“There was this terrible restlessness, like I could never be still. This ache that made me want to crawl out of my skin. It clawed at me at all hours of the day and night, like my body was seeking something. Or someone.”
A sharp realization made dismay fill me.
“It was hell. Sometimes it was difficult to sleep,” he admitted, but his expression was gentle. “That’s why I was so…manic. Why I…” He sighed. “Why I went through females like blood. Sex was the only thing that gave me some relief from that feeling.”
I found I wasn’t jealous. It was a startling realization, but I knew he was being honest. We’d promised to be honest. And I knew that those females had come before…and that none would come after me. That truth rang clear, settling the uncertainty I’d felt. But to learn that Kaldur had been trying to escape the feeling, had been trying to drown the sensation with sexual release…it made sense. What he was describing—I felt anyone would go mad with it.
“Two years, I was like that. Two years…around when you came to work in the keep,” he finished. “It was because of you, Erina.”
“Kaldur, I’m sorry,” I breathed. “If I’d known?—”
“I wouldn’t change anything,” he said, his tone steady and uncertain. “I would go through decades of that hell if it would eventually lead me to you.”
Oh.
“Just the mere promise of it,” he said. “I tell you this now because…well, you say that a part of your soul recognized mine when you first saw me? So did mine. A part of me always knew you were near. And I always think…if only I’dlookedat you, really looked at you, I would have seen my future so clearly. We both could’ve saved ourselves a lot of heartache.”
“You weren’t ready to see,” I said. “And I wasn’t nearly prepared to accept. We needed that time. I realize now that everything happened as it was meant to. I, too, wouldn’t change anything at all. Because we got to this place.”
His smile was bright. “The place where you love me. Again.”
I laughed. “Yes.”
I loved him with every jagged piece of me. Every piece of me that had been heartbroken, every piece of me that had been mistrustful and lonely. Every piece of me that admired him in the careful lines of my sketches, a face I could never escape because he was always at the forefront of my mind, my constant companion. He had filled those empty places of my heart with patience and steadiness.
He was in my stories. He was in my dreams. I fell asleep beside him, and I woke to him every beautiful dawn.
And I wanted to do that for the rest of my life.
I took a deep breath, sliding my hands around his neck, curling my fingers into his black hair. His eyes were molten and watchful.
“I do have one more request, besides thezylarr,” I said.
“Tell me.”
“You offered your name to me once,” I said. His eyes flared inwant, and seeing it made me breathless. “I wasn’t ready to take it then. But I am now. If the offer still stands.”
“Do you know what that name means?” Kaldur asked quietly, his eyes pinned to mine. He seemed to be holding his breath. “That you’ll be theKylairaof Vyaan. My wife.”
“Yes,” I whispered, shy at the title. “I know.”
A sharp sound escaped him.
Kaldur’s kiss was soft, a mere brush of his lips as if he were savoring the words that had just left mine. Then it deepened as I clung to his shoulders. Between us, our child, due in a handful of short weeks, shifted. And she was safe between us. Healthy.
My family,I thought, smiling as joyous tears burned the backs of my eyes. What had I ever done to deserve this blessing?
“You’ll marry me?” he asked, and I felt his heart thundering against my palm. “You’ll be my wife,dallia?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “I will.”
“Erina Denoren of House Kaalium,Kylairaof Vyaan,” he said, grinning. His silver eyes twinkled in the starlight hallway as the moon winds raged, wild and wondrous.
Then he sealed my name with his kiss.
EPILOGUE
ERINA
