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She nodded. “Eric’s death had settled everything for me as well. I knew I would be alone forever. I wasn’t just resigned, I was resolved. I never wanted to hurt like that again, the same way I’d hurt when my babies died, my husband.
“Then you came along.” She stroked his face with her palm and ran her thumb over his lips. He kissed her thumb. “And even then, not until I was manacled in Crace’s forge, when I believed I had lost you forever, did my heart open enough to embrace love. Don’t you think that’s strange—because I truly believed you were dead? I didn’t think you could have survived that blast.”
“What are you saying?”
She drew in a breath and huffed a sigh. “I’m not explaining this well. I’m not even certain I understand all the meanings myself. Do you remember when we made love the last time and you took me to a place of really letting go because you enthralled me?”
He drew her closer. She was still seated on his lap and he loved it. He nuzzled her neck. “Yes.”
“Do you remember how you kept saying, Let go, let go?”
He drew back and looked into her eyes. He nodded.
“That’s what went through my mind when I was struggling to find a way out of the forge. I needed to let go, really let go. Everything changed for me in that moment. Everything. I knew you were dead and I was okay with it. I let go. I let go of all this grief that has held me as captive as I was manacled to that wall. I let go. That’s when I figured out how to split myself into two parts. I let go … of my shields, my mental shields. Within a whisper of a thought, I was in the darkening, found Endelle, then like this miracle, there you were, alive and ready to do battle.
“I’m still astonished when I think about it. And now here you are, alive, holding me, having given me a gift that my heart cried out for. Oh, Marcus, yes, I want to complete the breh-hedden with you, whatever that will mean for you and for me, whatever new barriers will need to be broken down. Yes, I want this.”
He stroked her hair, then kissed her hard, driving his tongue inside. She suckled and turned the heat up a notch.
But his soul was on fire as much as his body and like hell he was going to push this to a furious pace. There were things yet to be said.
He pulled back.
But she closed her eyes and her nostrils flared as she drew in a deep breath. “You smell like licorice and I swear I could lick you from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet and everywhere in between.”
Okay. That visual didn’t help at all.
He kissed her again, one full heavy kiss on her lips. “Hold that thought.”
She nodded but she was shedding honeysuckle from every pore of her body and his body thrummed with his need for her. He trembled then struggled to remember exactly what it was he wanted to say. He closed his eyes. Fortunately she remained very still.
After a moment, he opened his eyes, met her gaze, and said, “Being burned like that was nothing to what I felt when I realized you’d been taken by that monster. I was in and out of consciousness but every time I came to, you were what I thought of and I knew what would happen to you if he kept you for any length of time.
“The breh-hedden hooked me in deep in all the ways that men get hooked in with their women, a burning need to stick close, to protect you, to make sure no other man got to you. Damn, the possessiveness and jealousy alone—” He stopped for a moment and dipped low, kissing down the length of her cle**age, then licking his way back up. He ignored her whimpers. “Like this dress … I love it and I hate it, because every warrior there tonight could see what only I should be allowed to see and yet I loved showing you off … see how twisted it all is … because I wanted them to know that this was mine, you are mine.” He buried his face between her br**sts. He used his tongue, his lips, his teeth.
She moaned softly and he felt her arm move, then her hand. Oh, shit, she’d slipped her finger into his mouth. He nearly lost it as her finger stroked his tongue.
He wanted to rip the dress off her and take her then and there, but his soul still cried out to speak the words that had to be spoken.
It killed him, but he drew away from her br**sts and lifted his gaze to her once more. Her finger followed and slid down his cheek. “You’re mine,” he said. “And I want to make you mine in every possible way.
“But I have to try to help you see what you did for me this evening, when I realized you were the one who instigated a change of administration. Yes, I was shocked at first that you or anyone would suggest that I not return to the Warriors of the Blood. I owed them for the two centuries they’d fought on without me.
“But you called it. Dammit, you called it exactly right. As soon as you started talking about what was needed I realized I’d just spent the last two hundred years preparing to take over. That you saw it in me first, and matched my skills with the current need … Havily, that was pure f**king genius.”
Havily smiled. “You should have seen how furious Endelle was when I first mentioned it. Tonight she was all poise, but back then she sprouted horns, big, thick, heavy, twisted horns. I thought she would jump out of her skin. I was just afraid you would misunderstand and think I was trying to keep you safe.”
He shook his head. “I took it that way at first. I shouldn’t have but damn, you gave a good accounting of yourself, of your reasoning. You’ve got some serious administrative chops.”
“Thank you,” she said, her head tilted.
He kissed her. She drew a breath, and a little puff of nervous air returned. “So we’re doing this, you and me?”
He nodded slowly. “If you’ll have me, I want nothing more than to complete the breh-hedden with you. But what about you?”
“I want to but I’m so nervous. What do you think will happen? Did you ever know anyone who completed the ritual, I mean before Kerrick and Alison? All the warriors kept saying they believed it was a myth.”
“Over the four millennia that I served as a warrior, I only knew of one case, but it was so long ago I don’t remember the details. Although I think once the bond was sealed, I saw very little of my fellow warrior except during battle and he didn’t speak of his breh, out of respect. Besides, the subject would have been too damn personal.”
“Are you anxious about this?”
“I need you too much to be worried. Whatever this ritual is, whatever it’s meant to be, I want it, with you, now.”
