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Malik lay relaxed on top of her and caressed her face as he kissed her. His smile was so tender that her heart began to ache. Gone was the sadness that had cloaked him for decades.
“I wish I could express just how much you’ve changed everything for me, Willow. Everything.”
She understood. “And you’ve done the same for me. I never thought to have love in my life because of my duty to the colony. Now you’re here, sharing my bed. I’m overwhelmed with joy and with the wonder of it all.”
“Me, too.”
He kissed her again and again, and because he was still inside her, he grew very firm once more.
He made love to her well past even the breach of dawn so that as the night-birds took to their nests and the day birds set up their own peculiar racket, she added her own cries to the wild cacophony.
Later, she cast her charm and built a barrier to all the noise so that she could fall asleep in Malik’s arms.
And she dreamed the dreams of the Nine Realms, of one day all the realms being free of Margetta and the Invictus.
~ ~ ~
The next night, at full-dark, Malik sat with Zane on Willow’s meditation porch drinking a couple of beers. Zane would be taking his men home in a few minutes, but wanted a word with Malik.
“So you’re bonded now.”
Malik smiled. “Yep.”
“I won’t ask what it’s like because you’ve got so much feel-good glowing from you right now that I’m getting a sunburn.”
Malik swigged his beer and watched the bats float in and out of the branches, moving in their erratic yet smooth way. “I never thought it could be like this.”
Zane groaned. “I’ve heard that more than once, so, shit.” His deep voice rolled through the forest. He touched the dagger tattoo on the side of his neck, rubbing as though in pain.
Malik glanced at him. There was nothing he could say, but he saw the dark look in Zane’s eye and knew exactly what that felt like as well. The storm would come to Swanicott Realm as it had come to the others, bearing hurricane force winds with nothing to be done except to face Margetta and stand tall.
So, for Zane’s sake, he kept silent.
Zane finished his beer and finally bid farewell, taking off into the night, his Guardsman coat flapping behind him.
Malik disposed of the empty bottles, then went on a hunt for Willow.
He found her below her treehouse complex, near the stream, pulling weeds in her vegetable garden. “I saw Zane leave.”
Malik nodded. “He’s taking his men home.”
“Thought as much. We have a new realm here, don’t we?”
Despite her garden gloves, he pulled her into his arms, nuzzling her neck. She moaned softly in return.
“How about a swim?” he asked.
“You mean in my secret pool?”
“I want to feel the waves wash over us again.”
She drew back and planted her hand on his chest. “And you’re sure you won’t be needed the rest of the night?”
He shook his head. “Evan has everything in hand. Besides, Alexandra the Bad told me I’d be in for a world of hurt if I didn’t tend to you over the next several nights as my one and only mission.”
She slid her hands into his hair and dislodged his Guardsman clasp. “I think Alexandra is the smartest woman alive.”
Malik smiled then suggested she lose the gloves. She whipped them off, afterward holding her arms open for him, ready to fly.
