The Second Death of Locke (The Hand and the Heart, #1)

by V.L. Bovalino

They’d known each other so long, grown into each other like roots of neighboring trees rather than neighboring children until Kier was so intrinsically tied with her understanding of magic that she sometimes had trouble separating the two.

“You wouldn’t leave me,” he said. She closed her eyes, hiding her face behind her arm. No, she would not leave him. But perhaps, someday, it would be far easier for her heart if she did.

He never used too much of her, no matter what she said, and that was the truth—however much he needed was just as much as she was willing to give.

“You look like shit,” Kier said. “You’ve got your eyes closed.” “So I don’t have to see you looking like shit.”

but then he looked at her in that way, the measure of devotion clear on his face, matched to her own,

“I would never ask you to give up everything.” “You wouldn’t have to,” he said, his voice taking on a new urgency.

She wanted him to care. She could’ve fallen on her knees right then and there and begged him to care.

but she wished, above all, that there was something about her that ensnared him.

“You cannot put yourself at risk for my sake. I cannot live without you. Okay?” “And I won’t live without you,” she said, like it was simple.

she longed for him. Endlessly, immeasurably, ceaselessly.

“Losing you, living without you would be a fate worse than death.”

“You are a vision, even with blood clots in your hair. But I don’t know if all would share my depraved tastes.”

“I wouldn’t worry about me bringing anyone else to our bed,” he said. He caught her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of her fingers.

She loved him in every way it was possible to love a person.

“I can’t imagine… not having you.”

“Grey, beloved, you absolute fool—if that was the worst of you, then you remain a saint among us.” He shook his head wonderingly. “And I have been trying to make you see me as more than your mage for six years now.”

“I adore you,” he said, all in a rush. “No—no. Listen. I… I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for years, maybe forever. Sometimes it’s all I can think about, and I can’t breathe because it’s so heavy on my chest that I… I might be holding it alone, the only thing about you I can’t be certain of. It’s agony, Grey, the not knowing.”

“I imagined telling you my feelings a thousand times, in a thousand different ways. And yet I never imagined the evening ending with your head in a bucket.” She winced. “Sorry.” “Grey, if I don’t spend the rest of my life washing gore out of your hair, then it’s not a life worth living.”

“But you always wanted it. Titles, promotions… to be a commander. To go to unknown shores. To see the world.” He laughed, looking at her with a bizarre incredulity. “I always wanted you,” he said. “And I still can’t believe… that I have you. I think I do.”

“A million things. But they left out the part about how astonishing you are.”

and truthfully, she could spend the rest of her days watching Kier doing the most mundane activities and still die happy.

“Grey, you’re a treasure beyond any imagining.”

“You are everything I’ve ever wanted,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers.

He leaned in to kiss her, tender and sweet. “I’d happily perish for you any day of the week, Flynn,” he said, seeing right through her.

“We had you as our captain,” she said. “It would be an honor to have you as our lady.”

But if I had to choose between Kier and this whole sodding nation, I would always choose Kier.”

“I love you,” Kier said against her skin, even as he ripped another rope of power from her middle. She hissed at the sensation—they could not keep going this recklessly. “Save your declarations for when we’re off the battlefield,” she said,

“I would’ve come for you. I’d always come for you.” “And I you,” Kier said.

His gaze softened, and there was something unfair about the way he looked at her, like she was the central point in his universe—she did not know how to convey, with word or look or deed, that he was the central point in hers.

it’s an inevitability, in some ways, that all I am would be yours.”

“I am yours, Grey. If that makes you Seward, so be it. If that makes me Locke, then it is done. I am yours and I have been since the day we were bound, and even before that. I don’t care for the name, or the title, or even for the power. I care for you.”

“I love you. Every choice I have made, that I am making, is because I love you.”

“What is love, without freedom?” she murmured against his skin. He leaned close to kiss her shoulder, then to whisper in her ear. “What is life, without you?”

I want to love you without fearing that you will die, too. I want to love you knowing that I’ll wake up in the morning and you’ll still be here. That you won’t go racing into the next battle to save me, facing the next obstacle without me, because you’re trying to protect me.

“Take my freedom, Grey. Everything I have is yours. Everything I am is yours. Take my freedom, and keep your power, and keep my life. If you are here, I want to live. Even if it requires haunting this godforsaken rock for the rest of my life, never being more than an hour’s walk from you at any time—because, honestly, that’s how we would be anyway.”

“It’s yours, Gremaryse Locke, High Lady of the Isle and keeper of my heart, just as I am yours. Take it. Take it all.”

“Locke will not fall again, Grey. I swear it to you: there will be no second death.”

You would like him, I think. He would sacrifice the world for her—