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"She was wrong, and you proved it to her." Rhea brushes strands of silver hair away from my eyes. "Take me north, through autumn where we are to wed, and then to night, where we belong."
I have no clue what happened to this woman in my arms. She's aged a thousand years in a thousand seconds. Good thing I don't care. I press my lips against hers and devour her, lost in her scent.
Her scent. I familiarized myself with her, but it's different. Metallic. Stronger, like the rest of her. "You made a deal," I finally guess. "You're an old god."
A lesser man would likely be intimidated by such a mate. A woman stronger than me, and every single person in my entire kingdom. An eternal who'll live until the end of the universe.
"I'm twenty-one." She snorts. "If I'm old, you're ancient."
She's still herself, no matter whatever else she's become. I lift her to my horse and lead her north, away from this stinking land. If I never cross the border again, I'll consider myself fortunate, though I doubt it's the last we'll hear of Allea.
"That was rather impressive, Rhea." Vess has never been this pleasant toward her.
I half expect her to snap, given the fact that he's almost constantly antagonized her, but she smiles. "Estella. That's my true name."
"You're giving your true name?"
"Why not?" She tilts her head.
Why not indeed.
"Darling Estella," I say, savoring each syllable, "made a deal with some wayward stars. We have ourselves a goddess in our midst."
I shake my head, stunned.
"And we're letting our enemies go, why exactly?" Lark questions as she approaches.
"They can't hurt us. I won't let them." The complete and utter confidence in my mate's word shoots straight to my cock.
Silver clears her throat. "You know, you might not really get it anymore. What you've become—you don't see anyone here as threat, like lions wouldn't fear an ant in their way. But those people? They were willing to slaughter innocents to get what they wanted: our kingdom."
"Wasn't it the will of the king?" Estella frowns. "I got rid of him."
Lark wrinkles her nose. "It's not easy to speculate on what's going to happen next. It'll greatly depends on Alev's successor."
Estella sighs. "Your mother."
I blink, in confusion as much as distaste. I'm never fond of being reminded of Lucyan's existence. "What about her?"
"She was with him—they're expecting a child. She'll likely take Allea." Estella glances back in the now empty field, dark but for the light of the stars, shinning harder than ever. "You're right. She won't let it go."
"Then we'll deal with her when she makes a move," I say easily.
My mate’s here, safe, and right now? Nothing else matters.
EPILOGUE
I have been many things.
Mere weeks ago I was a would-be murderer used by a greedy, self-serving, lying piece of shit. Then I was a slave in all but name. Somehow, I became my master’s lover. Maybe because he never was as cruel or evil as I believed him to be. He pushed me out of my comfort zone, yes, but I wouldn’t have admitted what I was if he hadn’t. There was another name to call me once he’d open my eyes. Succubus. I grew to accept my nature faster than I would have believed. Giving in felt good. To save my life, Doryn sent me to the timeless void, which ought to have kill me, but instead, I was found by the lost and changed into something else entirely. A goddess.
And now, I am a bride.
This strange court doesn’t close their doors or windows to nature, building their homes in the shade of enormous wild trees, their rooms arched under domed glass ceilings, never hiding the sky.
Autumn isn’t a land of night or day; it claims both, and the two are beautiful in opposite ways. I no longer suffer from the cold—nor do I think the heat could hurt me—but the air is just perfect, fragrant with the scent of moss and primrose.
The ladies of the court, some made like any man or women I knew, others bearing horns or antlers, feathers or butterfly wings, wash my skin with milk and rub it with natural oils, before tying many beautiful knots with flowers in my hair, making it look like a crown.
