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We remained there, Erik bent over me, my body boneless in his gentle embrace. He sprinkled kisses up the divots of my spine, my neck, then hugged my back to his chest as he softened and we broke apart.
Gently, Erik turned me around and held me close. I threaded my fingers through his hair, kissing his jaw, hislips.
“Do you think they’ve noticed our absence has gone on for some time?” More specifically, a Night Folk king. Gods, without fail I would lose myself in the Ever King and somehow pretend that my father would not notice certain things about his daughter and Erik Bloodsinger.
At the very least, Valen Ferus was a wise enough man to never mention them.
Even still, heat flooded my cheeks.
Erik kissed each side of my face. “I doubt anyone has noticed our absence at all. If anything, they’ll think we were tired and went to bed.”
“Oh, yes, I’m certain we have them all fooled.”
He kissed me sweetly. “Well, if you’d rather not return and face them, wecouldgo to bed. In fact, I’m in favor of this new plan. I rescind the option to even return. To bed it is.”
I laughed and pinched his ribs, losing myself once again when Erik kissed me, soft and gentle, then with the passion and need I had only felt for this man.
CHAPTER FORTY
THE SERPENT
New faces decoratedthe edges of the table in the great hall. Sea witches, some men from the House of Tides, and Tavish with Maelstrom waited near a back door.
Alistair fussed and bustled about, seeing to it those we’d brought into our schemes were fed, boarded in fine rooms, and tended to like they were helpless littles.
Livia sat beside me, and the high back of her seat made her look every bit a queen. Her hand was steady on my knee beneath the table. At least one of us was regal.
I lifted a drinking horn to hide the swift glance to where Stieg sat with Valen and Aleksi. They laughed at something Sewell said across the table.
Stieg’s confession brought a haze to my mind, one I didn’t understand. The warrior had wanted me to stay, not merely as a sea fae brought into his world out of pity, but . . . as a damn son. A member of his house.Hislegacy.Hisboy.
My insides were wrapped in coiled barbs, sharp and painful. What might life have been if Thorvald had never returned for me? Nodoubt I would’ve been a Rave, like Aleksi. I would’ve grown with Livia, deep in her world.
Would I have still had her taste on my tongue? Her body wrapped around mine?
The way Valen treated Stieg, despite the differences of their titles, it certainly wouldn’t have been impossible for a warrior to love a royal, not with earth fae.
But Tait, he would’ve been alone. My cousin was somber, but the occasional smile twitched on his face down the table whenever Gavyn tried to get Princess Mira to perform an illusion against a sea witch without being noticed.
Celine. My gaze drifted to her place where she sat between the twin princes, mocking something Jonas was attempting with a few spell herbs Tavish had offered up. She would be dead, the same as Sewell.
I could’ve had a life without war and hate. I could’ve had my songbird every day, but I would’ve been without the others.
The doors near Tavish and Maelstrom swung open. Livia jolted in her chair, jaw clenched. She fought to bury her unease.
I leaned over and pressed a kiss to her neck. “We do not need to do this.”
Blue glass found my gaze. “We need her through this, and even if she does not recall it, we now know she has placed wards against elven magic before.”
“The exchange must be done,” Jonas insisted from his place across the table.
“Yes, she might be able to stand against the elven, but it doesn’t mean any of you must make the sacrifice,” I argued. “We have the support of many.”
“If you are to finally be accepted as the king here, you need your people to be seen standing with you.” Jonas narrowed his eyes. “You need us all to stand with you. This allows your sea witch of a grandmother to be where she belongs. You’re stronger with her, and that’s the end of it.”
I did not know what to say. The offer to sacrifice for an enemy was foreign to me. Jonas Eriksson, a prince of the earth realms, was willingly taking the exchange of theneach-daispell bond.
To make the proper exchange so Narza was free to return to her life in the Ever, the spell required an opposing bond. Where a powerful sea fae offered to defend the earth fae, now a powerful prince of the earth realms would vow devotion and protection to the Ever.
