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“Good. That’s good.” I stared at him, feeling like the morning after the most intense what-did-we-do-last-night of my life. “So, we . . . didn’t?”
“Couldn’t.” He shrugged. “We couldn’t even stand at first. I remember that.”
“I don’t remember much after kicking them out,” I admitted. Snippets of trying to reach him. Of blood. I licked my teeth. “Did I attack someone? Monkey nuts! Eli, did I kill someone?”
“No.” He let out a long sigh. “No one was killed, Geneviève. My word.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what the next step was, but I was fairly sure that leaving this place wasn’t a thing I wanted. We could stay here in the wreckage, ignore the world. No more death threats. No moredraugr.A part of me suddenly wanted nothing more than an eternity right here.
“Wife,” Eli said, as if he was testing the word on his lips.
I looked at him, curiously.
“Mywife,” he said. “Geneviève Stonecroft.”
And it was silly to feel shy, but I did. I’d avoided this, fought it, and only just accepted it. It felt too fast, but it didn’t feelwrong.
“Which makes you my husband,” I said, lightly, as if it wasn’t the most momentous thing that had ever happened to me, including my near-death experience. “Because you felt love for me that completely.”
“And you for me,” he reminded me.
I swallowed sudden nerves. “I want to . . . behere. Understand this. Try to settle into this.”
Eli rested his forehead against mine.
“But I’m not changing my name, Eli,” I muttered. “Still Geneviève Crowe. Still me.”
“Geneviève Crowe of Stonecroft,” he suggested.
I snorted. “Becausethatrolls from the tongue so easily? No.”
“Here . . . here you are Geneviève of Stonecroft. My ancestors reside inourblood. Their memories, their strength. We carry them with us.” Eli had that cautious tone, which I realized now was fae in its nature. Patience rode in those sounds.
“And I accepted that when I chose this,” I reassured him. “Butmyancestor is in New Orleans. Alive-ish and sending me heads in boxes. My mother is there. My friends. And right now, our king hasElphamein hand. Once I know how long we have been here—”
“Four weeks.”
“Damn it,” I grumbled. “Are you sure?”
He gave a single nod, and I glanced at him.
“You were out a bit longer than I was,” he hedged.
“How long?”
“Two weeks.” Eli caught me before I walked away. “We didn’t realize you needed blood during the process. I should’ve thought of it sooner. Once I felt your hunger and fed you—”
“Fed me?”
He paused, and then pulled his shirt aside. A pair of angry red slashes on his chest were barely healed. “I chose you, Geneviève, and you . . .”
“What?”
“Fed me, as well.” He held my gaze. “I don’t recall most of it, but you needed a lot of blood because I savaged you.”
I shook my head. Eli was a lot of things, but savage?
He reached down and rested his palm against my inner thigh. “Here. I woke with my face wet with your blood. The vein pumping blood into my mouth.” He refused to look away. “I stopped when I came to, but we were both dressed in blood by then.”
