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“I’m surprised,” I confess, watching the ripples. “I didn’t expect that of Ocean—to just give her up like that.Bether in a game.”
“It is a simple answer.” His tone is cold, curt. He is tired and wants for bed—not for me. “He does not love her. Therefore, her value is that of a concubine’s.”
I turn my darkening expression on him. “Like my value once was?”
“No.” His stony profile faces me. “Yours was always value in my soul, from the day I first saw you.”
I frown at him, flashes of my early days with him assaulting my mind. There was no value there, not then…
Finally, he turns to face me, his expression,his eyes, softer now. “I sensed something about your ancestor who wished to make the first bargain for your family. I sensed fate. So I allowed the bargain—and I waited, patiently, for fate to reveal itself. I heard your cough before I saw you. I felt it in my chest, the pain you experienced. More than that, I felt the need to take it away. You have never been a mere lover to me.”
A small, sad smile steals my mouth. I look down at my lap.
But my mind flickers back to Ember, to Ocean.
He is so kind to her. Affectionate and loving. And yet, in the end has treated her so poorly that it’s totally floored me.
Even in those earlier days, Daein refused to give me away to anyone. He kept me, his grip so tight it was suffocating … it still is. But he never would have gambled me away.
It brings a thought to mind—“Do the litalves love?”
His blue eyes, sharp and bright once more, pierce through me. “Yes.”
“The same way that dokkalves do? With evates?”
“They have evates,” he says delicately, curiously following my train of thought, “but that is not what they call it.”
I blink away confusion. “What do they call it, then?”
“Fae love.” His hand glides closer to me, testing the waters.
I don’t cringe back from him, forever used to his rough handling of me, and his warm palm finds a place at the small of my back.
He draws lazy circles there. “Their love,” he goes on, “is more lethal, dangerous, and they might kill their loves in a frenzy of anger. This has been known to happen at times.”
“Is that any different to dokkalf love?” There’s no bitterness in my sincere tone as I watch him.
“They go on living,” he explains. “We—the dokkalves—would quickly follow our evates’ deaths by our own hand.”
The image of him falling on his sword to join me in the afterlife flickers in my mind. He would do it, too. I have no doubt about it. Even if he was the one to take my life, my blood on his hands, on his blades and sword, he would be quick to strike himself down afterwards and join me in the stars.
Forever connected.
Always entwined.
Unescapable.
8
APRIL
The Quiet holds one more hour before it ends and brings with it the start of the Warmth.
We leave shortly after breakfast. The carriage is likely being made up for us as the weight of Daein’s body moves over mine on the bed, slow and predatory. He didn’t have me before we found sleep—as I suspected from the drinks he was indulging in—but he is awake enough now, sober enough, to show me his love in his own way.
He’s tender. I cling to the edge of sleep, yet I feel everything as I let him drape my meaty thigh over his, his grip firm, his mouth hot on my cheek.
He whispers words to me, rousing me from my rest as I feel the prod of him on my ready heat. I’m always ready for him. My body reacts almost as though it’s been trained to respond.
