Darkest Mercy

Chapter 31

When Donia woke, she looked upward to see icicles and snow arches. For a moment, she wondered if she’d slept outside, but sheets were tangled around her legs. My home. My bed. She sighed happily. A wintery heaven filled her room to the point that she could hardly believe she was inside a house. She looked up at the crystalline ceiling over her head, and then at the faery sleeping beside her.

I want to stay right here forever.

Unlike the previous times she’d touched Keenan since she’d been fey, this time his skin was unbruised. Her ice didn’t injure him as it had when he was the Summer King. She propped herself up on one arm, and with the other, she carefully slid her fingers through his hair, and then on to his bare shoulder. No steam lifted from his skin as it had when they’d spent Solstice together; no bruises formed as they had when she’d touched him other times. After decades of wanting this, of believing it could never truly happen, they were together.

“If I pretend to be asleep, will you keep touching me?” He kept his eyes closed, but he reached out and slid his knuckles down her bare arm.

When she didn’t answer, he looked at her. “Don?”

“Tell me again.”

With the same wicked smile that had stolen her breath when she’d met him, he pulled her into his arms and rolled her under him. He braced himself over her and stared into her eyes as he reminded her, “I love you, Donia.”

Snow fell on him from somewhere above the bed as he lowered his lips to hers and told her, “And I will spend the rest of eternity loving you. Every day.”

“And every night,” she added with a smile.

“Mmmm, and every morning?” he asked.

To that question, there weren’t any words that would do justice the way actions would, so Donia answered him with her touch and her kisses.

Afterward, when hungers of other sorts necessitated leaving the pleasures of the bed—and the snow-covered floor—Donia couldn’t stop smiling. They walked through the house hand in hand.

Her faeries looked on approvingly, much to her surprise.

“I want you to stay here,” she blurted.

Keenan paused. “Right now?”

“No.” Donia turned so they were face-to-face. “Stay here, live here, be here.”

The look of joy on his face made her realize that the things she’d thought alluring when he was filled with sunlight were only a fraction of what he was now that he had only Winter within him. His eyes glimmered with the sheen of a perfect frost; his features seemed somehow sharper as she looked at him.

And I don’t have to resist now.

With a satisfied sigh, she pulled him to her and kissed him. When she stepped back, his lips parted and his eyes widened in surprise.

“Say yes,” she urged.

“I’m yours, Donia.” He leaned his forehead against her head. “You don’t need to offer anything you aren’t ready—”

“Are you serious?” She laughed. “I’ve waited most of my life for you.”

“You’re a queen. I’ll accept whatever you—”

She kissed him again, and then asked, “Do you want to live here?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t be a fool, Keenan. I want you here.”

“Once Niall is stable, and we know that Bananach won’t slip in at night and kill us in our beds . . .” He scowled. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about her.”

Donia interlaced her fingers with his. “You’re not a king. It’s not your duty now.”

“Oh.” He paused and then nodded. “I will fight . . . or what do you need?”

“You were going to go to Niall,” she reminded him. “Have you changed your mind?”

“No,” he said very carefully, “but I want to . . . I didn’t know Evan was gone, and I don’t want . . . Not that you can’t defend yourself, but . . .” He raked his hand through his hair.

Gently, Donia suggested, “You’re a solitary faery, Keenan. Not my subject. Not anyone’s subject. You can do as you will.”

He nodded.

“What are you going to do? What do you want to do?” she prompted.

“I’m going to go try to help Niall. He’s not acting like himself, and I have a theory on what’s wrong,” he told her. “Then afterward I’m going to ask you to marry me.”

She stepped backward, her knees strangely weak. “Faeries don’t . . . That’s not exactly done.”

“I’ve dreamed of it. The ceremony, the vow”—he stared at her with an intensity that made her sit down suddenly—“I thought about it a lot. Faery vows are unbreakable. If I phrased it right, you’d know that I belong to you. Only you. Always.”

She blinked several times, and as casually as she could manage, pinched her wrist. I am awake. Keenan is here in my home telling me he wants a faery vow and a wedding. This was the part where she was to say something encouraging; she was sure of that. Instead, she stared at him silently.

He knelt, like a mortal man, on one knee before her. “Faeries don’t make fidelity vows often, but we can. We can.”

“Yes.”

But he misunderstood and continued, “When I come back, I’ll get a ring. First, I am going to help Niall. Something is wrong with him, and I’m going to try to figure out how to get him back to himself.”

Too stunned by the utter unexpectedness of the morning, she nodded and repeated, “Yes.”

“We can do anything, Don. We’ll defeat Bananach, help Niall. . . . Everything is possible now. You make me believe in the impossible. You always have.” He stood and kissed her until she really wasn’t sure if she was awake or dreaming, and then he said, “I’ll be back. We’ll stop Bananach, and then we’ll have forever.”

And he was gone before she could think clearly enough to explain that her yes was a Yes, I’ll marry you.