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“Who is Baldr?” He was muttering those foreign names again.
“The god of my only hope of not exploding in your palm.” He took her hands in his and held them by her head. “I cannot give you a child if I do so.”
“I want more than a child from you.” Oh, what had she said? He froze above her, and oh no, it was a mistake, she was mistaken in speaking so plainly.
“Under normal circumstances, a man will say anything to procure the paradise laid before him,” he said. “But know this for truth when I say I will give you everything, Beatrice. My mate.”
Beatrice rose, and Arthur lowered, and they joined and, overwhelmed, stilled. He held himself as close as he could without crushing her, keeping his weight off her while surrounding her with his strength. She basked in it now that she knew it was there for her protection, that it was hers to draw upon, to trust rather than fear.
In trust, Beatrice lifted her hips to draw him in deeper and wrapped her legs around his hips. He raised up on his knees and slipped one of his massive hands beneath her. She kissed him everywhere she could reach, and he did the same, curving that great back and nipping at her earlobe, running his tongue down her neck, mouthing at her collarbones, and as the feeling within built and built, she set her teeth on his biceps and tightened the grip of her knees. He left off beseeching his gods and goddesses and whispered her name, over and over, until they clung to each other through their release, one after the other.
***
“Do not fall asleep on me again, if you please.” Madam had thrown her shyness aside and lay sated in the candlelight, allowing him to bathe her with the soapy cloth.
“I cannot help it if your diligence is so thorough I am done in.” She ran a little foot up and down his shin.
Well, that was as pleasing a thing as he’d ever heard. He demonstrated this by snuggling them up in the sheets. Ah, a reprise of shyness: she tucked her face into his neck, and he tilted his cheek to lay it on her head.
“Arthur.” She ran her fingers through that lock of hair she preferred. “Am I truly your mate?”
“You are. My bear is in alt, and the family will soon be.”
“They already are.” She took a breath and glanced up at him. “I thought you had to—”
“Had to?” She certainly wasn’t referring to—
“Bite?” Madam wiggled against him with fervor, so much so he was in danger of hardening again. “I thought there was a bite?”
“There is.” How to explain this without sounding like a barbarian?
“Castleton attempted it once or twice.”
He reeled back. “Attempted?”
She hid her face again. “It did not take.”
“It must have been horrific.” Arthur sat up to lean against the headboard and pulled her into his lap.
“It was.” Madam settled her chest against his and rested her cheek on his shoulder. “Worse, Georgie demanded proof I had not been bitten, for whatever reason.”
The snarl that burgeoned in his throat was so strong, it brought on a burst ofdominatum—for which he received a fierce tug on his forelock.
“None of that, thank you very much,” she said. “I insisted a lady be appointed to inspect my person. I gather the bite may lie anywhere on the body?”
“Do not discuss this as though we were discussing stockings and garters.”
“I would not show Georgie those, either, for what it’s worth.” She sat back on his lap and set about petting his sideburns again.
“How dare he,” Arthur snarled, but his incipient rage was no match for her comforting touch.
“He dares as he is the highest among you and me, in both our natures.” Beatrice combed her fingers through his curls, idly, like a gesture of long habit. “I held his gaze through the request and through the aftermath. I can assure you, he regretted it.”
He could well imagine. “Had you done so while holding one of those curtsies, I could only count it even better.”
“Why should he wish to see was I unmarked?”
Arthur ran his hands up her back. “Had you not known the Shapeshifter secret, he would have assumed you were not aware of what the mark signified. Your wealth would have been his, and you would have been doubly his subject, as a human and the mate of a Shifter. You would have been given a portion, a mere fraction of what he took, immured in a cottage in the marches, and lost to society.” He came over shy of a sudden. “Dare I hope you feel you escaped a terrible fate?”
