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“Yes.”
“I’m moredraugrthan I used to be before . . .”
“Before you were injected with venom and nearly died? Yes.” Eli extended a hand toward her, inviting her closer. When she stepped in, he added, “But your heart still beats, bonbon. You are alive.”
“If I died . . .”
“You didn’t, and even if you had, you are alive here. Now.” Eli wasn’t going to deny that he’d pondered what would happen if she truly died. Would the draugr part of her—a part that resisted being subsumed when they’d bonded—mean she was, as with Beatrice, animated as if alive? Would her death mean that they were unbonded?
Would her death even kill him since she likely would continue to exist after death?
The fae bonded, and so the death of one spouse meant the death of both. There was no record of a bond with adraugrso there was no answer as to what her peculiar ancestry meant for them. There had, as far as they knew, never been another livingdraugr.It was a sort of magical circumvention of biology that her mother had managed.
Honestly, Mama Lauren was terrifying.
Beatrice, their several generations removed ancestor, was terrifying.
It was no wonder that the King ofElphamefound Geneviève frightening—or that Chester did. Fear of the unknown, of theother, was one thing that never seemed to die. And many men, Chester included, were utterly horrified by powerful women.
Eli, however, was not. He was certain that being loved by her was everything he wanted, and so he would do whatever it took to keep her safe.
“You are a gift, Geneviève. I am sorry these men do not realize that.” He pulled her closer still, hands coming to rest on her hips. “I do not quake at the magic you can summon. I do not fear the tripled ancestry in you.”
“I know.” She tilted her head, asking for a kiss that he gladly gave.
Kissing his wife was a sort of magic that was still new and precious, and Eli suspected it always would be so. When she pulled away, she sighed. “Do you mind if I wash off the blood, booze, and alchemy dust before I climb in that bed to be ravished?”
“Ravished?” he teased.
“Yes, please.” Geneviève brushed her hands over his chest and gave him the sort of innocent look that could launch the dogs of war. For that look, for this woman, there were few things Eli wouldn’t do.
“Be quick about it,” he grumbled, earning a laugh from her.
“Yes, sir.”
He paused. “So, it’s like that tonight?”
“Yes, sir,” she repeated as sheflowedtoward her shower.
What only a wise person realized was that the strongest of women sometimes simply needed to have someone else make the decisions for them behind closed doors.
Not always. Not every day.
Sometimes.
There were plenty of times when Geneviève was a feral creature, but there were plenty of times when all she needed was to not be the person in control—and that, too, was a beautiful thing to know.
Eli was certain he was the luckiest of men.
29
GENEVIÈVE
Itook a hurried shower, body free of blood and whatever else remained from our fight with Chester in Scotland . . . and our escape through the sea, imprisonment inElphame, and most recently, the fight with Gunnora. Honestly, that was all on the heels of imprisonment and torture with the twisted sisters in their crackpot faux holy order.
How am I even alive?
I felt a fierce longing for the days when a beheading was the whole of my duties. Maybe there was a way back to that, but it definitely wasn’t by becoming a queen. What the fairy tales all fail to mention is that ruling, that balls and banquets, that the stuff of a political life is fraught with assassination attempts and assorted nonsense. I wanted none of it.
