Chapter Twenty-Nine

Look away. Damn it. Break the spell, now.

Ky reprimanded himself for staring too long. But the smooth fullness of her lips fascinated him. He wanted to taste them again. To hear the small catch in her throat when he touched her breast and felt her hands wandering up his neck. He wanted to be lit up like that again. To feel alive.

He blinked to break the trance and retreated a step.

She was doing crazy things to him again. Making him want what he couldn’t have. Things that would put her in danger.

“The will-o’-the-wisps are egging me on,” she whispered.

“Did I mention they’re mischievous little brats sometimes?”

“I have a secret. You want to hear it?”

He didn’t want to know more about this rejuvenated, stunning new her. The makeshift protective barrier around his heart wasn’t strong enough to keep her out. But he answered, “Sure.”

“You can’t tell anyone, not Roman or Nova or Flynn.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“I believe you when you say that.”

Don’t look at her lips. Don’t look at her eyes. Look away.

The desire he knew he’d find there would be his undoing.

He took a deep breath and willed himself to stare at the pile of crowns she’d arranged on the small rock. His fist opened and closed at his side as the temptation grew to reach out and touch her.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I dream about a man every night.”

“What?” Anger he recognized as jealousy streaked through his mind, lighting him on fire to erase all men other than him. Now he was going to kiss her. Screw concerns. Was it the Simon character they planned to find tomorrow that she dreamed of?

“Who?” He barely choked it out beyond the fury gripping him.

“I’ve never seen him. I hear him. He says you’re safe and then I know I am. Then I relax.”

That’s me.

She said, “I want so much to remember something…anything. Maybe him. I have moments when I fall apart. But then his voice comes back to me. It levels me.”

He didn’t know how to react. So he stood there frozen and unsure.

She watched him closely, curiously.

She knew the voice was his. This was a test.

She wove her hair into a messy bun, securing it with a hairband that’d been around her wrist, and stood. “I’m sorry. Sounds crazy. I know.”

Of course she’d misinterpreted his silence. He grabbed her wrist before she spun away. Knowing but not caring that it was a bad idea to touch her, he pushed a few stray hairs behind one of her ears. She dreamed of him. Him. She hadn’t forgotten everything. That meant more than he could get into words.

He wanted to try to say something to convey that. “Don’t apologize. You took a brave step, braver than even I think I could’ve done to erase everything from your head. Makes sense your brain would cling to what it considered important.”

“Was it important?” Her voice dropped to an almost inaudible whisper. “Are you important?”

“Not anymore.”

Her eyes fluttered down, and pursed her lips. “You’re hard to read. I can get something from everyone else. As in, I can get a complete something to help me understand them, but from you…I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”

“That’s not a bad thing. Sometimes you have to go with your gut about a person. Like me about you. I trust you even with amnesia.”

“Because of the will-o’-the-wisps? Or something else?”

“You’re the first person I’ve ever met who they’ve spoken to other than me.” An ache made him reach out to rub his thumb over her lip to calm her. He’d liked how tough, even ballsy, the old her had been, but he also liked this vulnerable new her.

Her chest rose and fell with each breath, the fabric of her shirt stretching beneath the jacket over her breasts. How he wanted to rip it off to rub his scruff across the smooth skin to mark her. Claim her. She’s mine.

He shouldn’t have touched her at all. He shouldn’t be out here, alone, in the most magical of places in the world where anything could happen. The magic here was raw, wild, and beautiful, like her. She belonged here. Now he understood why her parents chose to live in this part of the world.

Silence stretched between them as she stared at him. He realized he was rubbing his finger in circles along the top of her hand. Small circles over the smooth skin. The touch breathed life into him. It soothed him in parts that had felt as if they died when he let her go.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He slipped his hand away to run it through his hair. “Nothing. We’re doing nothing. We should go,” he said gruffly. “This was a bad idea.”

“Escorting me was a bad idea?” She crossed her arms. Her voice sounded hurt.

“I shouldn’t have come out here at all. You and I together alone was a miscalculation on my part.”

“Why? Because there is something from the past?” Her eyes narrowed. “You feel it, too, don’t you? This connection.”

I want to do everything with you out here. But I’ll get you killed if I get attached, if my handler realizes I’m attached to you or anyone.

He or one of his brothers would be forced by the bloody curse to kill her.

He couldn’t tell her the truth, but he couldn’t lie to her. She was a temptation he couldn’t have and could barely resist. “Your past is gone, and we need to keep it that way.” I’m gone. Although a small, annoying part of him reminded him not every bit of him was gone from her head. “This place is getting to me. Likely the fairies are playing jokes on us or something.”

Her forehead furrowed. In a mocking tone, she said, “This place is getting to you? You realize you chose to come out here with me, and you knew what it’s like out here, right?”

“You know nothing about me.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked like she’d been slapped. “Clearly.”

She yanked the small backpack off the ground and balanced it on one shoulder. “You’re right, Ky. I remember nothing about you, but we did know each other.”

“Why are you upset?” he asked, knowing it was a stupid question, but not wanting her to walk away this angry at him.

“Why am I mad?” She faced him. “I brought you with me. For some inexplicable reason, I trust you. Something happened in the past, maybe not something intimate but something that required you to make sure I was safe. Something awful happened, and you were my only hope. I hate missing that part of my memory. But I’m not going to push to remember. Experience taught me that doing so brings on a headache. Whatever the rest of that memory, it’s gone. You’re the only one who can give it back, but you won’t.”

With that, she moved away and stomped back toward the castle.

How had that escalated so fast?

He dropped his head. One minute he’d been stroking her hand and being almost honest, even vulnerable, and now she was leaving. Giving up on him.

Because he’d been an asshole, not giving her back what she needed to fill in holes in her memory. He understood too well the need to remember. His mind was full of gaps from his time in the prison, and he despised it.

The cold of the outdoors seeped into him.

This might’ve been his only chance with her. A chance he couldn’t take, no matter how much he wanted it.