Shelves had been refastened to walls, the broken stones in the old inglenook replaced. New draperies sewn by Inge were in Natthaven blue and silver. Images of Klockglas flowers and ravens lined the molding at the top of the walls, the only symbols of unity between worlds. The rest of the hanging tapestries were commissioned with the help of Dorsan’s knowledge of popular elven symbols—stars and moons, blades and dark mountains.
Books were orderly along the shelves. Some with spines facing out, others on their sides in stacks. Fur lined chairs surrounded a low, blackwood table with imported elven wine in a carafe.
The chandelier was the most challenging. I didn’t want the bulky wrought iron like most of the palace. I wanted something more Skadi—like starlight. Glass and crystal glistened in the beams of sunlight through the windows, painting the rugs in prisms of color.
I thought it turned out as well as it could’ve, but she wasn’t saying anything.
I cleared my throat. “Niklas worked with Dorsan to make the incense smell a little like Natthaven.” Silence. “Look, I am sorry for keeping your books from you, I realize now, I could’ve built all this without the actual books. I just thought in a strange place you might want a spot of your own that reminded you of home, but if?—”
I coughed when a force struck me in the chest.
Skadi clung to me, shoulders trembling. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do with my hands, hovering them to my sides. After a pause, I held the back of her head and wrapped the other arm around her waist.
“Fire.” I whispered against her ear. “You have me standing on knives here. Do you hate it or is this?—”
“I love it, you fool.” She tilted her chin, laughing, but tears rimmed her eyes. “This is where you’ve been going? This is what you were doing that night I . . . shouted at you. But you kept working on it, even after.”
I brushed away a tear with my thumb. “I did not want to be a husband with conditions. I’d be a rather ignorant sod if I did not take into account that your life had been completely upended that night. You had no reason to trust me, no reason to think I cared at all.”
She swallowed and turned back into the room, taking it in. “But why do all this? I feel rather undeserving of it.”
I pinched some of her wavy hair between my fingers. “I disagree. You never left my side during the mesmer fever, and you did not need to do that. You’ve made a guild of thieves that helped raise me love you better. You dance on tavern tables, how many princesses can say that?”
She snorted, but faced me after a moment. Her palms trapped the sides of my face. “Thank you, I am at a loss for words. No one has ever done something like this for me.”
Whatever retort I planned to make hinting that there were no husbands like me was drowned when she kissed me.
We stumbled against the doorframe. Her lips parted, her tongue brushed mine. I tugged on her hair, tilting her face for the angle I desired most. Fingers curled around my tunic as though she might want to tear it down the middle.
In a frenzy of breaths, I spun her around, pressing her back to the wall. Skadi let out a heated moan when I took hold of one of her legs and wrapped it around my waist, arching my hips against her core.
“Jonas.” Skadi breathed against my lips.
“Fire?”
“I don’t want you to have another lover.”
Did she still believe such a thing? “Woman, I have no one?—”
“I meant this.” She pressed a kiss to my palm, smirking. “You said it would be your only lover until I gave the word.”
Skadi took my hand, placing it under the hem of her gown on the heat of her bare thigh. I let out a rough breath when she guided my hand higher and higher, toward her center.
She dragged her teeth along my ear, drawing the lobe between her lips for a breath, then whispered, “I’m giving the word.”
Chapter 32
The Mist Thief
The verdant shadeof Jonas’s eyes shadowed. He pressed his brow to mine, lips parted. Two fingers ran along my drenched slit.
My head fell back and I rocked against Jonas’s hand, gasping when he curled his fingers inside me. Jonas cupped the back of my neck and pulled my lips to his. Whimpers and small breaths slid from my throat the more he worked his fingers in and out.
With cruel torture, Jonas circled his thumb over the sensitive place at the apex of my core. My cries grew louder, palms smacked against the door. Doubtless they echoed down the stone staircase.
Brow furrowed, I tucked my face against his neck as he worked, tormented, and loved me with his wicked hand. My breath panted against his throat until the thin glass shield shattered low in my belly.
I sobbed his name, arms around his shoulders, keeping me upright. Jonas held me tightly, working the last heated drops of my pleasure. My body went limp.
