“You never have to be alone again.”
Whisper…
He caught the tear sliding down her cheek with his lips. “I will never leave you.”
Whisper…
But weaker, that time.
Brand willed the stones to glow as he entered the washroom. The guest chambers in the castle were different to his in the tower. In his own room, the facilities could be whatever he wanted them to be because he could manipulate the stone how he pleased. Here, every possible feature was accounted for, the choices near-endless.
“Would you prefer a bath or one of the falls?”
“Falls?”
He grinned down at her. “Oh, you’re in for a treat.”
Within an alcove, steps led down to a massive pool carved into the floor. The ledge around it gave access to the various chutes, spouts, and rain heads shooting out from the stone, and depressions on the outer wall had been enchanted to recognize touch.
Brand pressed a hand to them and turned on everything. “See anything you fancy?”
Her eyes went wide, darting over the feast of options. The shower of tiny droplets. The wide, steaming fall in one corner. The streams jetting horizontally across the other. The sea serpent head jutting from the center of the ceiling, spewing water from its open mouth and filling the pool. The patch of floorwith a thousand little holes, tiny geysers bubbling up from each one and waiting for someone to lay upon it.
“All of them,” she breathed, sitting up a little straighter. “I want to try all of them.”
“Only the finest for a guest of the Demon King.” Brand chuckled as he set Luna on her feet in front of him and leaned down to her ear. “Which would the lady like to try first?”
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, their faces a hair’s breadth apart. “What’s your favorite?”
“Would you rather stand, sit, or lay down?”
Her eyes dropped to his lips for an agonizing second before meeting his again. “Lay down, I think.”
Brand’s heart flipped, and he froze. He had… not expected that.
He’d been doing a decent job of not allowing his mind to gothereat all since they’d gotten back.Of course he wanted her—desperately—but they’d just spent six days locked in a blurry cycle of heal, feed, doze, repeat. She was clearly exhausted, and not a little frightened. He would be a cad of the worst sort to even think about the things he wanted to do when she was vulnerable.
Whisper… Whisper, whisper, whisper!
Her gaze shuttered and she shrank away slightly. “I’m sorry, I thought— Forgive me. That was probably too forward?—”
Brand grabbed her nape and pressed his lips to hers to stop whatever daft shite was about to come out of her mouth. “Don’teverapologize to me for that,” he hissed against her. “Don’t doubt yourself.” He rounded her, keeping hold of her jaw. “Anything you want is yours—my body included.Ithought you’d want your space, and I only want you to be comfortable, Luna. At peace.”
Her touch fluttered up his sternum, searing through the fabric of his shirt. “I’m… weary of space. I’ve had so damned much of it.”
Whisper…
With a sigh, she let her arm drop. “Perhaps weshouldwait. You might change your mind once you’ve heard all I have to say. I wouldn’t blame you.”
He laced his fingers over the back of her hand and brought it back to his chest. “Is that what you think is going to happen? Still?”
“Honestly?”
“Always.”
“I don’t know what to think about anything, anymore. I’m afraid what Iwantis outside the realm of possibility.”
His hold tightened. “What is it you want, exactly?”
