“Yes, we do.” Marcello turns away, his smile sliding slightly, but then he looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “I think I’m looking at mine.”
“What are you—” I ask tilting my head. The rest of my sentence dies on my lips as Marcello reaches out. At first, I think he is going to caress me but instead he wipes my chin. He leans toward me, desire sparking in his eyes. It lights a fire in the pit of my stomach that I don’t have a name for.
But I don’t pull away as he leans in. I think he is going to kiss me, but he stops at the last second. “I need to be honest with you, Laduga.”
“What?” I demand, pulling back.
“I did not marry you for purely selfless reasons.” He turns, looking down at his boot. “I married you because it was what I wanted to do. Because I was smitten with you pretty much the second I saw you, and I liked the idea of you being my wife. I didn’t agree because it would save you but because I wanted it. I wanted you.”
“Why would you want to marryme?” I ask, pulling back, wrinkling my nose. Has he forgotten that he was my captive who I tried to kill?
“For one, you are beautiful. Clearly resourceful. Brutal, and for some reason, I like that.” He pulls his lip in from his teeth. “But I think mostly, it was because it was an opportunity to finally break free from the design for my life that my father always intended for me.” He exhales a sigh. “So, I am sorry that I married you for those selfish reasons and not to save a caring, strong, and thoughtful woman from dying.”
I turn, pulling my knees up to my chest as I stare down at the dirt. I’m not entirely sure what to take of Marcello’s confession. But there is a part of me that is actually… glad? Glad that he wanted to marry me, that it wasn’t something unwillingly thrust upon him. I clear my throat. “Why you chose to do it, doesn’t matter,” I say to myself just as much as to him.
“It matters to me; it matters to the man I want to be. I want to bebetter. Better than my father and the person he always shaped me up to be. He raised me to always have an angle, to always have a reason, and to always find a way to get what I want.” Marcello presses his eyes shut and sighs. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is that perhaps we did not marry for the right reasons, or even because we had a choice in the matter, but we are married and I… I, I’m already halfway in love with you.” The corner of his mouth turns up. “I was since you strode up through a dragon infested land unafraid of anything.”
I blink as Marcello turns to me and I realize that I should say something. However, my words fail me at this crucial moment, and I’m left staring mutely at him.
“Do you think we can makethis—us—work? Do you think you could ever fall for me?” he asks, his dark eyes sincere and eager.
I work my jaw, struggling to find anything to say. However, it seems as if that look on his face has stricken my speech from me. I glance away but freeze when I see my arm. The scale has shifted, the one side has lowered, and the other has risen, and it’s just a little bit more balanced and I think I have my answer.
We already are. Somehow, despite all odds we are making it work.
I turn back to Marcello; my words and desires are swirling within me, and I don’t know what to say and what I even want to say. A part of me says that this is wrong, that we are strangers who were enemies before this. But another part of me says that he is my husband and that this is perfectly right.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” Marcello whispers, moving closer. “If that’s all right with you.”
I can’t help but smile. “I believe that we are doing this all out of order, marrying before we first kiss.”
Marcello is so close that when he smirks; I feel it in the way his mouth moves. “I suppose that just means that we have catching up to do.”
“But you’re Imperial. I’m Nelgatan,” I say my mind desperately grasping for some way to rationalize this.
In reply, Marcello presses his lips against mine. He is warm and soft, tender, and patient and everything that I am not. He moves slowly as if he is mapping out my face. While I reach up, grasping his breastplate, pulling him toward me. All space between us is far too much. I’m so hungry for his warmth and this feeling of desire, I only want to consume it all.
Perhaps after that my sense will return to me and I can return to a rational way of thinking.
Marcello’s breath hitches and he brings his hands up, cradling the sides of my face.
I think we could continue kissing like this forever if not for our need to breathe. Finally, we break apart, both gasping for breath. Marcello looks me over, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “That has nothing to do with either Nelgata or Imperialis. That is between us only.”
And I find myself agreeing. Hang our people who seem capable of only committing violence against each other. This,this,is the most alive I have felt. And this feeling did not come from the thrill of battle or the rush of blood or even from wielding a power. It came in the simplest way possible, from the kindest Imperial I have ever met. All it took was to feel like I was actually wanted and desired.
Why must we fight if he actually makes me feel secure, and dare I say cherished?
I nod and Marcello pulls me closer until my head is resting on the inside of the hollow of his neck. From that position I can hear his heartbeat as my ear rests on his breastplate.
“We’ll raise the god,” he promises quietly. I’m unsure if he is speaking to me and himself. He reaches up, playing with the ends of my hair as he talks. “We will raise that god and save you; I swear it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Night Hunt
Thewindhowlsaroundme and I turn, feeling confusion rise up within me when I see the faint shine of daylight through the winter storm. But then I realize with a start that I am no longer in reality. This is a vision. I turn to see the two forms standing in the whipping wind, myself, and Marcello.
A dark form rises up, towering higher than the mountains letting out a roar.
