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I pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. “I thought we agreed to share fears.”
She gripped my forearms wrapped around her middle, tilting her neck to let my lips claim the curves. “I’m notnotsharing, but I’ve never seen you look so much like a corpse. You were finally sleeping deeply, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
I growled against her skin. “Weak excuses, Songbird. Wake me. Always wake me.”
“Larsson needs you dead, Erik,” she whispered. “I keep seeing it when I close my eyes. The more days pass, the more I see it. I try, by the hells, I’m trying to keep my mind from spinning.” Her voice croaked. “But I can’t find peace, not when we wake—for we are instantly drawn into plans and strategy and waiting. Now, not even when we sleep, for the Mares haunt my dreams with a life empty ofyou.”
She spun around, clinging to my waist like it kept her breathing. Her shoulders trembled when a gentle tear dropped down my bare chest. I dug my fingers through her hair, cradling her head to my heart.
“This won’t do, love.” I kissed her brow. “There’s no need to shed a tear for a short life.”
Livia tilted her face, using the heel of one hand to wipe her cheeks.
“I have no plans of spending less than a thousand turns with you at my side. Until I’m hunched and my skin is sagging off my bones.” Livia offered a wet chuckle and ducked her head under my chin. I stroked my palms down her spine. “It’s true. And, to add to your fate,my leg aches more each turn. By the time the Otherworld calls, you’ll be hauling my ass around on your back, love. Might as well ready your fears for those days.”
I felt her smile against my chest. Her hold around my waist tightened. “I will carry you everywhere, Serpent, so long as I get those thousand turns.”
I unraveled from her hold and gripped her palm, tugging her toward the door to the gardens. “Come with me.”
Livia kept close as I led us down the steps to the terraces and gardens. Since we’d been reunited, there’d been little time for her to visit, to shape them as she’d done before.
“You are drowning in there,” I told her. “Every corner of that palace, every face in those walls, is a reminder our fight is not over. I need you to breathe.” I pressed against her, hooking my arm around her body and drew my lips against her ear. “I need you to remember you are Livia Ferus, daughter of warriors, seducer of the Ever King, and . . . you are my heartbond. I need no magic, no spell, to tell me that you are written into every thread of my future days.”
Livia’s thumb traced my jaw. “Serpent.”
“Songbird.”
“I am in love with every dark, wonderous piece of you.”
I kissed her, slow and sweet. When I pulled away, I took her to an untamed shrub with round, green berries dangling from the limbs. “Tell me what to do.”
“What?”
I waved my palms over the garden. “You found peace here once. Your fury thrives here, and I think you ought to be reminded that you can order a king about. Tell me what to do.”
Half of Livia’s mouth curved into a smile. “You want to help me tend the gardens? You’ve never done that before.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Yes. You know I do.”
“Then, this is what we’re doing tonight.”
“I’m barely dressed.”
“All the better.” I made a deliberate scan over the diaphanous slip covering her breasts and curves.
Livia rolled her eyes but knelt in front of the shrub. I maneuvered with less grace into sitting, my leg unable to tolerate kneeling tonight. With a smile, she placed her palms on the soil. Heat from her magic flowed beneath us.
Almost in an instant, as though the wild foliage were pleading for something to tend to them, the leaves glistened, lush and healthy. Branches shifted, and berries plumped until juice burst from the tops.
Livia instructed me on the manual tasks—pulling pebbles from the soil, stripping withered leaves, bracing heavier limbs that took more of her energy.
Halfway through a rather prickly fern, she glanced at me. “We’re doing this because I enjoy it. You swim when you need to breathe, but we’ve never really talked about what else you enjoy, Erik.”
“Your body.”
“Naturally.” Livia winked. “What else? Try to think outside your bed, Serpent.”
