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Erik cocked his head to one side, revealing bruises in the shape of teeth all along the ridge of his shoulder.
Lips pinched, I turned away. “I heard no complaints.”
Slow strokes of his fingers traced the tapered tip of my ear. “Never keep your fears from me, Songbird.”
“Just a moment of worry when you weren’t here that it had all been a dream. I knew it wasn’t plausible but fell into the storm of spiraling thoughts all the same.”
“I’m disappointed,” he said, gripping my chin, urging me to look at him again. “I’ve still heard nothing foolish from your mouth.”
“You coddle me too much, Erik Bloodsinger.” I pinched his hip bone.
“I do not even know how to coddle.” Erik tugged on my waist until I rolled onto my shoulder to face him. “What did I tell you, love? Fear is powerful. Every mind sees it differently, but it is my honor to walk with you through yours. No matter how illogical you think them to be. Would you not do the same?”
I sighed. “Of course, I would. You, Ever King, could do with a few more stumbles, so Icanpick you up a bit more. You’re rather unbending. It makes others”—I pointed at myself— “quite surly when we cannot be so stalwart.”
He pecked my lips. “You know more than anyone, love, it is only a mask I wear.”
I stroked the stubbled edge of his jaw. “No masks with me, Serpent.”
“Aye.” He kissed me again, slower, more tender. “So long as you do the same.”
“Fine.” I let out an exaggerated sigh. “By the gods, you’re demanding.”
Erik settled his body over mine, grinning with the same viciousness I’d loved since those nights peering into his prison cell.
“I have ways to make more demands you might enjoy.” He kissed both swells of my breasts, then rolled off the bed. “Unfortunately, it will need to be later. Our faces are required in the hall.” He gatheredthe food tray and laid it on the bed. Erik splayed on his side beside it, propped on one elbow. “I’ve tried to threaten death to Alistair to leave us be, even vowed to rid him of his damn doublets, but I’m afraid he’s the king here.”
I snickered and popped a small cake on my tongue. A groan of pleasure curled my toes. Milky glaze coated my throat in a burst of sweet, followed by the plush little cake.
Erik watched, his own sweet halfway to his mouth. “Say the word, love, and I will have you making more sounds like that. It would need to be swift, but I can’t stomach that again without being inside you.”
I tossed a small currant seed at his forehead. “It’s been days without good food. Larsson was not accommodating to his pet.”
I lifted a cup to my lips, pausing when Erik’s face shadowed.
“Don’t call yourself that.” His jaw pulsed. “Gavyn told us things he did to you.”
Bile churned in the back of my throat. I rested a hand on his arm. “I am still yours, Erik.”
“Gods, Livia.” He sat up and dropped his feet to the floor, leaning onto his knees. “Did you think you wouldn’t be? Did you think I would see you as something less?”
“No. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Erik hesitated, then, “For every moment he had you, I’d already planned to make him suffer. But to know he had his hands on you, that he drew blood from you, there is not a realm—from the gods to your people—who will not hear his screams. They will become myths, the haunts of the seas.” Erik turned his head, offering me the side of his face, but he didn’t lift his gaze. “I am not a man most consider heartfelt, but you can always speak with me, love. If ever you wish to—or need to—talk about what was done to you—”
“To both of us,” I interjected. “This was done to the both of us.”
With care, I crept over the bed and slid my arms around his waist from behind. My cheek pressed to the warmth of his spine, and I kissed the spot between the wings of his shoulders.
Erik covered my hands on his stomach with one of his. “I may not be skilled at gentility, but I don’t want the violence I feel to keep you from speaking to me about anything. I will always hear you first, then rage later.”
What Erik was truly saying burned a new vein of affection for the Ever King in my heart. Painful as it was to hear, Erik was offering his shoulder, his arms. He was offering his safety should it be needed.
I traced one of his scars over his upper back. “What I feared most was never seeing you again. When . . . when Larsson saw to it the heartbond was taken, I thought I might never breathe again. In my darkest thoughts, I considered you might believe me to be dead, and cease the search.”
Slowly, Erik adjusted on the edge of the mattress, one leg bent on the bed, the other foot still flat on the floor. He cupped a palm over my cheek. “I would storm the gates of the Otherworld to find you, Songbird. When the emptiness came, I never considered ending the search. Never allowed the belief that you were gone to enter. To me, it did not matter. I would never stop.”
A new tear burned down my cheek. Erik swiped it away with his thumb. “That night when he touched me . . . I still feel his hands—” My voice cracked, and Erik pulled me against his chest, holding me like he was frozen around my body. Breath came in sharp gasps over his skin. “His touch was cruel and ugly and . . . I felt I would never rid my skin of the remnants of it.”
