I also liked the way he said my name. “Yes?”
He touched my cheek with his fingers. “I hope you realize that no matter what anyone has ever told you, you are more worthy than anyone I’ve ever met.”
My heart squeezed in the best way. “You haven’t met enough people, then.”
“I have met too many.” He lifted his chin, kissing my forehead. He leaned back, sliding his thumb along my jaw. “You deserve so much more than what awaits you.”
I should.
My eyes opened.
I really should.
I wasn’t a bad person. Under the veil and behind my title and my gift, I was like anyone else. But I was never treated as such. As Hawke had pointed out before, every privilege everyone else had was something I couldn’t even earn. And I was…
I was so damn tired of it.
Hawke drew back, his voice heavy as he said, “Thank you for trusting me with this.”
Unable to answer, I was too caught up in what was happening within me because something was shifting, changing. Something enormous and yet also small. My heart started pumping as if I’d just been fighting for my life, and…dear gods, that’s what I was doing. Right now. Fighting not for my life but to be able to live it. That was what was clicking into place inside me.
Maiden or not, good or bad, Chosen or forsaken, I deserved to live and to exist without being cloistered by rules I never agreed to.
I looked at Hawke, really looked at him, and what I saw went beyond the physical. He’d always been different with me, and he never tried to stop me. From the night on the Rise to the Blood Forest when he’d thrown me the sword, he didn’t only protect me. He believed in me and respected my need to defend myself. And like he’d said before, it was as if we’d known each other for ages. He…he understood me, and I thought I might understand him. Because he was brave and strong, and he felt and thought deeply. He’d suffered losses and survived and continued to do so even with the agony I knew he carried with him. He accepted me.
And I trusted him with my life.
With everything.
“You shouldn’t look at me like that.” His voice had thickened.
“Like what?”
“You know exactly how you’re looking at me.” He closed his eyes. “Actually, you might not, and that’s why I should leave.”
“How am I looking at you, Hawke?”
His eyes opened. “Like I don’t deserve to be looked at. Not by you.”
“Not true,” I told him.
“I wish that was the case. Gods, I do. I need to leave.” He rose and backed up, his stare lingering. I didn’t think he wanted to leave at all. He took a deep breath. “Goodnight, Poppy.”
I watched him start for the door, his name on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want to spend tonight alone. I didn’t want him to believe that he wasn’t deserving.
What I wanted was to live.
What I wanted was him.
“Hawke?”
He stopped but didn’t turn.
My heart was racing once more. “Will you…will you stay with me tonight?”
CHAPTER 33
Hawke didn’t respond, and I wasn’t sure if he’d even taken a breath, reminding me of the night of the Rite with us under the willow. That memory didn’t bring with it the sharp stab of pain.
Then he spoke. “I want nothing more than that, but I don’t think you realize what will happen if I stay.”
I felt a little dizzy. “What would happen?”
He turned then, his stare piercing. “There is no way I could be in that bed with you and not be all over you in ten seconds flat. We wouldn’t even make it to the bed before that happened. I know my limitations. I know that I’m not a good enough man to remember my duty and yours or that I’m so incredibly unworthy of you it should be a sin. Even knowing that, there is no way I wouldn’t strip that robe from you and do exactly what I told you I’d do when we were in the forest.”
Heat swept through me as I stared at him. “I know.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Do you?”
I nodded.
Hawke took a step away from the door. “I’m not just going to hold you. I won’t stop at kissing you. My fingers won’t be the only thing inside you. My need for you is far too great, Poppy. If I stay, you will not walk out this door the Maiden.”
I shivered at the bluntness of his words. They weren’t a shock, but his need was. I didn’t see myself as someone who could be the object of something so fierce. I’d never been allowed to.
“I know,” I repeated.
He took one more step toward me. “Do you truly, Poppy?”
I did.
And it was strange to know myself and be so certain when I’d spent so long not knowing myself—never really being allowed to discover who I was, what I might like or dislike, what I’d want or need. But I knew now.
I had known the moment I asked him to stay. I knew what the consequences could be. I knew what I was, and what was expected of me, and I knew I could no longer be that. It wasn’t what I wanted in life. It had never been my choice.
But this…this I wanted.
Hawke was who I wanted.
This was my choice.
I was reclaiming my life, and it had started long before him. When I demanded to be taught how to fight, and when I made Vikter include me when he went out to help the cursed. Those were significant steps, but there had been smaller ones along the way. In a way, they were even more important. I’d been changing, evolving just like the gift I was forbidden to wield but remained determined to use. It was in every adventure and risk I took. It was in my desire to experience what I’d been told was not for me.
That was why I’d initially stayed in the room at the Red Pearl with Hawke.
It was the way I’d met the Duke’s stare and smiled at him when I’d been unveiled.
It was when I’d spoke to Loren for the first time, and when I went out to the Rise. My evolution kept me quiet as the Duke delivered his lessons, and when I sliced Lord Mazeen’s arm and hand and head from his body, I’d been cutting through the chains I never chose to wear. I just hadn’t realized it then. There were so many little steps over the years and especially in recent weeks. I didn’t know when it had finally happened, but I knew one thing for certain.
Hawke wasn’t the catalyst.
He was the reward.
I lifted my surprisingly steady hands to the sash. I didn’t look away as I undid the knot. The robe parted and then slipped over my shoulders. I let it puddle at my feet.
Hawke didn’t look away for one second. He didn’t even blink as he stared at me, his eyes locked to mine. Slowly, his gaze traveled the length of my body. I knew there was enough light for him to see everything. All the dips and swells, the shadowy, hidden areas, and all the scars. The jagged tears on my arms and across my stomach, and the ones on my legs that looked like wounds from sharp nails but were proof that I had been chosen by the gods.
Because those marks on my legs weren’t from claws but from fangs that had ripped into my skin. I’d been bitten that night.
But I was not cursed.
Hawke wouldn’t see the truth in those scars. Two of those who knew were now gone, and only the Queen and King, the Duchess, and my brother knew now. For the first time in my life, I wanted to tell someone the truth behind them. I wanted to tell Hawke.
But now was not the time for that.
Not when his gaze was slowly tracking back to mine. Not when he was looking at me as if he were soaking in every inch of me. I couldn’t help but shiver when his eyes finally met mine.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” he whispered, his voice thick. “And so damn unexpected.”
Then he moved in that way that always made it hard to believe he wasn’t an Ascended. In a heartbeat, I was in his arms, and his mouth was on mine. There was nothing slow and sweet about the way he kissed me. It was like being devoured, and I wanted that. I kissed him back, holding onto him tightly, and just when I felt the touch of his tongue against mine, he pulled away.
Things became a blur then. His tunic came off with my help, and then his boots, and his breeches. I trembled at the first sight of him.
He was…beautiful.
All sun-kissed skin and long, lean muscles. His chest and stomach were defined by years of training, and there was no mistaking the power and strength of his body. There was also no mistaking how his life had left its imprint behind in the form of faint nicks and longer scars on his flesh. He was a fighter like I was, and now I truly saw what I’d been too nervous to notice before. His body was also a record of everything he’d survived, and the deeper, redder scar just below his hip on his upper thigh was proof that he likely had his own nightmares. It looked like a brand of some sort, as if something hot and painful had been pressed into his skin.
“The scar on your thigh,” I asked. “When did you get it?”
“Many years ago, when I was dumb enough to get caught,” he answered.
It was so weird how he sometimes talked as if he’d lived dozens of years longer than I was sure he had. I knew that, for some, a year could feel like a lifetime. My gaze strayed, and my eyes widened.
Oh, my.