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“Not a big priority.”
“It is. I need you at your full power.” The words came out wrong, and she amended, “I need you to be free of them.”
“I will be. We all will be.”
Staring into his dark eyes, she believed him. “I’m sorry about earlier. If I pushed you too hard.”
“I’m fine.” His voice didn’t sound fine.
“I wasn’t trying to tell you how to feel,” she said. “I just want you to know that none of us, especially me, hold you responsible for all this shit. We’re a team.”
He lowered his stare, and she hated the weight pressing on his head, drooping his wings. “I don’t know if I can do this again, Bryce.”
Her heart strained. “Do what?”
“Make choices that cost people their lives.” His eyes lifted to hers again, bleak. “It was easier for Shahar, you know. She didn’t care about other people’s lives, not really. And she died so fast, she didn’t have to endure the weight of the guilt that might have come later. Sometimes I envy her for it. I did envy her for it, back then. For escaping it all by dying.”
“That’s the old Umbra Mortis talking,” Bryce said, fumbling for humor amid the cold wash of pain and worry at his words, his dead tone.
“Maybe we need the Umbra Mortis right now.”
She didn’t like that. Not one bit. “I need Hunt, not some helmeted assassin. I need my mate.” She kissed his cheek. “I need you.”
The darkness in his eyes lightened, and it eased her heart, relief washing through her.
She kissed his cheek again. “I know we should go wash up for bed and use the chamber pot or whatever excuse they have for a toilet in this museum, but …”
“But?” He lifted his brows.
Bryce rose onto her toes, brushing her mouth against his. And the taste of him … Gods, yes. “But I need to feel you first.”
His hands tightened around her waist. “Thank fuck.”
There was more to be discussed, of course. But right now …
He lowered his face to hers, and Bryce met him, the kiss thorough and open, and just … bliss. Home and eternity and all she’d fought for. All she’d keep fighting for.
From the way he returned the kiss, she knew he realized it, too. Hoped he let it burn through any lingering scraps of remorse.
“I love you,” he said against her mouth, and deepened the kiss. She stifled a sob of relief, arms winding around his neck. Hunt’s hands slid around to her ass and he hefted her up, smoothly walking them over to the enormous, curtained bed.
Clothes were peeled away. Mouths met, and explored, and tasted. Fingers caressed and stroked. Then Hunt was over her, and Bryce let her joy, her magic shine through her.
“Look at you,” Hunt breathed, hips flexing beneath her hands, cock teasing her entrance. “Look at you.”
Bryce smiled as she let more of that power shine through her: Starborn light so silvery bright it cast shadows upon the bed. “Like it?”
Hunt’s thrust, driving himself in to the hilt, was his response. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered. Lightning gathered around his wings, his brow. Like his power couldn’t help but answer hers, even with the halo’s damper on it.
Bryce moaned as he withdrew, nearly pulling out of her, then plunged back in.
Hunt angled her hips to drive himself deeper. And as his cock brushed her innermost wall, as lightning flickered above her, in her …
Mate. Husband. Prince. Hunt.
“Yes,” Hunt said, and she must have voiced her thoughts aloud, because his thrusts turned deeper, harder. “I fucking love you, Bryce.”
Her magic rose at his words, a surging wave. Or maybe that was her climax, rising along with it. She couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t get close enough to him, needed to be in him, his very blood—
