With shaking hands, he cupped my cheeks. “It is a dream, then.”
I laughed in half a sob, taking one of his strong hands and biting down hard on his palm.
He hissed in pain and bolted upright with narrowed eyes, darting over my face, my body, meeting my eyes of dark brown to his steel blue. “You love me?”
I nodded repeatedly, working my way into his lap, pulling him to me—the truth of everything I wanted to say finally at the tip of my tongue, but I could not say it through the tremble of my chin. Instead, I chose to say the simplicity of it again. “I do, Arthur. I love you.”
He pulled my mouth to his and our kiss was wild between us—the same kiss we’d shared many times there below the surface, but this time it came with such truth, I felt the shatter of any reservation I’d been forced to face before.
His hands left my cheeks, sliding and pressing into my back, over my wings, pulling me closer. The heat of his skin on mine was enough to burn me, flay me—sear me thoroughly until I could not separate Goddessfrom King.
“Ahem!”
He kissed my neck, driving a moan from my lips when his teeth grazed over the bite marks left there a year before.
“AH-HEM!”
I startled, holding onto Arthur’s shoulders and turning my head to see Piffle, standing there covered in what only the deepest parts of the Veil could identify, and wringing his hands again.
“Apologies, Piff,” Arthur started, pulling the strap of my gown back over my shoulder.
“Perhaps a bath is in order? It is one thing to be savedagainon the brink of death, and entirely another to go at it in such…filth.” He looked down at his own attire. “I suppose I could use a wash as well.”
Arthur rose, pulling me up with him, slipping a hand underneath my knees and holding me at his chest. “After you, Piff,” he said, nodding toward the northern corridor.
With a toothy grin, Piff led the way to fill our bath, and I wrapped my arms around the man I loved.
CHAPTER 50
Arthur
Reshina was unequivocally mine,and the moment Piff left to see to his own bath, I was kissing her hard against the marble inlaid along the walls of the washing room as steam rose in great billows scented with floral notes.
Just as feral, she had me stripped in seconds, blood flaked and crusted along our bodies, something far worse matted in our hair—we didn’t care, we didn’t have time to follow Piff’s suggestion and bathe, we only had time to come together again.
My cock slid inside her pressed against the wall, and we quickly became undone. Where once I made love to my wife, now I made love to the woman who loved me back. I didn’t know how her curse had been broken, how she’d saved me from death, her daughter from her illness, or what had happened in the western corridor, but I did know she loved me.
She repeated it over and over as I thrust into her, the sound of our bodies slapping together filling the warm air shifting around us. When she came, she came hard, crying out, biting down on my neck.
I saw stars, the moon, the edges of the Veil as I spilled into her wrapped tightly on my cock. She laughed as I plunged herinto the bath, scrubbing her body inch by inch, taking my time with my favorite parts of her.
When we’d finally washed clean, I brought her to our bed, refusing to let her go. We lay on our sides, bodies pressed together and she told me of her journey to save her daughter. She explained how I’d broken her curse and how, with Piffle’s help, she’d gotten me to Ishtak.
“You cannot tell me the rest,” I concluded.
“No. But it will be revealed in time.”
“You are free. You may leave whenever you’d like.”
She shook her head. “No, Arthur. You are bound to the Underrealm and lands of Heartstone Castle for half of each year. And I am bound to you in that time as well.”
I grunted. “And how is that curse broken?”
“I’m not telling.”
I nipped her finger in my hand. “I’ll get it out of you yet.”
She laughed, a beautiful, carefree sound. “I’d rather keep that curse. I like it. It binds me to the man I love, and I will not be parted from him.”
