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Bryony’s mouth twitched despite the strain in her face. “Comforting.”
Lenora left and closed the door behind her.
The throne room settled into quiet. Broken stone and blood covered the floor. Adrian lay near the lowest step with the two pieces of the heartblood dagger beside him. None of it felt like victory until Bryony’s fingers closed around mine.
“What now?” she asked.
“We rest. Then we open the vault and find a safe method to remove the Crown.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“I’ve learnt that you respond badly when I begin with all the ways we might die.”
“I respond badly when you decide them for me.”
“Then we’ll decide together.”
The answer softened her expression. She stood in torn clothes with bruises around her throat, blood on her hands and a Crown she couldn’t remove. She had still freed every vampire Adrian controlled when she could have used them as an army.
Adrian had wanted her power. Harrowmere had wanted her blood. I wanted the woman who’d looked at both of us and made her own choice.
I moved in front of her and took her other hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Giving you one choice you don’t have to fight for.”
I lowered myself to one knee.
Pain pulled at the healing wound, but no command pressed into my blood. The bond remained warm and open between us. I had spent a century being forced to kneel, and this felt nothing like it.
Bryony stared down at me. “Stellan.”
“Adrian wanted that Crown to put me here. It never will.” I tightened my hands around hers. “You’re my queen because I choose you. You gave me freedom when taking control would have been easier. You trusted me with every ugly truth I had, and you stood with me when Adrian tried to use them against us.”
Her eyes shone. “You stood with me too.”
“I always will.”
The promise moved through the bond with everything I couldn’t fit into the words. Desire warmed it, but love held deeper and steadier.
Bryony pulled on my hands. “Get up.”
I rose because she wanted me beside her, and she caught my shirt in both fists before I reached my full height.
Her mouth met mine. The kiss carried relief, fear and the fierce edge that had drawn me to her from the start. I held her hips and pulled her close, careful of the bruises at her throat. She bit my lower lip hard enough to wake my fangs.
My blood heated as her hands slid up my chest, and the Crown’s white points brushed my forehead when I kissed her again.
“I’m getting it off you,” I said against her mouth.
“We’re getting it off me.”
“Together.”
She kissed me once more, softer now. The bond opened with her trust and the promise of every night we had nearly lost.
A cold presence moved through the bond.
