“You don’t need it. You’ve always been a queen.”
She gazes up at me with those ocean blue eyes, and with her braid worked halfway loose and wild, I think to myself that I could fuck her forever like this, damn the outside world.
“Not everyone was pleased today,” she points out.
I grunt deep in my throat, dismissive. “A few old fossils who can’t handle change and lack imagination. They’ll grumble, but they won’t stand in our way. I don’t like how they went about it, but Kendan and Folke’s plan worked. The tide’s already turned toward you, little violet. All those people gazing at you as their savior.”
She runs her finger down my jaw. “They were looking atyou, too.”
I look away. It’s an uncomfortable truth, something I don’t quite know what to do with. I’ve been so fixated on putting her on the pedestal she deserves that it feels really fucking strange to be up on one myself.
I capture her wrists and lift her arms over her head, interlacing our fingers, pinning her to the bed. Locking our gaze, I say in a low voice, “Together. Always.”
She tilts her chin toward mine. “Together.”
I claim another kiss, this one hungry and hot. I want to pour all my faith into her—because there’s that small, nagging part of me that’s worried we aren’t in lockstep. That a crack between us is stretching more and more each day.
That we both have secrets.
Maybe if I kiss her hard enough, it will bridge the growing gap.
She moans, shifting her hips under me, and any worries aboutgapsvanishes. I roll my hips against her, so flush not a crack of daylight could shine between our bodies. Her breasts strain against her shift’s thin fabric, teasing my chest.
Raw energy pulses beneath her skin, so cold it burns.
I break the kiss to drag my mouth down her long throat, licking and sucking along her buried fey line. “Let go, little violet. With me, you don’t have to hide.”
Her body shudders, and for a moment I think she’ll show her true self to me again, but then she clenches her fists and shakes her head. “I want to do this together. As humans. Our first time as king and queen, like the first time we met.”
I’m not sure how I feel about her holding back. How long she can pretend to be something she isn’t. Especially now that the truth is out there.
Still, I slide her shift off her shoulder, replacing the fabric with my lips. Her skin is icy cold to the touch—the fey in her freezing both her veins and mine.
“Give me one minute,” I say. “You’re freezing.”
She protests, but I climb off the bed and strike a match to light the massive fireplace, which the servants have already stacked with wood.
I get where she’s coming from—a part of me wants to pretend, too. That we can be tethered forever, that the bond will never break.
As warmth rolls into the room from the growing fireplace, I climb back on top of her. I take a moment to stare down at her, so beautiful it hurts to look at, and gently move aside some of her tangled hair.
“My bride. My queen. My goddess.”
She wraps a hand around the back of my neck, locking her gaze to mine. “My everything.”
She leans up, and I lean in, and our lips crash together with a mix of warmth and cold, urgency and delicious patience. I reach down to slide her shift’s hem up her hips, dragging my fingers over her bare thigh.
I murmur, “I wantyourscent.”
Before she can protest, I move between her legs and pry her knees apart. She lets out a small, guttural cry, but we’re far from the blushing virgin she once was. There will always be something innocent about her, but now that she knows her passion, has bent it to her will, my little violet can be wicked, too.
I bury my face in the warm core between her thighs and breathe in deeply.
Finally, I can smell the sweetness of her scent on her damp underwear. It’s better than honey. Sweeter than violets. Like something I could lap at forever and never get my fill.
“Gods, you smell so much fucking better than incense,” I groan.
I hook my fingers in her underwear and slide them down her knees, then shove them off her feet. Her quivering body is open to me, the shift shoved up around her waist. She’s leaning up on her elbows, gazing at me with those hooded eyes that promise all kinds of tantalizing things.
