“Couldn’t?” she repeatedwith emphasis.
I cupped her hands in mine, looking into her gray eyes, so keen and troubled. “Can’t.It’s nearly a magical binding—could be magical, for all I know—but the information I consigned to secrecy is beyond my ability to speak. I literally cannot say my eldest sister’s name, or certain details I omitted. Even telling you all of this has been… painful in a way I can’t quite describe.”
“Thank you,” she said gravely, gripping my hands. “I apologize that I ever doubted you.”
“You had good reason,” I said gravely. “I’m sorry for it.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think I did have good reason. But I can promise I’ll never doubt you again.”
I frowned a little. “Don’t be hasty in—”
“I swear,” she interrupted me viciously, “that I will never doubt you again, as long as I live.In the name of the boy you were and the girl she was, and the man you’ve made yourself into, and the woman she is, out there somewhere, I so swear.”
My heart, so raw and bleeding, felt as if it swelled in my chest. “I love you, Ursula, with everything in me. TheElskastholrris a vow like the others, something that cannot be broken, but even if it could be, I’ll always love you. You are the bestpart of me. You can send me away from you, but know that it would end me. Nothing they could do to me could break me, but losing you from my life surely would.”
She let go of our joined hands to crawl back onto my lap, straddling my outstretched legs and framing my face in her hands. The summer sun set her hair on fire and her eyes shone as clear and bright as Danu’s sword. “I will never sendyou away, Harlan. You might wish to go, but it would break me to lose you, too.”
“I’ll never leave you willingly,” I breathed, her lips coming tantalizingly close.
“Don’t make that promise just yet,” she urged, “but would you make me forget, for a while? I want to be only us, if only for another hour.”
I didn’t ask what she meant, for I knew we had yet to get to the second issue she’d closetedus to discuss. Instead I did as my queen commanded, taking her fierce mouth with mine, savoring her heat and flavor, relishing how she surrendered to my touch. My Essla, who melted only for me. Her lips parted, bringing me in, her hands working to unlace my shirt, caressing my chest. She’d long ago discovered how her calluses aroused me and she used them to good effect, with urgency and skill.
I groaned, loosing the chains I’d kept on the desire evoked by the healing, the need flooding me. For her and only her. My warrior queen. With a growl, I tumbled her onto her back, catching her wrists and pinning them. She glared at me in defiance. “Do your worst,” she hissed, using her lithe strength to attempt to squirm out of my grip. Not quite shapeshifting, but slithery and as difficult tocontain.
I bared my teeth at her. “You awakened the dragon, little hawk, and I plan to eat you alive.”
