Fragile Eternity

She cried out, and then he pulled back.

“Don…” His face was grief stricken. “I didn’t mean to…” He propped himself up on one arm and looked down at her bruised arms. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know.” She slid to the floor, leaving him alone on the smoking sofa.

“I just wanted to talk.” He watched her warily.

She concentrated on the ice inside of her, not on how close he still was. “About us, or about business?”

“Both.” He grimaced as he tried to pull on his tattered shirt.

She watched him button it up, as if that would help hold it in place. Neither spoke as he fussed with the ruined cloth. Then she asked, “Do you love me? Even a little?”

He stilled, hands aloft. “What?”

“Do you love me?”

He stared at her. “How can you ask that?”

“Do you?” She needed to hear it, something, anything.

He didn’t answer.

“Why are you even here?” she asked.

“To see you. To be near you.”

“Why? I need more than your lust.” She didn’t cry as she said it. She didn’t do anything to let him know how badly her heart was breaking. “Tell me we have something more than that. Something that won’t destroy either of us.”

He was a sunlit effigy, as beautiful as always, but his words weren’t beautiful. “Don. Come on. You know it’s more than that. You know what’s between us.”

“Do I?”

He reached out. His hand was healing, but he was bruised.

That’s what we do to each other.

Donia stood up and walked outside, needing not to see the destruction in her home.

Again.

Keenan followed.

She leaned against the cottage. How many times have I stood here, trying to keep my distance from him or from the last Winter Queen? She didn’t want a repeat of the last time Winter and Summer tried to be together.

“I don’t want us to destroy each other like they did,” she whispered.

“We’re not like them. You’re not like Beira.” He didn’t touch her. Instead he sat on the porch. “I’m not going to give up on you if we have a chance.”

“This”—she motioned at the destruction behind her—“isn’t good.”

“We slipped for a minute.”

“Again,” she added.

“Yes, but…we can sort it out. I shouldn’t have reached for you, but you were crying and…” He squeezed her hand. “I slipped up. You make me forget myself.”

“Me too.” Donia turned to face him. “No one else angers or thrills me like this. I’ve loved you most of my life, but I’m not happy with things the way they are.”

He stilled. “What things?”

She laughed briefly. “That might work on your other queen, but I know you, Keenan. I see how close you two are growing.”

“She’s my queen.”

“And being with her would strengthen your court.” Donia shook her head. “I know. I’ve always known. You’ve never been mine.”

“She has Seth.”

Donia watched the Hawthorn Girls flitting among the trees. Their wings glistened in the dark. She weighed her words. “He’ll die. Mortals do. And then what?”

“I want you in my life.”

“In the dark when she’s not around. A few nights of the year…” Donia thought over the handful of nights when they could truly be together, no longer than a few stolen heartbeats. The taste of what she couldn’t have made it so much harder to weather the months when even a kiss was dangerous. She blinked away icy tears. “It’s not enough. I thought it would be, but I need more.”

“Don—”

“Listen. Please?” Donia sat down beside him. “I’m in love with you. I’ve loved you enough to die for it…but I see you trying to romance her and yet still coming to my door. Charm isn’t going to let you have us both under your sway. Neither of us is one of your Summer Girls.” Donia kept her voice gentle. “I accepted death to give you your queen—even though it meant losing you, even after years of conflict.”

“I don’t deserve you.” He stared at her as if she was his world. In that look—the same look that she’d fallen for i

“Sometimes I’m sure of that…but I wouldn’t love you if that was entirely true. I’ve seen the faery king you can be and the person you can be. You’re better than you think”—she touched his face carefully—“better than I think sometimes.”

“I want to be the person I could be with you…” he started.

“But?”

“I need to put my court’s needs first. For nine centuries I’ve wanted only to reach where I am now. I can’t let what I want—who I want—get in the way of what’s best for my fey.” He raked his hand through his hair again, looking like the boy she’d met back when she thought he was a human.

She wanted to comfort him, to promise it would be fine. She couldn’t. The closer summer came, the more he and Aisli

“I understand. I have to do the same thing…but I want you, Keenan, not the king.” She leaned her head against his arm. As long as they were careful, not forgetting, not losing control, they could touch. Unfortunately, touching him made self-control a challenge. She sighed and added, “I want to set aside the courts when we are together, and I need you to accept that my loving you doesn’t mean that dealing with my court is different from any other business of yours. Don’t think that what we share means that my court is malleable.”

He held her gaze as he asked, “And if I can’t do that?”

She glanced at him. “Then I need you out of my life. Don’t keep trying to use my love to manipulate me. Don’t expect me not to be jealous when you bring her to my house and stare at her like she’s your world. I want a real relationship with you…or nothing at all.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “When I’m around her I feel like I’m enthralled. She doesn’t love me, but I want her to. If she did, my court would be stronger. It’s like buds opening in the sunlight. It’s not a choice, Don. It’s a need. She’s my other half, and her decision to be ‘friends’ weakens me.”

“I know.”

“She doesn’t…and I don’t know if it’ll get any easier.”

“I can’t help you with this one”—she entwined her fingers with his—“and I hate you both sometimes for it. Talk to her. Find a way to be with her or find a way to be free enough to be truly mine.”

“She doesn’t hear me when I try to talk to her about this, and I don’t want to quarrel with her.” Keenan’s expression was that of enchantment. Even talking about her distracted him.

Donia looked at him, the same lost faery she’d loved for most of her life. Too often she’d been the one to soften when they were at odds, too often she’d helped him because they’d both wanted the same goal: Winter and Summer to balance. She sighed. “Try again, Keenan, because this is going to end badly if something doesn’t change.”

He kissed her pursed lips softly and said, “I still dream that it was you. No matter how many times I’ve looked, in my dreams it’s always been you who were meant to be my queen.”

“And I would be if the choice were mine. It isn’t. You need to let me go or find a way to distance yourself from her.”

He pulled her closer. “No matter what happens, I don’t want to let you go. Ever.”

“That’s a different problem altogether.” She watched the frost form on the steps beside her. “I’m not meant for Summer, Keenan.”

“Is it so wrong to want a queen who loves me?”

“No,” she whispered. “But it’s not working to want two queens to love you.”

“If you were my queen—”

“But I wasn’t.” She laid her head on his shoulder.

They sat there like that, leaning together carefully, until morning came.