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She could see that landed hard. And she was petty enough to finally enjoy seeing some emotion in his face. Just not the one she had hoped for years.

"I have finally found myself here," she went on. "I have people who care for me, who see me. I cannot come back, Blaidd. I am not ready."

He did not argue. He rose slowly, as if careful not to spook her, and when he looked at her again, there was something new in his eyes.

Resolve.

"May I..." he began, then stopped, swallowing hard. "May I hold your hand, please?"

The politeness of it undid something in her.

"It has been so long," he said quietly. "I am starving for your touch."

Fae hesitated.

Her hand trembled as she extended it, half ready to pull back at the last moment. She would never admit, even to herself, how much she wanted it, too.

Blaidd took her hand as if it were something precious. Fragile.

He examined it slowly, thumb brushing over the calluses she had earned with chisel and hammer. He kissed them one by one, eyes closed, as though committing them to memory. His finger traced a healing cut, light and careful, where she had been careless with the blade.

Then he pressed her hand to his chest. "Look at me, Fae."

She did.

"I know I do not deserve this," he said earnestly. "If you want me to leave, I will. Say the word and I am gone."

His breath hitched.

"But let me stay. The Blaidd you knew…that wasn't me. That was a coward who made a terrible mistake and didn't know how to live with it." His voice matched her resolve. " I have waited sixteen years for you to come into my life. Let me show you who I really am. I won't do anything you don't want me to. I swear it. "

He lowered his forehead briefly to her knuckles, a silent vow.

"But let me try," he whispered. "Let me win your heart. Give me a chance to repair what I have broken. Let me earn your trust, Faelynn. My One."

Chapter 35

"My trust?"

Fae felt the fight drain out of her.

She watched him holding her hand, reverent and careful, and it felt like she had stepped into an alternate reality—one where Blaidd had turned back on himself and become everything she had once dreamed he might be.

The gentleness.The stars in his eyes.Requesting...not taking. The courtship she had always dreamed of.

She felt dazed by it. And heartbroken.

A strange thought crept in—had she imagined the hardship of the past? Had the loneliness, the neglect, the slow erosion of her worth been nothing more than a story she had told herself?

Blaidd kept looking at her then, eyes pleading, as though the world hung on her answer.

This was not the man she knew. That was what broke the spell.

She withdrew her hand.

Blaidd's fingers tightened around hers for an instant before he reluctantly released her with a quiet sigh, the dread of what was to come written plainly across his face.

"I have not been able to stop you in the past," Fae said slowly. "How am I meant to stop you now?"