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Warmth floods me.

He collapses over me, chest heaving, arm winding tightly around my waist as he rolls us onto our sides. I’m cocooned in his heat, his still throbbing cock buried deep as it softens inside me.

We stay like that for a while; bodies tangled like roots.

We come together and come apart two more times before Riven curls around me, arm draped over my waist and hand splayed across my stomach. His heat seeps through the silken sheet separating his palm from my bare skin.

We’re boneless and spent, skin sticky with sweat and release.

Silence descends as his breath evens out, gentle warm puffs against the hair on my neck.

I lay there in his arms, balancing on the cusp of sleep, eyes heavy-lidded.

Just as I’m about to tip over the edge into the darkness, Riven whispers, “You frighten me, Gwyn.” His tone is bereft of his usual snark, leaving something raw in its place. Something tender, aching. “Not because of your power, but because when I’m with you, I’m just Riven, and by some miracle, that’s enough for you when it was never enough for anyone else.”

I’m frozen to the spot, unable to acknowledge his confession, unsure if he even knows I’m awake to hear it. When he presses a kiss to the soft skin behind my ear, I know, without any shadow of a doubt, he believes I’m asleep.

I tuck his words deep into my chest, promising to unpack them later because who convinced this striking, kind-hearted, stubborn male that without his crown or his dagger, he isn’t enough?

Chapter 25

RIVEN

Dreamless.

If I could describe my sleep in a single word, it’d be that. Not because Gwyn and I fucked hard and often enough last night to tire us both out, but because there is nothing—absolutely nothing—I could dream about that would be better than what I’m living.

Gwyn, Gwyn, Gwyn.

Her name pounds in time with my heart, urging me to reach for her, to pull her divine body close and hold her against me. Only, my hands come up empty. I crack open one eye, then the other, blinking my vision clear.

Her side of the bed is devastatingly vacant, the sheets cold.

The room still holds the echo of our moans, of my confession.

I don’t think she heard the truth I’ve kept buried—that I’ve never felt worthy without my crown or supreme dagger.

I’m Riven Thaelon, fae king and fae supreme, and that’s all I am to most people.

But to Gwyn, I’m just… Riven.

Prick. Bastard. Occasionally, an asshole. Lovingly, a grandsire.

I stretch and roll onto my side, content to lie in bed a bit longer, when I spot it.

A piece of parchment, folded neatly, on the bedside table. I reach for it.

It isn’t a tender goodbye or an explanation for her disappearance.

It’s an avowal.

It’s not just sex to me either.

The words burn in my mind, lingering long after I set the note down.

By mid-morning, carriages line the street outside Thistle and Thread, their wheels crunching over the cobblestones as brides continue to arrive in staggered waves.

A small crowd has gathered over the last hour, watching as my guests drift into the dress shop in batches—three or four at a time—so it isn’t too crowded while they select gowns to be tailored for tomorrow evening’s ball.