Seven Sinful Crowns

Killian

Killian had loved Helina since the moment he saw her. Well, not the precise moment he saw her. In that moment he had feared her, as she was the princess most known for her fury. But when she spoke, he fell. She had wanted - no - she had demanded he give her words. Killian didn't have much, but words he had in excess.

And he had known long before she that they would one day be bound, gods be good. They said men were slower to realize these things, but Killian wasn't so sure. It had taken Helina much, much longer than he. By the time she knew, she was almost a woman. He had watched and waited silently as they grew, their meetings being his favorite time of the week. He had watched her face go from round to oval, the peak along her forehead, drawn tight by the pull a bow, now gone, disguised in the loose fall of her curls. He liked them.

And he had watched her mind grow, from simple and curious to complex and strategic. He had watched her body grow, too. One summer she was a girl, and by the time the heat gave way to rain, her waist curved out and her breasts swelled up beneath her dresses in a way he had never noticed before, and when she looked at him, knowing for the first time what he had known all along, he watched that too. He watched as her eyes glazed, then refocused, the realization crashing in and then settling, and he waited.

He waited almost a year for her to look at him like that again, and when she did, he didn't hesitate. He had had months to replay it in his mind, searching for the missed moment. There had been hours spent thinking of what he might have done differently. Of how he might do it again, if he was ever given the chance, and so when she finally found him again, her eyes glazed and knowing, he kissed her. Not hard, but soft and sweet and barely there, like the brush of a breath on your cheek.

But then she kissed him back and it was anything but. Like Helina, and all things Helina did, it was fast and fervent and full of fury. It was maddening and delicious and painful and bliss and he savored the taste of it. Relished in it. And when she pulled him to the desk of the library where they had grown in, he didn't protest, but fell to her willingly, vowing his soul to her as a soldier might before the war, and it was indeed a war that day. A push and pull, a give and take, both too innocent to know and too hungry to help it, and when they had finally crashed and burned, they lay panting and sore, broken and shattered and whole.

How fitting, he thought, as she lay asleep on the plush carpet beside him, that the tapestry which brought them together with its history, be the keeper of theirs.

And in all the time since he had never seen Helina as anything less than that wild, wanton girl who both gave her soul and stole his in that one long moment, long ago. She was not the merciless maiden or the red queen, but a bold, beautiful sparrow. And she was his. How lucky he must be, he thought.

And he thought this again now as he fingered the red curls that fell down over her sleeping shoulder, her soft weight pressed so perfectly into his side. She was a beautiful creature, and Killian couldn't help himself sometimes, like this evening when she had walked in wrapped in the emerald dress. It hugged her curves, floor length with a slit on either side straight up to her porcelain thighs. It dipped low in the front, a dramatic V cut from the chest, the entire ensemble held up by the small, jeweled straps over her shoulders. He hadn't stood a chance, and something inside him began to stir at the memory, just as she began to stir beside him.

He turned onto his side, pulling her body into his, and she arched against him, sighing her approval.

"What are you thinking about," she asked, her voice thick with sleep.

"You. Always you."

"Mmm. What else?"

"A green dress," he continued, "with a lovely slit from here," he said, placing a finger somewhere below her knee and dragging it up, "to here."

"Mmhmm. I do recall something like that."

"Mmhmm, me too. How could I forget?"

"You like it that much?"

"Is it obvious?"

"Mmhmm," Helina purred, pressing herself harder into his body. "Perhaps I should keep it after all."

"Perhaps you should," was all he said before she turned, claiming her place in his arms, his soul, ripping from his body all he had to offer, and he was happy for her to take it a thousand times over. 

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When Helina left, Killian lay in her bed. The empty space beside him, her warmth still lingering, was a cruel reminder of all he stood to lose. He had always known it would come to this one day; the sisters would fight to the death for that throne, but he had always pushed the thought back down, wrapping it tight and tying it with a beautiful, Helina-red bow. The very though of it, of losing her, was terrifying. It was like a physical barrier, a claw at his throat, a vice around his chest. Thoughts had power, he had always known this. Thoughts were enough to kill a man, and so again, Killian pushed the thought back into the abyss in order to save his life.

But he had to help somehow. There was no point in his mind that would accept that this was the only way. The girls, now women, had always known this would be the end, but things have changed before. Histories have changed, empires have crumbled and alliances have shifted in the most unexpected of ways. But they were stubborn, and hungry, and vicious, even Helina. He knew. But, he had seen Helina weak and weary, and wanton. He had seen her broken and burning and begging. Everyone has a weakness, and Killian's soul soared for a moment at the magnificence that he was hers. And so, carefully, he dug the box back from the abyss, his finger tentatively tracing the ribbon, and then he pulled, setting free the flood of horrors, because Helina and Killian were bound. They were one and the same. He was hers, completely, but she was his, and if he were ever to save his own life, he would have to save hers, too.