Page 131 of The Immortal’s Mark

“You haven’t,” I say softly. Not a question.

“No.” The word costs him. I can see it in the way his jaw tightens, the way he doesn’t quite meet my eyes. The Emperor of the Jade Throne, and he’s afraid I’ll think less of him for this.

Idiot. Beautiful, impossible idiot.

“Ren.” I wait until he looks at me. “I have died six hundred and forty-four times. I have been stabbed, drowned, poisoned, burned, and once, memorably, crushed by a falling ox.”

“I fail to see—”

“I’m not finished.” I press a finger to his lips. “In eight hundred years, no one has ever looked at me the way you do. No one has ever chosen me the way you just did. So if you think I care that you haven’t—” I stop. Softer. “I don’t. I care that it’s you. I care that it’s us.”

“The rest is mechanics?” The corner of his mouth twitches. Even now.

“The rest is details.” I find the edge of his robe. Pause. Let him feel the question. “And details can be figured out. Together. If you want.”

“I want.” His voice drops, rough and honest. “I have wanted for longer than I should admit.”

“Then let me—” I shift, pressing him gently onto his back, and he goes, watching me with those dark eyes that see too much. “Let me show you.”

I untie his robe slowly. Not teasing—just giving him time. Giving myself time, if I’m honest. My hands aren’t as steady as I’d like. Eight hundred years and I’m nervous. That should be funny. It isn’t.

The fabric falls open. Firelight catches the planes of his chest, the old scar along his ribs I’ve never asked about, the way his breathing has gone shallow. He’s beautiful. I’ve always known that, in the abstract way you know the sun is bright. But this is different. This is mine.

“You can touch me,” I tell him. “I won’t bite.” And then, because I seriously must have something wrong with me, I add: “At least not this time.”

He smiles and his hands find my waist. Hesitant at first, then steadier when I lean into him. I pull my own shirt over my head—simple, practical, nothing like the silks I wore at the festival—and watch his face change.

“Lián.” My name in his mouth like a prayer. Like a discovery.

“I know.” I bend to kiss him. “I know.”

We learn each other slowly.

His hands mapping my ribs, my spine, the curve of my hip. My mouth on his throat, his collarbone, the soft skin below his ear that makes his breath catch. Every touch a question. Every answer yes.

He’s careful with me. So careful it almost breaks my heart—this man who commands armies, who has held the weight of an empire, touching me like I’m something precious. Something that might shatter.

“I won’t break,” I whisper against his skin.

“I know.” His hands tighten on my hips. “I am not being careful because I think you will break. I am being careful because I want to remember everything.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Then pay attention,” I say, and show him what I like.

He learns fast. Of course he does—he learns everything fast, that’s the problem with him, the way he focuses. And right now all of that focus is on me. On the way I move. The sounds I make. The places that make me gasp and the places that make me laugh.

“There,” I breathe, and he remembers. “Like that,” and he adjusts. “Yes,” and he smiles against my throat, quietly triumphant, and I think: this is what it should have been. All those years. All those lives. It should have been this.

When I finally guide him inside me, he goes still.

Completely, absolutely still—the way he goes still when something matters too much for words. His eyes find mine in the darkness, and I see it all: the want he’s buried for twenty-two years, the fear that this will somehow be taken from him, the wonder that it’s happening at all.

“Okay?” I ask.

“I—” He swallows. “I do not have words for this.”