These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows, #2)(92)

And I had judged him. I judged him so harshly for killing her. For taking her life to hold on to his magic after the queen cursed his people. I judged him, and he didn’t even know what he was doing.

“Finn, I’m so sorry.”

He swallows. “When the power from a human life is transferred to you, it’s a physical rush. I thought there was something horribly broken inside me. I sat there with the woman I loved dying in my arms and felt more alive than I had in my entire life, and I hated myself for it.”

I feel sick imagining it, and I want to curl my body against his and offer him physical comfort beyond intertwined fingers, but I’m not sure he’d find it comforting at all, so I don’t.

“After that, we started putting together what had happened,” he says. “Curses don’t come with announcements explaining what they are or how they work. We had to figure it out for ourselves. Had to feel our magic weakening us and never refilling itself. Had to watch our people bleed out from wounds that typically would’ve healed on their own in minutes. At first we didn’t know it was a curse. We just had to put it together over time and then, after that, had to find out for ourselves how bonding with humans figured into it. The worst part was that the curse prevented us from talking about it, which meant that every one of us had to figure it out on our own.”

I never thought about that—how they discovered the ins and outs of the curse, how the discovery of each facet would’ve been traumatic in its own right.

“I was already angry with my father,” Finn says. “But then we put it together and realized we’d been cursed by the golden queen, and my anger grew hotter. It was his fault that the woman I loved was dead. His fault that all my friends were dying.

“I told him I wouldn’t help him get Mordeus off the throne. He’d made the mess. He could fix it.”

He rakes his hand over his face. “By the time he handed his life over for yours, I hadn’t spoken to him in eleven years.”

“Finn.” I roll to my side, reaching my arm over my head and resting on my shoulder to study him.

“Mordeus was only a small part of the problem. You weren’t responsible for the Great Fae War, for your father’s actions with the golden queen, or for the curse.”

He turns to his side, mimicking my position. “If we’d gotten Mordeus off the throne, these people would’ve had only the curse to contend with, and they could’ve done so from the safety of their own homes. Instead, they were forced to run while they were at their weakest.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t have a choice in what your father did for me, but I am sorry for the havoc my survival has brought to your kingdom.”

“I’m not sorry,” he says. “Not for that part. When you came into my life, you were a bright star in an endlessly dark night. I needed to see there was still something worth hoping for. And maybe that proves I’m still a spoiled, selfish child, but I won’t be sorry for any choice that brought you here or kept you here. Please don’t ask me to be.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

He just stares at me, and the hands above our heads find each other. He strokes his thumb along the back of my palm, never taking his eyes from mine.

With a single, tentative finger, I trace the sharp tip of his ear and the hard line of his jaw. When I reach his mouth, his lips part and his eyes float closed. I want to kiss him. I want to let him kiss me. I want to pick up where we left off under the waterfall and learn how those hands would feel if they finished their journey up my torso and to my breasts. I want to feel his mouth on mine again, and this time I would memorize every facet of his taste and the feel of his lips.

Finn squeezes my hand, as if he feels it too and wants the same. But he doesn’t kiss me.

“Maybe you didn’t realize I was in love with him . . . because I never really was.”

“You don’t have to say that,” he says softly. “Having feelings for one person doesn’t negate what you feel for someone else.”

Finn’s talking about what I might be feeling for him. “I know that, but that’s not what I mean. With Sebastian . . .” I squeeze Finn’s hand, embarrassed to admit this. “I was in love with what he represented. After years of struggling all on my own to survive, he offered me companionship and security. That’s why I bonded with him. I wanted his protection. I wanted not to be alone ever again.”

He swallows. “You wanted someone you could trust.”

“Desperately,” I whisper, and the word is so raw that I feel more exposed than I did under that waterfall, dressed in nothing but my wet undergarments.

“Someday you’ll have that.” With that whispered promise, he rolls onto his back to look up at the sky, and I follow his lead.

We lie there for a long time, staring up at the stars, the quiet night wrapping around us like a comforting childhood blanket, the only sounds the music and laughter floating up from the party on the mountain far below. Our futures are so unsure, but in this moment, with our fingers intertwined, I feel peace. I feel hope.

When we return to the campsite, he brings me to our tent, but he’s distracted. As much as I want him to come inside with me, I can tell he needs time alone with his thoughts. He needs these moments of reflection and silence before we see the priestess tomorrow.

“Good night, Finn,” I say. “I’ll see you when you come to bed.” Solitude is all I can offer him right now, and I wish I could do more.