Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(199)

Jules was still wearing his damp clothes, though he was barefoot and he'd thrown on a dry sweater. Water gleamed at the edges of his hair, the tips of his eyelashes.

She thought of the clang of swords on swords, the beauty of the turmoil of the battle, the sea and sky. She wondered if that was how Mark had felt in the Wild Hunt. When there was nothing between you and the elements, it was easy to forget what weighed you down.

She thought of the blood on Cortana, the blood ribboning out from under Fal's body, mixing with the rainwater. They'd rolled his corpse under an overhang of stones, not wanting to leave him there, exposed to the weather, even though he was long past caring.

"I killed one of the Riders," she said now, in a near whisper.

"You had to." Julian's hand was strong on her shoulder, fingers digging in. "Emma, it was a fight to the death."

"The Clave-"

"The Clave will understand."

"The Fair Folk won't. The Unseelie King won't."

The faintest ghost of a smile passed over Julian's face. "I don't think he likes us anyway."

Emma took a tense breath. "Fal had you backed up against the edge of the cliff," she said. "I thought he was going to kill you."

Julian's smile faded. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'd hidden the crossbow there earlier-"

"I didn't know," Emma said. "It's my job to sense what's going on with you in battle, to understand it, to anticipate you, but I didn't know." She threw the bath towel; it landed on the kitchen floor. The mug Julian had broken earlier was gone. He must have cleaned it up.

Despair bubbled up inside her. Nothing she'd done had worked. They were in exactly the same place they'd been before, only Julian didn't know it. That was all that had changed.

"I tried so hard," she whispered.

His face crinkled in confusion. "In the battle? Emma, you did everything you could-"

"Not in the battle. To make you not love me," she said. "I tried."



       
         
       
        

She felt him recoil, not so much outwardly as inwardly, as if his soul had flinched. "Is it that awful? Having me love you?"

She had started trembling again, though not from the cold. "It was the best thing in the world," she said. "And then it was the worst. And I didn't even have a chance-"

She broke off. He was shaking his head, scattering water droplets. "You're going to have to learn to live with it," he said. "Even if it horrifies you. Even if it makes you sick. Just like I'm going to have to live with whatever other boyfriends you have, because we are forever no matter how, Emma, no matter what you want to call what we have, we will always be us."

"There won't be any other boyfriends," she said.

He looked at her in surprise.

"What you said before, about thinking and obsessing and wanting only one thing," she said. "That's how I feel about you."

He looked stunned. She put her hands up to gently cup his face, brushing her fingers over his damp skin. She could see the pulse hammering in his throat. There was a scratch on his face, a long one that went from his temple to his chin. Emma wondered if he'd just gotten it in the fight outside, or if he'd had it before and she hadn't noticed because she'd been trying so hard not to look at him. She wondered if he was ever going to speak again.

"Jules," she said. "Say something, please-"

His hands tightened convulsively on her shoulders. She gasped as his body moved against hers, walking her backward until her back hit the wall. His eyes gazed down into hers, shockingly bright, radiant as sea glass. "Julian," he said. "I want you to call me Julian. Only ever that."

"Julian," she said, and then his mouth came down over hers, dry and burning hot, and her heart seemed to stop and start again, an engine revved into an impossibly high gear.

She clutched him back with the same desperation, clinging on as he drank the rain from her mouth, her lips parting to taste him: cloves and tea. She reached to yank his sweater off over his head. Under it was a T-shirt, the thin wet cloth not much of a barrier when he pressed her back against the wall. His jeans were wet too, molded to his body. She felt how much he wanted her, and wanted him just as much.

The world was gone: There was only Julian; the heat of his skin, the need to be closer to him, to fit herself against him. Every movement of his body against hers sent lightning through her nerves.

"Emma. God, Emma." He buried his face against her, kissing her cheek, her throat as he slid his thumbs under the waistband of her jeans and pushed down. She kicked the wet heap of denim away. "I love you so much."