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“Break the—” Horror widened her eyes. “I have had them for two years, Warrick. Two years! How many suffered who did not have to?”
Emotion swelled in his throat. He brought their clasped hands to his lips and kissed her fingers. “That is the sort of queen you are. You would have died when you gave back the jewels. Yet your first thought is this—for people who are not even of your kingdom.”
“I have been resigned to dying. Relieving such suffering would be a fine way to go.” Despite her light reply, another frown furrowed her brow. “A raven is Anhera’s bird.”
“And the jewels kept you alive long enough to come to my prison…then put you on a path to Galoth, and to regain your health before arriving with the jewels to break the curse. Then on to Aleron, with my axe. So mayhaps it was meant to be that you received the jewels and went home. Only not as you thought.”
“Not as I ever thought.” She rolled to face him again. Softly she said, “I cannot remain with my retinue. They cannot all be disloyal, but I would always be on my guard with them. The people who feed me, who bathe me…not knowing if some helped either Nurse Chardryn or Serjeant Iarthil.” She shook her head. “I have too little trust left.”
“I will take you to Galoth. Only you and me.”
Though her expression brightened, she hesitated. “What of when the purge comes? Will you need assistance?”
As if he would allow anyone else to see to his wife’s needs. “We will take the river route. I can tend to you on the barge.”
“Is there anyone in this retinue I can trust fully? What have your overhearings told you?”
Warrick considered that. “The maid, Dara,” he said after a moment. “You wish her to come with us?”
Elina shook her head. “There needs to be someone we can trust to stand as witness and speak to the true reasons I left.” A brittle smile curved her lips. “The serjeant’s vow to keep me safe means he would not obey any order to lead the retinue home and to let us continue alone. You would have to kill him to stop him from accompanying us.”
“If you wish, I will.”
“No. But I wish never to see him again.” With that fierce statement, more of her hurt slipped through another crack in her numbness.
He cupped her cheek. “They do not expect us to leave this tent for three days. We can be gone before they are aware.”
“Yet if we sneak away, they will not know why.” A hint of vulnerability glimmered in her eyes. “And…I wish to know why Nanny Char betrayed me. Perhaps it ought not matter, but it does.”
“Then we will ask her. We can call for her now, claiming that my bizarre and giant cock is stuck inside you and we need her assistance, lest I pull you ass to ass from the tent.”
Elina grinned and bit her lip, as if against a laugh. Then her expression softened. “How long will the purge last?”
“A fortnight for the worst of it. Then recovering your strength after…it will take longer.”
“And in that time we will not wish to kiss much. Or do more.”
“I think not.” Kissing was the very last thing Warrick would wish to do when she was suffering.
“When will the purge begin?”
She had not taken the bloodbane since the day of his last glowing. “Within the next day or two.”
“Let us be gone before then.” She drew a shuddering breath. “But this night… I would wish to have something to hold onto—and to look forward to when the purge is over. So let us not be quiet anymore. Let them hear me cry your name as you eat me alive. Let them quake at the sound of your mighty roar as you spend, and let all the world know the Radiant Queen has thoroughly bedded—and been bedded by—her king.”
Swiftly she moved, pushing at Warrick’s shoulder until he rolled onto his back. A moment later she straddled his stomach, and he was torn between arousal and laughter and the deep ache of knowing that Elina was not merely building a memory to carry her through the purge, but trying to forget how painfully she’d been betrayed by those closest to her.
Yet if forgetting was what she needed, then he would drive every coherent thought from her brain. Clasping her nape, he dragged her mouth to his. Almost near enough to kiss. “You wish to be eaten alive, wife?” he growled. “You wish me to feast upon your cunt?”
Her skin flushed. “Yes,” she said breathlessly.
“Then you are astride the wrong part of me.” As her eyes widened, he began to urge her higher, his mouth already watering. He reverently kissed the flesh that passed over his lips, from her chin to her belly, until her bare cunt hovered over his mouth—wet and luscious and fragrant. Had any man ever been so blessed? Warrick marveled at the exquisite beauty of her—his woman, his wife, his queen—then lifted his head to partake in the finest of all wedding feasts.
