Page 127 of His Realm

“Can I come watch?” I called out. “Because so far the show has been fantastic.”

“Just lie down in bed and don’t move a lot and don’t be funny.”

“I’m always funny.”

“Jason!” he yelled, and I laughed but stayed put.

Once he came out with towel-dried hair, he collapsed on the bed beside me, got under the covers, and soon I had all his skin pressed to mine.

“Why’re you naked?” he asked drolly.

“Because I like being naked with you,” I said, kissing him and then realizing that his thick black mane was going to soak the pillow. “I’m going to get a dry towel for the pillow and dry your hair a bit more as well so you don’t get pneumonia.”

“I can’t get pneumonia,” he reminded me, “but a towel for the pillow is a good idea. It takes eons for anything to fully dry here.”

“Eons? Really?”

“Fine. Hours, then, but I’ll get it. You’re only newly risen.”

I was smiling as he got out of bed, and admired the view of his beautiful ass and then closed my eyes a moment letting the happiness sink into my bones before he returned.

“You look strong,” he told me as I took the towel from him so I could dry his hair some more before he lay down again. “You’re as beautiful as you’ve always been.”

“Beautiful?”

“Yes,” he rumbled. “You know you’re the most beguiling of creatures.”

I chuckled into his shoulder when he pulled me close.

“Tell me how everything is going here,” I asked him.

He grunted, and I pressed closer, feeling his cock thickening between us. “No matter how alluring you are, you are not strong enough or healed enough to have carnal relations with me.”

“Carnal relations?” I baited him.

“This is simply a normal reaction to being close to my mate. I know your chest and back still pain you, and you can’t laugh without hurting yet either, so⁠—”

“I don’t need to laugh, only take you inside my body.”

He growled. “Just be still and tell me your plans.”

“My plans? I want to hear about yours.”

“Mine are simple. I will remake Ophir as it should be now, had it followed all the steps of progress that should have been taken to this point. I will turn it into a place of learning, where vampyrs from all over the world may come and be educated and then study. It will be a place of scholarship for everyone equally. Chryos and his peers have begun, and many of my half sisters and brothers have already come to help. Also, many nobles are interested in coming to help family members they’ve been cut off from, and blood is being collected and shared.”

“That is amazing news.”

“My hope is that they will all be fully restored quickly, no more than six months at the most. I need everyone healthy to implement all the changes I want to make.”

“That’s very smart.”

“I am very smart,” he said, nuzzling into the side of my neck. “You smell absolutely decadent.”

“Drink, then. I would love it.”

He kissed his favorite spot between my neck and the hollow of my shoulder instead.

“I think it would be good for my body,” I told him. “A reminder to renew my blood, as it is for your consumption. A font without the person who drinks from them… I don’t think that’s healthy.”