Aldric watched her—this precious woman, this woman who had risked so much to come and pry him from the very jaws of death. For a moment, his heart forgot how to beat. For a moment, his lungs forgot how to breathe.
He barely dared to ask what any of this meant. He barely dared to hope it might mean something at all. Her coming for him. Her pushing him out of the way of the witch’s flame. The light smoldering in his chest. Her carrying him to safety. She had done the unthinkable.
She had risked everything…for him.
He was a man who understood war. Who understood death. But her? He didn’t understand her. Not for a single moment.
But he wanted to. So very desperately, he wanted to understand his wife. “And now?” he whispered.
She glanced up, eyebrows knitting with confusion.
Clearing his throat, he clarified, “Are you still angry with me?”
A quiet huff of breath, almost like a laugh, escaped from her. “No.” Sitting up straight, she withdrew the warmth of her hand from his chest and swiped the tears from her cheeks. “I mean, yes,” she added, her tone light despite the words. “You did almost die for me after I went to all this trouble to save you, after all.”
The corner of his mouth pulled upward—a weak attempt at a smile—but it faltered when he caught the way she was looking at him. As if he were something…important. Something precious.
As ifhewere the sun.
Not the shadow unfit to look upon its radiance.
“Did you meanit?” she asked.
Now it was his turn to be confused, the fog of his pain still clinging to his thoughts. “Did I mean what?”
Almost shyly, she murmured, “When you said you loved me.”
The memory slammed into him. The heat. The witchfire. The raining arrows. The desperate need to shield her, to take the blow so she wouldn’t have to. The words torn from his soul in what he thought were his final seconds.
He looked at her—this wife who owed him nothing and yet had ridden into danger to find him. This queen who sat by his bedside in a drafty tent, wearing wool and scars, waiting for his answer.
“Yes.” The word tried to lodge in his throat, but he forced it out. She had a right to know. That he was mad for her. That he would do anything for her, if she only asked it of him. “I meant it.”
Breath escaped his kirei in an audible rush.
He shifted upon the cot, sending his wounds smarting when he growled with an attempt at wry humor, “Even though sometimes I wish I didn’t—”
She cut him off, leaning down to capture his mouth with hers. It wasn’t a tentative kiss. It was fierce. It was a reclaiming. It was lingering and deep, tasting of salt and desperation and life.
Aldric drowned in her. He lost himself in the scent of her, in the warmth of her, in the impossible knowledge that, against all odds, this extraordinary, courageous woman wanted to be with him. That she was his.
And he was hers.
The odd bond linking them flared brighter, a roaring hearth in his soul, chasing away the lingering vestiges of that oily voice that had taunted him before.
“I love you, too.” Those words were but a caress brushed against his lips in between kisses. Four perfect words that rang true on the air. But still, he struggled to believe them.
She didn’t pull away from them, even when the kisses ended and warm, familiar silence blanketed the tent instead. Carefully lowering her head, his kirei rested her cheek against the uninjured side of his chest, her hand splayed over his heart. Aldric lifted his hand, his fingers tangling in the soft hair at the nape of her neck, holding her close.
Questions tugged at the edges of his fogged mind. Where were his Sons? What had become of the witch? Was the battle truly over? Where was Soot? Mourn?
He should care. Hewouldcare.
But not now.
Not when the woman he loved lay trembling in his arms.
The tent was quiet, save for the wind rattling the canvas and the steady beat of his own heart beneath her ear.
