Delighted and relieved, Cededa chuckled and pulled her even closer against him. He kissed her softly, coaxing a moan from her to match his. “Aye,” he said after a few more drugging kisses. “As long as you’re a willing student, I’ll teach you everything I know.”
Her expression sobered. She ran a finger across his forehead before tracing a line down his nose to the creases that bracketed either side of his mouth. “Thank you,” she said. “For a man who had sixty-three wives, what we did might be of small consequence to you, but it was...wondrous to me.”
Cededa stared at her, words locked in his throat as emotions either long dead or never felt before threatened to choke him. “It was no less for me, Imogen,” he finally said and pressed his cheek to hers. Wondrous indeed. Devastating and bludgeoning. The horror of the shade didn’t reside in her hands but in the inevitability of her leaving him. His hand clenched into a fist behind her back before he gathered her even closer.
“Will you teach more tonight, Cededa?” A soft yawn punctuated her question.
He liked the sound of his name on her tongue. His answering chuckle sounded brittle to his ears. “I think you’ve had enough for one evening, Imogen.” Her invitation to make love to her again sent another wave of heat coursing through him. If she didn’t need time to recover, he’d swive her all night. As it was, he’d have to clamp down on his desires for now.
“You’ll stay with me?” she asked and yawned a second time. “Even if you don’t sleep?”
He might be immortal and half-mad; he wasn’t a fool. Imogen gave a sleepy gasp when Cededa slipped out of her. Her thighs were wet with his seed as were his. A bath tomorrow for them both. The frescoes in his room didn’t depict lovemaking in a bath, but he didn’t think Imogen would mind him teaching her that particular pleasure.
The nearly forgotten feel of a soft, sleepy woman curled against his side washed over him, as sensual as any lovemaking. Imogen was already asleep, her slender arm draped across his torso. A faint, purring snore serenaded him, making him smile.
He was more than content to lie here for the rest of the night, listening to his woman’s soft breathing and the last of the rain drumming on the roof. Eternity might not seem so long if he had this to look forward to each evening. Imogen muttered in her sleep, and Cededa stroked her hair until she quieted.
He closed his eyes, imagining a life, finite and free of the Waters, where he was mortal once again. Such dreams held their own comfort.
The silence in the chamber deepened, and the Undying King slept.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“It’s unnatural to be this beautiful.” Imogen paused in admiring Cededa’s naked body to give him an apologetic look. “I mean that in the best way of course.”
Dressed only in morning light, the king reclined in the bed, leisurely stroking Imogen’s hip as she sat facing him. He smiled. “Of course. Considering I’m a few thousand years old, I’d say it’s unnatural to be this alive.”
She ran a hand over his shoulder and down one muscled arm. “You know what I mean. ‘Cededa the Fair’ wasn’t an exaggeration.”
“I was given that title before the Waters changed me, Imogen.”
“It still applies.”
She caressed his chest, sliding a finger down the line bisecting hard muscle. A myriad of scars, small and large, marked his pale skin.
“How did you get this?” Her palm rested over a puckered round of flesh just below his collarbone.
“Lucky shot from a Partik bowman.”
Another scar, half-moon in shape, aligned with his bottom rib. “And this?”
“One of my general’s war horses. He kicked me through a fence. I was lucky to walk away with only a few broken ribs.”
Imogen winced. “Lucky indeed.” She continued her exploration, stopping at a series of slashes that stair stepped his right side. Cuts made by a blade. “These?”
A sharp, indrawn breath made her look up. Cededa’s mouth had thinned to a tight line. An old grief flickered through his pale eyes. “My son.” He turned his gaze to the ceiling. “Some wounds never heal.”
He told her he had sired armies of children. Still, it was difficult to reconcile this legendary, solitary figure with a man who’d been not only a husband but a father as well—one who’d lost his children in ways beyond mortality.
Her heart ached for him. “I’m sorry, Sire.”
The shadows in his gaze lightened. “No need, Imogen. It was a very long time ago.”
She pushed a strand of flaxen hair away from his cheek. “That doesn’t make the hurt any less.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Imogen shifted positions, bracing her hands on either side of his shoulders. She bent and kissed his scars, touching each ridge and line with the tip of her tongue, learning the taste of him. He’d carry these reminders all his days. She didn’t possess the power to erase them, but she could try and lessen the pain each carried for him.
