I confront Donia about stabbing you, and hope that it isn’t too late.” He looked as injured as she felt as he pulled the door closed behind him.

She stared at the door, and then she let herself cry. She was safe. And alive. Everything had been so overwhelming, so confusing; her entire life had changed, and she was messing up as much as not. Seth wasn’t happy. Keenan wasn’t happy. Having someone she thought was a friend stab her was beyond what she could handle calmly.

She cried herself to sleep.

When she woke, Seth stood in the doorway of Keenan’s bedroom, not crossing the threshold to actually enter the room. “Is there something you were going to tell me?”

She blinked, clearing sleep from her eyes.

“Tavish wouldn’t tell me what was going on. The girls were either silent or tearful and hugging me,” he continued. “All they said is that you were in here. If you were here because you’re with him, I don’t think they’d be crying.”

“Seth—” She started to sit up and winced. She put a hand on her stomach.