We didn’t speak. We were beyond communication by then. One look from her, one nod and that was all it took. She reached for me, and rolled onto her back, pulling me on top of her, her legs already open.
I pushed myself up onto my hands, keeping my weight off her, as she wrapped her fingers around me, stroking, and squeezing, before guiding me inside.
I was fully sheathed in one thrust, both of us gasping, our eyes steady on each other’s. I pulled back, tilting my pelvis just so, and when I pushed back in, she moaned. I did, too.
I kept that angle as her hands found my back, her fingernails digging into me. And then I pumped into her, again and again. We were unusually quiet, like a spell had been cast over us. We both came quickly, keeping our eyes wide open, watching each other writhe and squirm.
“Marry me,” I said suddenly, still pulsing inside her.
“What?”
“Marry me. Just … marry me.” It was impossible of course. Everything about our fates forbade it. But I didn’t care. I’d marry her in secret. I was done pretending, done trying to live any other way. And I was more than fucking done with the men she was forced to entertain.
She grinned. “You do remember that we are already soulmates?”
I laughed, but a tear rolled down my cheek.
“Rhyan.” She wiped it away.
“We are soulmates,” I said. “I fell from Heaven for you. Tracked you down life after life, and I’ll continue to find youafter this one ends. I’ll find you again. I’ll always find you, always know you. But I want more in this lifetime. I want all of you. You told me to claim you. And I’m not done. I want to make you mine in every way I can. Not just in every life, but in every form. And I want you to do the same to me. I want you to have complete and total possession of all I am, and all I have. Because I’m yours. Because I’ll always be yours.”
Lyr grinned, her eyes sparkling with tears. But before she could answer, bells began to ring, in the distance, the sound soft at first, then it grew louder, more insistent, the pattern revealing itself in precisely timed notes. It wasn’t the hourly call, nor was it the threat of akadim.
It was a death bell.
For the Emperor. He’d passed.
I squeezed my eyes shut, my pulse racing. May his soul never know a moment’s peace.
Lyr sat up, her eyes widened, understanding.
I sighed, pulling back the blankets and looking over her one last time. Trying to memorize her every last feature. I wanted to remember her like this. The way she looked right at that moment. Naked, beautiful, happy, loved.
Then I climbed out of the bed, and reached for her hand, resigned. “Come on,” I said. “We need to be dressed. Anything can happen now.”
CHAPTER FORTY
MORGANA
The sound of the bells ringing was like music to my ears. The bells announcing the Emperor’s death. His fucking Majesty, Emperor Godsdamned Theotis was dead. Jules’s kidnapper. Her rapist. The monster who enslaved my people. Who terrorized my country. My family. My Ka. Finally. Dead. Gone. Rotting in hell. The sound of those bells would now be my favorite tune.
Gods, I could fucking dance. The sun would rise in a few hours, making the Palace shimmer and sparkle as the waves crashed in the distance. I was never one for sunrise, or sunset. Never one to take a deep breath in the morning, or night. Or ever.
But this morning, this morning I could. This morning, I looked forward to it.
“I told you,” Andromeny said. “I told you he’d die tonight. That there’d be no Valabellum.”
My throat tightened. Joyous as I was to see the Emperor’s fall, Andromeny still left me uneasy.
“You were right,” I conceded. “And Ereshya’s shard lies within.”
Don’t you feel it?Aemon asked, his voice like a caress in my mind.Feel your power growing just being near it?
I closed my eyes. And I did. I felt its call, its spell. It had a unique signature that I could feel even from here, and a flash of memory returned to me. A large bronze shield. The orange shard embedded inside its center, the rest of the crystal concealed by the metal around it. I’d made it myself after the Drowning. And it had kept me safe through many battles.
Until it hadn’t.
Are you ready?Aemon asked. I stood and turned to face him. He was dressed in his Arkturion armor, golden seraphim wings at his shoulders, a red cloak flowing behind his back. Behind him, hiding in the shadows, were his most trusted akadim.
