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He chuckles, leaning against the stone, his arms crossed at his chest. “You did accuse us of having no modesty, didn’t you?”
“Couldn’t you at least put up a curtain?”
“I suppose we could. But the blessing is a miracle of sorts. No one wishes to hide it.”
A stone wall behind the altar catches my attention. I wander over to study it, enthralled. “What does this mean?”
Atticus’s powerful form closes in behind me. “Something from the time of the nymphs. No one knows, or no one has told us.”
“It looks like it was carved only yesterday.”
“One of many mysteries.”
I reach toward it, but then freeze.
“Go ahead. You can touch it. It won’t bite.”
I trace my fingertip over the ancient scrolling scripture. “It’s beautiful.”
“So are you.”
My pulse flutters with his words as strong hands settle on my hips, turning me around to face him. The clouds from earlier are breaking apart, allowing a glimpse of the waxing moon. It’s nearly full. In days, a second one will hang below it, as if appearing out of thin air, not there the night before, and gone the next, but its brilliant power is enough to create new life.
“What I said earlier, about Lord Danthrin, about why I punished him …” Atticus reaches up to unfasten a tie in my hair, then another. His deft fingers weave through my braids, unraveling them with efficiency. “It wasn’t entirely true.”
My unruly hair tumbles down around my face. “You mean, he wasn’t conspiring with the others?”
“I am certain he was.” Atticus’s chuckle is dark as he strokes a strand off my cheek. “If he’d stayed alive long enough, he would have proved it. That was the plan.”
I shut my eyes against his gentle caress, the sensation stirring desire in me that I know he can sense. “Then what happened?”
“I thought about what he’s done to you, to your family, what he would do if he ever got his hands on you again, and I could not leave him alive for one more second.” His breath skates across my lips.
And his words sink in. “You executed him for me.” The king chopped off a lord’s head in the middle of an assembly for me? I swallow against that truth. “That’s … sweet?”
His deep chuckle vibrates in my chest.
Finally, I dare open my eyes to find his trained intently on my lips.
“Should something happen to me, at least he cannot harm you.”
“Nothing will happen to you.”
He smirks. “Let us consider the history of Islorian kings for a moment, shall we? King Ailill was executed by his own son, my father was poisoned by his future daughter-in-law, my brother was betrayed by me, his brother. The only king who died peacefully of old age was Rhionn, and even he faced countless assassination attempts. So, yes, Gracen, something will likely happen to me, but at least you and your family will be safe from whatever sick obsession that keeper had with you.” He cups my cheeks with his palms. “Though I think I am beginning to understand it.” His hands slide back, falling to my neck, his thumbs stroking the sensitive skin behind my ears. “Because you are in my thoughts far too often to be healthy.”
“As you are in mine,” I admit brazenly, my pulse pounding in my eardrums. Before I can talk myself out of it, I lift onto my toes to press my lips against his in a tentative and soft kiss.
His eyes blaze with hunger as he breaks away, a mixture of surprise and raw heat in them, and something I can’t easily decipher.
I don’t have a chance to try before his mouth is on mine, parting my lips and sliding his tongue in, his fingers tangling through the untamed curls he just released.
This is … even better than the earlier kiss, his grip tight against my body, sandwiching us together as his tongue delves in with a skill I didn’t know possible. I’ve never kissed anyone like this before, but I’m learning fast, meeting each stroke with one of my own. On impulse, I graze his top teeth with the tip of my tongue. There’s nothing sharp there to prick me.
“Gracen.” My name is a groan on his lips. His hands slip under my cloak to fist the material of my dress, as if he’d like to tear it off right here. But he doesn’t. He only grips my waist tight and kisses me harder, his lips never leaving mine as our tongues and teeth and breaths tangle with increasing abandon.
Is this what it’s like to be the king’s tributary? If so, no wonder Sabrina danced around the castle the mornings after and moped with longing on the days he didn’t call.
Strange new sensations are igniting in my body—heat between my thighs, an ache in my lower belly. Feelings I’ve heard others whisper of but never experienced myself, and all stirred by a kiss from this Islorian male.
