Dread froths inside my heart, drowning out its beats.
“…can you leave immediately with whomever the Cauldron mates you with? Even if the prophecy hasn’t yet come to pass?”
“I wearyourring in the prophecy.”
I’m not trying to give him false hope. I’m merely reminding him that the prophecywillcome to pass before I’m mated to anyone else.
I nudge his nose with mine to coax his stare off the rug. “I’m glad for Mimi’s reply. At least now, I feel neither guilt about sealing the charmed medallion to your skin, nor temptation to cancel my magical command.”
When his lashes lower, obscuring more of the gray, I sigh against his clamped lips.
For a long while, they remain unyielding, but then they part around a heartbreaking murmur, “One hundred and seventy-seven years old, ruler of a fucking empire, yet ever since I met you, I feel like some pathetic youth playing at being king.”
To defuse his glumness, I tease, “Skies, you’re old.”
Sure enough, it peels back one layer of self-loathing.
“You know what I think, Konstantin Korol?”
“What do you think, Isla Ríhbiadh?”
“I think that you should set down your crown and your responsibilities for one night and let yourself live a little.”
I start cooking up arguments which could counter any protest he may toss at me, but he surprisingly concedes and lets me lead him to the dinner table. I fill up his cup and then unveil his bowl full of borsht.
“I picked the menu,” I say, “notyour chef.”
“You know me too well.” He reaches across the table for my hand and holds it as he polishes off his bowl and accompanying flaky rolls.
“Do I?” I ask.
“Yes. You do.”
I take a sip of Faerie wine. “I’ve yet to see you stark naked.”
He chokes on his bite of bread, then pinkens from both lack of oxygen and discomfiture. “Holy Gods, woman, the sort of things that come out of your mouth…”
His throat moves over a cough and then over a swallow. He releases my hand in order to scoot back his chair and pat his thigh.
“Come here.” Once I’m seated on his lap, he skims one palm over my bare skin, then higher, beneath the fabric that’s ridden so far up it barely covers my lady parts. “Thank you for coming back. Even if it was only for the prophecy, I?—”
“I came back foryou, not for the prophecy.”
Emotion washes over his face, leaving behind a sparkle that floods my heart—reverence. That’s how he looks at me. As though I were precious. Me, the daughter of a ruthless shifter king with unseemly war paint, ruinous iron edges, disgraceful manners, and a shabby command of words and magic.
He captures my mouth in a kiss that is as heady as the scrape of his fingers against my thigh. “You feel like velvet,” he murmurs, before kissing me more deeply.
When his fingers slope toward my inner thigh, my breathing turns nippy, and then downright erratic because he’s palming my legs apart to give himself easier access. I gasp when he glides his knuckles down the scrap of silk, then stop breathing altogether when his fabric-cloaked knuckle reaches my center. And then it’s his breathing that changes.
I smile, keenly aware of the reason for the disruption—he’s just discovered the strand of pearls that winds up the runnel of my buttocks.
When his fingers bump into the second bead, he lifts me, plants me between his thighs, and hikes up my dress, rasping out a husky, “Fuck.”
I glance over my shoulder, committing to memory the look of devastating desire that hones his attention.
He hooks a finger around the strand, then lowers his hand excruciatingly slowly, caressing my cleft with his knuckle. “Feels likemybirthday.”
I press my hair aside, then grab the ribbon around my neck and give it a tug. “Slide my zipper down.”
