By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2)

by Miranda Honfleur

  She raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips sensually.

  When she smiled, he couldn’t help but mirror the expression, resting his forehead against hers, teasing her lips to a kiss, deepening it, a pulse of need shooting straight down to his hardness. She swept eager palms over his body, clutching, pressing, but he took her mouth slowly, claiming her tongue in long, slow strokes, matching his breaths to hers until they breathed as one. With gentle fingers, he traced a meandering path over her breasts and her belly to caress the line of her hip to her inner thigh. She curled toward him, but he feathered lower and around to her hip.

  Her back arched off the bed, but he anchored her, taking his time kissing his way down her neck and to her shoulder, breathing in unison, melded in rhythm. He gently closed his mouth over her shoulder, and she squirmed beneath him, her fingers threading through his hair, pulling him to her.

  Inhaling and exhaling together, he took her hand, intertwined his fingers with hers, pressed it to the bed. In the silence of the fire-lit night, there was her, only her, all he needed, all he wanted, and he reveled in all that she was, longed to revere her, to exult in the oneness of making love to her. Languorous, intense.

  He entered her, slowly, so slowly she gasped, drawing her eyebrows together as a shiver rode through her. Breathing together, he took her in painstaking, passionate strokes, holding her hip in his hand to patience. Her eyelashes fluttered, her lips parted, and he could watch the pleasure oscillate on her beautiful face for the rest of his life and beyond.

  She embraced him, held him close, and when he slowed his breathing, she matched. Pressure throbbed in his lower body, painfully, but as her breaths grew louder, he kept pace, enjoying the smoothness of her skin, the pounding of her heart, the tightening of her embrace, sweet satisfaction he wanted to prolong, to intensify, into forever.

  I love you.

  Wild cries rending free of her, she writhed beneath him, eyes squeezed tight, body taut, her legs locked around him, and he pleasured her, pleased her, finished her as he watched the need become rapture; she dug her hands under the pillow, the pleasure in her face metamorphosing to drawn eyebrows, and she pulled her hands out from under the pillow, one of them clenching a small fistful of cloth.

  Silk. Negligee.

  Black as night, shimmering in the silver light.

  Unmistakable. Nora’s silk negligee.

  But how—

  Rielle loosened her grip, studied the small thing, a rigidity stilling her body. Her eyes widened. Her eyebrows rose. She gaped at him.

  His heart stopped.

  She shuddered beneath him and threw the garment to the floor, shaking her head, trying to pull away.

  “Let me go,” she said, panting, and he pulled away—

  “Let me go!” she cried, her voice breaking.

  He sat clear of her, beyond contact, catching his breath. Terra have mercy, how—“I have no idea how that got there.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Really? Because I have some idea.”

  “I swear to you, since seeing you’ve returned, there’s been no one else.” He raked his fingers through his hair. She was his other half, forever, and she was slipping away.

  She gathered the sheets around her nakedness and covered herself, then glared down at them and shuddered, curling her upper lip.

  He shook his head. “The bedclothes are changed every day, Rielle.”

  Everything was falling apart.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, folded her body together, so small, like the morning he’d barged in on her in Brennan’s bedchamber. The morning she’d recoiled from him.

  “Whose is it?” she asked, her voice cold, lifeless.

  “Nora’s.”

  Refusing to meet his gaze, Rielle blinked away tears, then closed her eyes.

  No, he couldn’t watch her cry. Not again. Never again. He moved to embrace her, but stopped short of touching her, only shifting to sit closer. “Rielle, I promise you, I haven’t been with her since the night you returned. I promise you.”

  She shook her head. “So, what, then? She maliciously planted it in your bed, earning your ire, to—what? Ruin any sympathy you may have had for her, any possible help or favor you might have given? Or…” She swallowed, her voice hoarse. “Or you’re lying.”

  Heaving a sigh, he bowed his head. Terra have mercy, lying? Lying?

  If he’d been capable of lying to her, he wouldn’t have told her whose negligee it was. He would’ve said it was a prank, some joke he shared with Valen, who’d support whatever version of events he chose, without question. Gods above, he wouldn’t have admitted to coupling with the virgin the night of the Earthbinding, or that he’d been with Nora at all. If he’d been of a mind to lie, he wouldn’t have confessed to it, to any of it; she would have been none the wiser, and he’d have been a dishonorable worthless coward.

  But he couldn’t lie to her. What he wanted from her relied on truth, on trust, loyalty. What he wanted from her could never be built upon lies. “When have I ever lied to you, Rielle?”

  She shrugged, burying her face in her hands. “How would I know?”

  “You know me.”

  She drew farther away, pressed to the headboard. “I thought I did.”

  “You do.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “If he believed me dead, the Jon I knew would have never jumped into the arms of another woman—before my body was even cold.” He opened his mouth to object, but she continued. “The Jon I knew wouldn’t have sat here with his lover, his princess, and—”

  “Rielle—”

  Breathing raggedly, she faced him, wide eyed, reddened, livid. Hot. Every inch of her skin seemed to radiate heat, heat so scorching it blurred the air around her. “The Jon I knew would have come after us! Rescued us!”

  He reached for her, but she pushed him away. Us?

  “He wouldn’t have left me to fend for myself, to fend for her!” Her wild eyes pierced him. Looked through him as she trembled. “To have to debase myself to protect her! To have to kill the only person who’d protected me, to nearly bleed to death in a drugged stupor—”

  Jon blinked. Shook his head.

  But reality remained before him. Darkness, the bed, and Rielle unraveling, and the words she’d just spoken.

  Her. “Her?”

  Rielle’s mouth hung open, but no words emerged. She closed it and covered her face, sobbing softly into her palms. She dragged her knees in toward her chest, cradled them, and buried her face in the sheets covering them. “When Shadow took me, I was… with child,” she stammered into the sheets, her voice muffled. “Our child.”

  He stared at her, his vision blurring, questions disappearing before he could ask them. His chest tightened, knotted, then a hollow slowly formed, and deepened. And deepened. “How…?”

  A child.

  Their child.

  A daughter.

  He rubbed his chest, pressed hard into the flesh, but it did nothing to fill the hollow there.

  Rielle’s shoulders slumped. “My herbs… The eve of battle, I forgot to take them, we were together, and then the day after, I was…”

  Abducted.

  “Is she…?” No, it was a stupid question, and he instantly regretted it. It had only been four months, and Rielle’s slight form—

  She clutched her knees tighter. “I barely escaped alive… And she… I…” Her voice broke.

  He took her in his arms. She fought him, pushed him, the heat of her skin bursting into a cloak of flame, and he accepted her strikes, the pain, the fight that faded into weeping. He grabbed her wrists and turned her, brought her back against him, clad her in his embrace until the violence in her blood burned out against his sigil tattoos.

  She doused, cooled, leaned into him.

  A family… She’d given him a family, and he hadn’t even known. He hadn’t even known, and he’d lost it. Lost her. Them.

  “You abandoned us,” she whimpered against him, her voice little more than
a faint whisper. “You abandoned me.”

  His eyes watered, and he held her tighter. No matter what he told himself—that Brennan had been capable, that the realm needed its king—it didn’t change the disgusting truth. The woman he loved had been taken, and he hadn’t come after her. He’d abandoned her. He’d abandoned her and their child to the cruelty of fate and to another man, a man she didn’t love or count on, a man who wasn’t the father of her child.

  Yet a man who’d done more for her, with no promise of her love or family, than Jon had by sitting on the throne.

  He swallowed past the dryness in his throat. “If I could change things, I—”

  “You can’t,” she said, between sobs. “She’s gone, I lost her, and you… I don’t even know you anymore.”

  Pain seized his chest, clenched. Tonight… It had all seemed so possible—earning her love once more, her forgiveness.

  And she’d carried this. Whenever she thought of his affairs, all her suffering and the loss of their child resurfaced. While he’d been bedding Nora and Aless, Rielle had been in agony, waiting for him, praying he’d come for her and their daughter. Abandoned.

  How blind he’d been. How foolish. How callous. There was a world of hurt he’d created, unforgettable, unforgivable hurt, that his love and devotion might never heal. And Rielle walked the brink, one foot in this world, one foot in the other, always at risk of falling into the dark.

  And he took her to it. Constantly. Every time she was reminded of what he’d chosen over her and their child.

  His bones ached. In his arms, he held the only one he’d ever loved, would ever love, but she didn’t want to be there. Or couldn’t. Through his own inaction. And their child… their daughter… hadn’t even met the world.

  Because he hadn’t been there.

  He hadn’t been there to protect her, or Rielle, to take care of them both, to love them, to support them. The man in him had submitted to the king, and it had been Rielle, and their daughter, who’d suffered for it.

  “Her name,” he whispered hoarsely, grimly. “Tell me her name.”

  “Sylvie,” she whimpered against his chest, sniffling.

  “Sylvie,” he repeated, eyes watering. I’m sorry. He clenched his teeth. His failure knew no bounds, and he never would have been done letting them down. He hadn’t been there for them, and he never could have been. No more than two or three years. No matter what, he had always been fated to fail them, to leave them unprotected, unsupported. To be an absent husband and father. All this time, his dream had been built on assumptions he’d too naively trusted.

  He knew all that, and yet there was an ache, deep and sore, that could only ever be healed by that dream come to life. By being at Rielle’s side and holding Sylvie in his arms, watching her grow up together.

  If only things hadn’t… He nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry I failed you both. You and Sylvie deserved so much more… so much more than me. And I will never forgive myself.”

  Chapter 62

  Failed. Rielle fought the tremors shaking her.

  Jon wished he could change what had happened. She understood that.

  But it didn’t change anything. That loss would always remain, painful and real. And no matter what he said, Sylvie was gone, the person she loved above all others in this world.

  She hated him for it, and hated herself even more for going to the dock in the dungeon on Spiritseve. Reckless. Naive. Overconfident. If only she’d gone with Olivia. If only she’d waited for Jon, or Brennan, or—

  She blinked away tears. It hadn’t been her fault Shadow had attacked her, nor Jon’s, but nevertheless, she would never forgive herself. That fire would burn, everlasting, until Shadow was dead, until the one who’d hired Gilles was dead, until everyone responsible was dead, and… perhaps even then.

  And Jon—he’d had to choose. He’d had to. And he’d chosen correctly for the country.

  But not for her. Not for their child. He was a different man than the one she’d fallen in love with. The warmth of his chest at her back, the smoky lindenwood scent of him, the rumble of his voice—it was so much like her Jon. But this wasn’t him.

  “I don’t know you anymore,” she whispered.

  “Rielle, I’ve never lied to you, and I never will. I know I can’t undo the hurt I’ve caused, but my heart hasn’t changed,” he whispered against the crown of her head.

  Hasn’t changed? Everything about him had changed. Jonathan Ver was no more, and she didn’t know His Majesty, Jonathan Dominic Armel Faralle.

  “There is nothing in this world,” he said softly, his voice breaking, raw, “that I would have wanted more than to welcome our child into the world. To love her, to hold her, to watch her grow up. And I will regret making the wrong choice for the rest of my life.”

  Teardrops hit her hair. That life he described—what would it have looked like? If Sylvie had lived, if she’d been born, delivered into her father’s arms? The child of a lover, a mistress, but he would have adored her. Protected her. Raised her. Loved her.

  But he would have married a princess—he would have had to. He would have had legitimate heirs. His mistress and their illegitimate daughter would have been despised by his queen, looked down upon by the court and the world, and despite it all, she would give anything to have Sylvie back, and that difficult life that would have awaited them.

  But Sylvie was gone. And that future was gone.

  And now, given a choice, was this pain worth starting over for? A lifetime of being second, of sharing him with his queen, of hearing them together, of finding silk negligees under his pillow? And if she and Jon ever conceived another child, she’d be bringing her into that difficult life, that fractured life, where she’d have to share her father with another family, be hated and looked down upon, be second to his legitimate children.

  She covered her mouth. It was a sad future, a painful future.

  She turned in his arms to face him, swept tears off his face.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Jon,” she said delicately. “You couldn’t have known. You made the best choice you could have made, given what you knew. I don’t blame you for any of it. You should know that.”

  He shook his head. “I should…? What are you saying?”

  She took a deep, shaky breath. “Love can’t overcome everything. We never would have been able to marry. This was doomed from the start.”

  “No,” he said, firmly, straightened. “If only you said yes, I would do everything in my power to make it happen.”

  “Even if it wasn’t best for the kingdom?”

  “Nothing would stop me, Rielle. Not in this. Nothing,” he said, unwavering. “I’d spend the rest of my days—” He paused. “You are everything to me.”

  Divine, she wanted to believe him, so badly. She closed her eyes. Everything inside of her pleaded to believe him, except for a small, nagging voice that refused to be silent.

  “Jon… you could have searched for me yourself, but you stayed here for the kingdom’s sake,” she said gently, and although he stiffened, she pressed on. “You performed the Earthbinding for the sake of the kingdom. You took Nora to bed to balm your grief, for the sake of the kingdom. You took a princess who could save this land, for the sake of the kingdom. You were going to marry her,” she said. “Your deeds speak for you. And I can’t object, because the deficiency isn’t yours. It’s mine. I’ll never be what’s right for the kingdom. Ever.”

  “You’re what best for me, Rielle,” he said, his rigidity easing.

  She didn’t reply, couldn’t trust her voice.

  “Is there nothing I can say to convince you?” He held her hand, sweeping his thumb softly over her knuckles, his Shining Sea eyes a thousand leagues away. “Have I lost you, Rielle?”

  She squeezed his hand tighter.

  “Please tell me I haven’t.”

  Things would never be the same. She loved him, but that love would ever mingle with hurt. He was irresistible to her…

  But
resist she would. If she let herself fall, he’d only break her heart. Jon, king of Emaurria, would have to. Marry a princess. Start a legitimate family. Choose his kingdom over his mistress.

  And she’d never be able to rise again.

  A sharp pain lanced her chest, forcing a pressure to her eyes. No, she wouldn’t cry. Not anymore. Her tears would only invite his tenderness again, and if he tightened his arms around her now, she’d never want to leave them. She’d cry all the tears she had left for him, tell him all the words she’d left unsaid, and promise never to leave his arms again.

  I wish we could have met Sylvie.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and he covered her hand with his, meeting her eyes with a pained stare. His mouth twitched in an almost-smile, and he gave her a nod.

  It was over.

  Her chest tight, she left the bed and gathered her clothes—her chemise, her corset, her ball gown. Her tears fell heavily, but she let the darkness cloak her face and stifled her sobs. All the tears in the world couldn’t change reality. “We need to go to the gardens,” she said, her voice breaking. “Shadow.”

  Jon didn’t move for a long while, then he slowly rose, pulled on his trousers, and donned a midnight-blue brocade robe that he fastened at the waist. His hands on his hips, he stared at the floor in lengthening silence.

  When she’d dressed in her chemise and attempted to lace her corset, he approached her, and she swept aside the tresses that had escaped her updo. Reverent fingers tightened the laces and then those of her dress.

  He would never do this again. She would never dress in his bedchamber again, never need his help to lace her corset or her gown, never leave again after spending a night in his loving arms. Tonight was goodbye.

  He finished tying her laces at last, his touch lingering on them. “I’ve made mistakes, huge mistakes, and I’ll make more,” he said gravely. “But with all that I am, good and bad, I love you, and I know nothing else.” He drew in a sharp breath. “So just… Promise me. Promise me you’ll be happy. Promise me, and I’ll be able to endure this.”