Page 79 of The Forsaken

I love her…

His breath vanished. His momentum stopped dead. A frigate-sized impact hurled Kerr into the air, sending him down hard onto his hands and knees.

“Christ, Kerr! So sorry.”

I love her.

“I knocked you down good…”

I love her beyond reason—for him, there was none with her.

“…Didn’t hit your head, did you…?”

I love her beyond measure.

No part of him could not and did not love her.

He had fought it so long, ever since that snowy day by Ermine Street. He didn’t just want her; he ached for her.

No one else ever challenged him the way she did. She made him want to be a better man—for her. She had brought his life back, teaching him to feel without fear. With her, the crushing weight of loneliness had vanished. She pulled him into the light, forcing him to breathe, to ache, and to live again—if he had ever truly lived before her.

“…You can’t convince me you are unworthy of love—you’re worthy. Or that you’re damaged—you’re not…”

Why had he fought this long?

A hand fell in front of his face. “Kerr!”

Greyhold hauled him up like he weighed no more than a small lad and set him on his feet.

In a reversal of roles, little brother cleaned his big brother up; dusted Kerr’s sleeves, straightened his cravat, smoothed his lapels. “Are you all, right?” he asked, patting his arm several times. “You took quite the fall, big brother.”

Kerr laughed quietly. “You have no idea.”

A ghost of a smile touched Greyhold’s mouth. “I think I do.” He squeezed his shoulder. A moment passed between them. The marquess had never met Kerr’s father, but he knew about Kerr’s life before their parents married. “Glad you’ve let yourself be happy, but I’m going to miss carousing with you.”

Not Kerr.

As they returned to the ballroom, the surging volume of couples’ clapping through the turns of a Scottish reel and the chatter of the London elite rose to greet them.

With each step closer to her, the heavy void in his chest dissolved. He was entirely hers.

Kerr passed beneath cascading crystal, chandeliers, marveling at how he had spent years too blind to see—he believed himself powerful. It had taken Andromena. She forced his eyes open, laying bare every cowardice he tried to hide. Maybe that was why he had missed the truth between them—and why he had fought a love he was too afraid to name—until now.

Tonight, he would make amends. In the middle of the London Season’s loudest ballroom, he would drop to his knees and beg the only person he had ever bowed to for her hand.

Alas, it would have to wait a moment longer.

Kerr approached the head McQuoid dining table; the family kept up their reputation as an ‘odd lot.’ Not a single member of the Scottish clan was present but for two—and not even both of them McQuoids.

Per his usual, the Earl of Abington sat at the head of the table, a large glass of wine in one hand and a newspaper in his other.

“If this is not permission to leave, I’m not sure what the hell—”

Kerr silenced his brother with a single look. He returned his attention to the only other remaining guest.

Kilmartin.

Smugly smiling, with a glass in hand, sprawled in the chair next to the earl like some favored son-in-law, Kilmartin toasted Kerr.