Odd how quickly I was getting used to the fact that these men were basically the same person, though what one did wasindependent from the other. No wonder they shared what was done or said while the other was absent. Otherwise, how would they remain sane?
“Thank you,” I said softly, settling back on the sofa. “Not only for the potion, but for how all this has played out since I boarded the ship.” Where I first met Lorant instead of him.
“It’s taken time, too much perhaps, but I’ve come to some sort of acceptance.”
That he’d die? I couldn’t name it.Wouldn’tname it. Throwing the words out would be no different from tossing a blade at his throat with my usual skill.
“You don’t mind that I spent time with him,” I said, still stunned by that fact. “Actually, you pushed me toward him, right from the start.”
“That I did.”
“Why?”
His head jerked in a no.
“You can’t say.”
He blinked.
I thought about how I could quiz him further, because I sensed there could be clues in the answers I dragged from him, but Farris scampered over and onto the sofa, dropping his favorite ball on my shoulder. It rolled off and skittered across the floor. Leaping after it, he picked it up again, and this time laid it on my thigh.
“Someone needs to go outside and run around a bit,” I said, rising. “I…” My heart hammering, I met my husband's gaze. “I liked falling asleep with you. Waking with you.”
“Reyla,” he rasped.
“I hope it's not wrong of me to see you as the same person. I know in many ways, you're not, but here,” I tapped my chest where I ached and ached and ached, “that's what you are.”
He walked right up to me, stopping and staring at me with somuch joy in his eyes, it made my breathing come to a halt. “You.” He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Make.” He squeezed. “Me.” Curling toward me, he placed a kiss on my brow. “Incredibly happy.” Leaning back, he gave me the sweetest, sexiest smile.
Despite the dull ache in my belly, I couldn’t stop smiling myself. “I think we should?—”
“My queen?” Moira called out through the door. “Can we come in?”
I froze, gazing about in panic. “We need to hide you.”
His low laugh tickled down my spine. “Why?”
“Because you’re inside my suite.” I flipped my hands around in agitation. “It’s morning, and they didn’t see you arrive, something you’ll have to explain later becausehearrived, obviously, though last night. But you’re here!”
“I’m your husband. I belong here,” he said quietly, his fingers still snug on my shoulders. He released one hand only to tuck a finger beneath my chin, lifting my face up to meet my eyes. “Or you belong in my suite. You decide which it will be.”
Ah, yes, he did belong here. Or me with him, though I wasn’t sure when bigger things should take place. Despite feeling they were one person in my heart, being with one of them intimately was not the same as being with them both. And I wasn’t sure I was ready to climb all over one, then sink down onto another, only to wake with the first, knowing he wouldn’t have experienced what the other one had.
This was incredibly confusing.
“My queen?” Calista’s voice grated at a higher tone than her daughter’s. “Are you alright?”
Farris hopped around us with his ball. If nothing else, I needed to send him outside with Faelith.
“Me being here is making you uncomfortable.” There was nomistaking the disappointment in Merrick’s voice. He tightened his spine and peered around. “I’ll hide while you send them away. Then I can slink down the hall and… No, that won’t work.” His gaze shot to a window. “I’ll reach my room a different way. There isn’t anything I’m not willing to do to ensure you’re happy.”
“No, don’t leave.” My lips quivered, but I gave him a real smile and lifted my voice. “Ladies? You may enter.”
The approval in his gaze scorched a new path straight through me. “Now there’s my wildfire bride.”
When the door burst open, my ladies bustled inside. Calista, leading the charge, came to such a quick halt that the other two knocked into her. The three scrambled together before righting themselves and smoothing their gowns.
Surren watched from the open doorway, his lips twitching with humor.
