Page 46 of Within the Hollow Heart

Jules nestled closer, her body warm beneath his arm, and he turned his face toward her as she watched the night sky. “My lady,” he said quietly. “Now that you are my wife…”

Her head tilted nearer as if to better hear, though the courtyard was silent.

Nickolas let his voice dip even lower. “Does that mean I can kiss you?”

The curve of her cheek shifted with her smile as she answered, “I’m afraid it means you must. As often as possible. And you should call me Jules.”

He leaned in, his lips only a breath from her bare neck when he said, “Jules.” She shivered, but when his mouth touched her skin, Jules melted against him. His lips trailed slowly up to her jaw, brushing the sensitive flesh beneath her ear before Nickolas pulled back just enough to let her turn to him. The light in her eyes was playful and content as she came forward to meet him in a kiss. It was soft and sweet, unrushed because there was nothing but this for as long as forever.

“Or at least until tomorrow,” Jules murmured.

Nickolas could barely murmur the “What?” that slipped between the brush of their lips, lost again to the unbearable contentment of the moment.

“Nothing,” she said. “Never mind.”

“Saints,” he breathed. “We should have been doing this the entire time we were engaged.”

“No idea what you were waiting for,” she said as her fist balled into the material of his shirt to drag him back. “Must make up for lost time. Only thing for it.”

He slid a thumb against her cheek, fingers at the base of her neck tipping her head toward his. “Noted.”

The orange pinkof sunrise lit the sky when Nickolas’s awareness surfaced again. He wasn’t certain if he’d dozed off, only that his limbs felt liquid and his eyes heavy. If Jules had meant to watch the sunrise, she’d missed it. Laid against him, her legs sprawled beneath the long skirt, boots canted in opposite directions. She looked impossibly peaceful. One arm was wrapped firmly around him, the other tucked beneath her, hand tangled in the material of his jacket. Her hair had fallen from its pins, long locks of it soft against his skin.

He had the thought that he should wake her but could not quite bring himself to disturb such needed rest. It was followed by the thought that he could carry her, take her back to her rooms where she could stretch comfortably in her own bed.

Then, with a jolt, Nickolas recalled that she was his wife. Her rooms would in fact, be not in the chancery, but his own suite. That was when Nickolas, Lord Brigham, remembered that Jules was a queen. That a queen’s husband was…

“Saints,” he wheezed. “That’s not—”

Jules shifted, snuggling closer to wrap both arms around his waist. Nickolas’s words dried up. He could not bear to wake her, only smoothed his hand over her shoulder as he forced himself to relax once more against the wall. He would have to come to terms with what had happened but that was a worry for outside their courtyard garden. There, he was with Jules, and the world was silent, and with her in his arms, he eventually drifted off to sleep.

EPILOGUE

Weeks later, Nickolas stood atop the small knoll overlooking the impossibly grand garden on the palace lawn of the warm and sunny kingdom in which his wife had been named queen. He tried not to think on it too much, because it still hurt his head. Jules’s brothers granting the throne to their younger sister had not only illustrated to the kingdom their full support but that she was without fault in her father’s dealings with the fae.

The fae queen had been ousted once those bound to her by bargain or loyalty had been removed and any claim on their father or the throne was resolved. No one was certain where she had gone, only that she had given up her ploy far more easily than anticipated. Jules’s father had suffered greatly at the hands of the fae queen but seemed more restful once she was gone and his heirs returned.

For her part, Jules had shined. She possessed a calm authority and wielded her easy ability to disregard or focus on the chattering of others like a weapon. Maneuvering courtiers did not stand a chance.

She glanced up at Nickolas from where she stood at his side in a simple gown of the richest fabrics, a thin gold crown woven into her upswept hair. “Will you always look at me in such a manner, or do you suppose it will wear off in time?”

He grinned. “I cannot seem to help it. You are too lovely to look away from, you make me unbearably happy, and, I’m afraid, indecently proud to call you my wife.”

On Jules’s other side, Frederick rolled his eyes. “One can only hope it wears off soon. I can’t fathom what a man would do with more pride than you.”

“Someday,” Nickolas murmured as his gaze trailed over Jules’s skin, “you will find something that satisfies you half as much as this life does me. And that day, you will have to eat your crotchety words.”

Frederick scoffed.

The smile in Jules’s gaze was only for Nickolas. Then she returned to watching the lawn, where the other five of her brothers idled among the flowers with Nickolas’s sisters, Ian, and several members of court. “It seems we’ve a great many such pairings to look forward to. I can only hope that whomever each of our loved ones find are as well matched.”

Nickolas managed to tear his gaze away to take in his sisters, their bare golden locks standing out among a sea of dark top hats and ribboned bonnets. The eldest was speaking closely to one of Jules’s brothers. He could not object to her finding a prince, but he did not think he could wish any of his sisters on souls so kind as the Declares. Well, maybe Frederick. But that was where he drew the line.

His youngest sister knelt before a tame rabbit, and Nickolas edged closer to Jules. “Did you say you were once given a menagerie?” His gaze connected with hers once more. “What precisely did you let out of that cage as a girl?”

Jules’s lip twitched. “Lions. Among other things.”

Nickolas barked a startled laugh, earning a glance from the courtiers who’d engaged Frederick in conversation. “Truly, the heart of a warrior. I am delighted to call you my queen.”

She turned to face him, shutting out the entire courtyard with just that bit of attention. “You mustn’t,” she reminded him. “I am their queen. To you, I am only—”

He leaned in, voice low as he took her hand in his. “It is not as if I could ever forget, love.” He lifted their hands to brush a soft kiss over Jules’s knuckles. “Your name is etched on the walls of my heart.”