Fateful Magic (The Star-Crossed Series Book 8) (7 page)

“This is
not
inevitable,” I whispered fiercely, afraid someone would hear this craziness.

I was a Shape-Shifter.
A
Shape-Shifter
.
My existence was
illegal. And he would one day be head of the Titan Guard if Eden didn’t
overthrow this Monarchy!

It was crazy to think we could even make-out without
facing dire consequences. Let alone be together in any kind of committed
relationship!

“It is,” he insisted. “I want you. I want you to be
with me.”

“Fine,” I told him, calling his bluff.
“Defect.
Leave the Guard and join the Resistance. I’ll be
with you then.”

He dipped his head lower, nodding as if he anticipated
this response from me. “I know that would make sense to you, but you do not
know the entire story. I am… I am bound to
Kiran
. I
am loyal to him.”

“You’re loyal to a Monarchy that wants to kill me.”

His head snapped up and those eyes hit me with a
severity I wasn’t ready for. It robbed me of breath and sent my heart pounding
in my chest. “No,” he said. “I am loyal to only one King and only one family.”

“The
Kendricks
.
And they all want my entire species eradicated.”

“You’re wrong.” I opened my mouth to argue and he
quickly said, “About me. You’re wrong about my loyalty. But I will never leave
Kiran
. I could never even think of it.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I don’t need to make sense. I just need time.”

I pursed my lips together to keep from screaming. Had
there ever been a more frustrating conversation?

Nope.
Never.

“I need you to be with me, Lilly,” he continued.
“Sometimes… sometimes it feels as though I cannot breathe unless you are near. Sometimes
it feels as though I will die if I cannot touch you. I want to be with you,
iubita
mea
. I want you to be mine.”

I tried
to ignore the swelling of my heart and the butterflies in my stomach. I hadn’t
realized I’d leaned so close to him until our lips were only just a breath
apart.

“What
does that mean?” I asked him.
“That Romanian word?”

His lips
curled at the corners in a sweet smile. “Someday I will tell you. I will tell
you when you say yes to me.”

“I will
never-”

“Get
off!” Eden screeched.

Both of
us jumped apart. I had never been more startled in my entire life and Eden
looked as crazy as I’d ever seen her.

“
Kiran
needs you and I need you to get out!” she shouted at
Talbott.

Those
were the magic words because he hurried from the plane without once looking
back at me.

And I
realized that would always be how it was between us. Even if I had said yes to
Talbott, he still would have run off to
Kiran
. No
matter how he felt about me, his loyalty and duty would always be to
Kiran
and the Kendrick family first.

I added
that to the other million reasons never to be with him. I couldn’t completely
regret the kiss we’d shared. But I knew now that I could never do it again.

Chapter Five

Now

“Mrs. Angelo,”
Talbott
whispered
into my ear as we twirled around the dance floor. He sounded
so
reverent as the word tumbled out of him that I knew I would never be happier
than this moment. Until the next moment happened and I had the same thought all
over again.

“I think you like that more than you like saying
Lilly,” I teased him.

He made a murmur of approval and pressed me tighter
against him with his hand against my lower back. “I love them both.”

My face heated to that ridiculous color of red and so
I leaned forward and rested my forehead against his shoulder. The summer breeze
had cooled off now that the sun had completely disappeared and it helped relax
me as it floated over my heated skin.

The chairs had been removed to make way for an outdoor
dance floor. The string ensemble continued to provide the soundtrack of the
happiest day of my life. The stars twinkled overhead without a single cloud in
the sky to detract from their brilliance. And my husband had not let me out of
his arms the entire night.

This was heaven.

At some point during the evening, I had started to
wonder if maybe I was still in a coma. If this were some dream world, my
subconscious had created to ease my real pain and suffering.

This had to be a fantasy.

This could not be real.

Good things of this magnitude just did not happen to
me. I had lived a lifetime of fear and imprisonment. I’d been beaten and
tortured more times than I could count. For a large part of my life, I had been
completely and utterly alone.

And now I had this?

I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it.

“Is this real?” I asked through thick emotion coating
my throat.

Talbott
pulled back just a
few inches and used his finger to tilt my chin up. “This is real, Lilly.
My wife.
My love.
This is as real
as it gets.”

“Thank you,” I whispered as a rogue tear slipped from
the corner of my eye.

“For what?”

“For not giving up on me.
For seeing something in me that nobody else did.”
I held his
chocolate gaze and felt myself fall in love with him all over again. For a lot
of years I hated the strife he brought to my life, the confusion and
uncertainty. I hated that he made me fall for him when all I wanted to do was
run.

He smiled adoringly at me. “I saw the same thing
everybody else did, Lilly. I was just the only one smart enough to go after
you.”

I laughed at that. “So you’re more intelligent than
anyone else. You’re clearly stronger…” I let my hands trail up the smooth silk
of his lapel. “What else? I want to know what I’ve gotten myself into.”

“More handsome,” he told me. “Faster.
Funnier.
Sweeter.”

I sighed. It was all true. I threaded my fingers
through the thick hair at the nape of his neck. “What else? There has to be
more.”

“Luckier,” he answered gruffly. “I’m luckier than
anyone else alive to have such a wife as you.”

“I love you.”

He pressed a slow kiss to my mouth. “I love you too.”

“Alright, my friend, share the bride,”
Kiran’s
voice cut through our happy moment and we both
looked up a little surprised. We had drifted into our own universe and the rest
of the world faded away.

“I’m not sure that I want to do that,”
Talbott
replied with his thick, lilting accent.

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. He
was serious and
Kiran
knew it too.

“I promise to give her right back,”
Kiran
told him. “I just want a quick dance. Besides, you’ve
sworn an oath to share everything with me.” He made a hand-it-over gesture with
his two hands.

“Not my wife!”
Talbott
roared. “And I made that oath when we were children. You made me do it. You
told me it if I didn’t you would throw me in the dungeon.”

“Oh, nobody held a sword to your throat,”
Kiran
argued.

Talbott’s
eyes grew huge.
“You did! You held my own sword to my throat!”

By this time, I was nearly doubled over with laughter.
Kiran
threw me a wink and
Talbott
tugged me closer.

“You’ll not get your spoiled,
Royal
hands on my wife. So forget about it.”

Kiran
looked as though he
couldn’t believe what he was hearing. I gave him a helpless shrug. I was as
reluctant to leave
Talbott’s
arms as he was to let
me.

“Where is your wife,”
Talbott
demanded. “You should be with her anyway.”

Kiran
scowled.
“With my cousin.”

We all glanced over to Eden, who was now in the
process of dumping Seraphina into Sebastian’s arms. I stared at them wide-eyed.
Those two hated each other!

“I’m going to need to call in security, aren’t I?”
Talbott
mumbled.

Kiran
made a disbelieving
noise in the back of his throat. “What is she
thinking!
Sebastian is going to kill her! And then he’s going to kill
me
. Of course, he’ll leave Eden alone.
He favors her.
The traitor.”

“They’re grownups,” I defended them both. “We
all
are. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

Both men’s heads swiveled to me with comically
terrified matching expressions.

“You’ve been in a coma, so I’ll forgive you for saying
that,”
Kiran
said seriously. “But believe me when I
say, that no matter how old we get, and I mean in the millennia to come, those
two will never be capable of sharing space as civilized adults ever again. They
are beyond rational, mature thinking. They are even beyond tolerable hatred.
I’m impressed that they’ve lasted this long without putting their hands around
each other’s throats yet.”

“They can’t be that bad!”

Talbott
surprised me by
agreeing with
Kiran’s
rather dramatic description.
“They are, Lilly. They really, truly are.”

“They’ll be civilized for me,” I assured them. “If not
because they like me, then at least because I was in a coma for so long and
they feel sorry for me.”

“Nobody feels sorry for you,”
Kiran
and
Talbott
said at the same time.

“Except for me,” Eden chimed in. She crashed our
little group and linked her arm through
Kiran’s
and
laid her head on his shoulder. “I
feel
very sorry for you.”

“And why’s that?” I wasn’t the only one that felt more
than happy tonight. Eden practically glowed with joy. She was radiant tonight
and just one more reason for me to be brimming with contentment.

“Because you’re not miserable like
me.”

I reached out a hand and pressed it against her
stomach. If it had been anyone else, I would have never dreamed of violating
their bump, but this was Eden, I held all belly-rubbing rights.

“You’re not miserable,” I told her. “You’re very, very
far from miserable.”

She rested one of her hands on top of mine. “You are
too, my sweet friend.” She glanced up at her husband and then back at me. “So,
we were hoping… if we asked you to be godparents, you might say yes?”

“Us?”
I whispered. “What
about Avalon and Mimi?”

I could feel
Talbott’s
confusion in our united Magic. “Sebastian?”

They both smiled at us, and Eden explained, “We’ll
probably ask Avalon and Mimi too. He’s my brother, but you’re the closest thing
I’ve ever had to a sister,
Lills
. I would love it if
you said yes.”

“And you’re the closest thing I’ve had to a brother,
Mate,”
Kiran
told
Talbott
.
“I hardly trust Sebastian to post a letter. I won’t entrust my children with
him anytime soon.”

“We’d be honored,” I told them.

Talbott
disagreed. “They
don’t need two sets of godparents,
iubita
mea
.
They’ll be more spoiled than their father was.”

What I loved about my husband was that he was
completely serious.

“But they’re Royals. They’ll be spoiled no matter
what!” Eden grinned at him. “I’m counting you in. Lilly said yes, and now that
you’re married, that’s as good as a blood oath.”

“Is that true?”
Talbott
quirked an eyebrow at her.

Kiran
clasped a hand on his
shoulder. “Give it up, Mate. She runs your life now. You’re just supposed to
say, ‘Yes, Love,’ and ‘Of course, Dear.’”

Talbott
shot me a skeptical
look, so I shook my head to give him a false sense of security. “I’m sure I’ll
let you make some of the decisions.
Every once in a while.
Like on your birthday.”

He hooked his arm around my waist again and yanked me
against him. “You’re teasing me.”

I ran my finger down his nose, “I am.”

“I think it’s time to leave.”

“Leave? Why?” I couldn’t believe
Talbott
wanted this night to end. Instead of answering my question, he gave me a heated
look that erased any questions I had. “Oh.” My cheeks burned red. I felt the
flush reach from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.

I’d nearly forgotten about the wedding night.

Nearly.

Eden and
Kiran
laughed at my
shyness. Even
Talbott
chuckled a little.

But then he dipped his head and ran his nose over the
shell of my ear. “Don’t worry,
iubita
mea,
I’ll be gentle.” I
pinched his side. I didn’t believe him, and that sent all kinds of shivers and
tingles racing over my body. His low chuckle vibrated against my earlobe. “I
will,” he insisted. “You just woke up from a coma, I feel sorry for you.”

I tipped
my head back and laughed.
Talbott
wasn’t known for
his sense of humor, but I had always known he could be funny. It was just one
of the many reasons I loved him.

“Are my
parents still here? I should say goodbye.”

“They
snuck out a little while ago,” Eden said. “I think they went back to the hotel.
They didn’t want to interrupt.”