You are the reason I draw breath. This vow of love I offer you:
My wealth, my lands, my life are yours, and if you ask, my death is, too.”
My heart pounded in my throat. Back then, I’d forced myself to scoff at the romantic sentiment, but I’d known he meant it. I could ask him for anything, and he would provide it.
It had frightened me then. No, his love hadterrifiedme. I’d never wanted nor deserved that depth of feeling. But I would use it now.
“Have you forgotten, husband?” I held up my left arm, showing him the tattooed starflower vines he’d designed for me to wear after he made the vow. They stretched from my wrist to just below my elbow, the flowers small and butter-yellow, the vines a deep green.
He went completely still. “You absolved all our vows when you abandoned me. You gave me back my name.” Every word was harsher than the last.
I made my own reply soft, gentle. “Is aleibehalda vow that can be returned with a few words?” I knew better, and so did he. As binding as aliefhald, or a life debt, a debt of love could only be cut out. “If you do this, if you help me rescue Alexios, I’ll cut it away. I swear by the Goddess.” I swallowed bile as I waited, unsure what his answer would be.
I shouldn’t have been.
“I’ll be free of you at last? Done.”
GORAN
Madness. Like she had from the first moment I’d met the perfect, cruel woman who now sat in front of me, her perfume seeping into my clothing, my hair, my skin, Rada had drawn me down into madness.
I knew better than to ride back into Mirren to chase her lover. Herlover.A Beta male, not even a proper mate for one like her. I rubbed at the bead on one of my braids, wondering how I’d fucked up this badly. I’d managed to stay away for over nine years. I could’ve avoided her forever, except that the Emperor of the Deep Waters had called on me to fulfill theliefhaldI owed him. His mate Wren was a few months away from delivering the first kraken to be born in thousands of years, but she’d begun having contractions and worrying her mates.
“I need Ratter,” she’d told me bluntly. “She knows more about Omegas than anyone alive. She can be my midwife.”
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t ever go seeking out the woman who’d consumed me all those years ago. But there was one vow a Starlakian warrior couldn’t escape.
Well, two. I pinched one of the shell beads again, feeling what was hidden inside.
I knew she thought the beads were from a new lover, even a wife. I knew it was unworthy to allow Rada to believe for a moment that I’d moved on. I wasn’t going to tell her the truth, though. It wasn’t her business, and a part of me wanted her to feel the burn of jealousy like I did now, racing to save her Beta.
The burn of hearing her say she was willing to cut my mark out of her was a thousand times worse.
A soft snore interrupted my darkening thoughts. I shifted my sleeping wife closer to keep her from falling and fell into a memory of my own.
The worst day of my life.
“Who do ya think I am?” The woman who owned my soul stood naked in front of me, her dark hair flying around her face as she shook her head. Her eyes shone with silver, and her cheeks were flushed with blood.
She was angry. She was angry a lot, and often with me.
I only wished it didn’t make my cock hard. My erection was impossible to hide, with the nine gold bars running the length of it catching the light whenever it so much as twitched. The piercings had hurt as much as any wound from a battle and taken just as long to heal, but it had been the price of being with my love. I could not regret my choice when she rode me like an avenging goddess.
My cock stretched out on my thigh as I gaped up at her, naked except for the lethal hair pins I’d had made for her. “Stop thinkin’ about sex, Goran! I’m well past pissed.”
“I can see that.” If only I knew what she was angry about, I could enjoy it more. Did she need me to slay some enemy? Fight some mythical beast in her honor? My gaze dropped to the dark curls at the apex of her thighs, still gleaming with our combined juices. Maybe lick her until she dissolved into pleasure once again?
Probably not that last one, when she was this worked up. Though, her mercurial moods were an enormous part of her charm. I’d fallen for her fierce, bloodthirsty nature, her razor-sharp wit and lightning-fast thieving skills, her instant willingness to kill anyone and anything to protect those she loved, and even her odd obsession with poisons. I didn’t consider her love for blades odd, as I appreciated a finely crafted sword more than most.
She held the knife I’d given her moments before like it was an adder, though. “Did you write these words on the blade, Goran?” It was in her left hand, and the starflower tattoo caught my eye, reminding me who she was. She was the love of my life, my wife, and someday soon, I hoped to make her my Omega mate, leaving my claiming mark on her shining, pale skin.
“No,” I said carefully, moving to my knees. Rada was taller than many women, but on my knees, I was only a few inches shorter than her standing. “It’s a traditional bride knife. We’ve been wed”—secretly, though I hoped she would share the news with her family soon—“for one year today. It’s a Starlakian tradition.”
She bared her teeth. “Tradition to start poppin’ out little street rats?”
“Ah, uh…” I replied eloquently. “Babes, you mean?”
Her eyes gleamed as silver as the slender knife when she read the inscription aloud, a short blessing that ran the length of the blade alongside the moon’s phases. “Bless our union with as many children as the sky has stars.” She held it out at me, point first. “What in the hells does that mean?”
