“Feeling you come undone, tasting you, it was more than I could handle. And I wanted—” He paused, his throat working. “I wanted tonight to be about you.”
My eyes burned with tears. This careful, considerate man had found his release just from giving me mine.
I was falling so hard for him it terrified me.
“Come here.” I tugged him down beside me, and after removing his pants, leaving him clothed only in a simple undergarment, and wiping himself off, he came to me, pulling me into his arms so we faced each other. His hand stroked up and down my spine in soothing circles while we both caught our breath.
The bond between us hummed with contentment, with a rightness that went deeper than physical satisfaction. Something had shifted tonight. A wall had crumbled, leaving us open and vulnerable to each other in a way we hadn’t been before.
“I looked for you,” he said quietly, his fingers tracing patterns on my back. “After the festival. I sentinquiries everywhere, but I didn’t know your full name, didn’t know which village you were from. Just that you were a joy witch who made my heart stop when you smiled.”
My chest tightened. “I waited for you to come back. Every day for months, I went to that spot where we’d said goodbye, thinking maybe you’d return.”
“I’m sorry.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I’m so sorry I left the way I did, that I let you think?—”
“You had no choice. I understand that now.” I cupped his face, making him look at me. “Your parents died, and you had to take the crown. There was no time for anything else.”
“I would’ve made time for us.” His voice cracked. “You were the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I lost you because I couldn’t—” He broke off, jaw clenching.
“You didn’t lose me.” I kissed him softly. “I’m right here.”
He made a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob and crushed me against him, burying his face in my hair. We held each other as the candles burned low and the moonlight shifted across the floor, neither of us willing to let go.
“When your grandmother reached out, proposing a marriage between our people, I fought it with everything I had. I refused to even discuss it.”
“What changed your mind?”
“She told me her granddaughter, Cyrene, was a joy witch. I convinced myself it couldn’t possibly be you. The coincidence would be too great. But then she sentyour picture. I’d never responded to a missive so fast.” He pulled in a breath and released it. “When you walked down the aisle, I thought my heart would stop. You were even more beautiful than I remembered, and so furious with me.”
“I had good reason,” I pointed out, though there was no heat in my words.
“You did. I’ll spend every day for the rest of my life trying to be worthy of your forgiveness. Of your trust.”
I leaned back to study his face. “Is that why you went to such lengths with the tower room? The magical supplies?”
He nodded, a flush darkening his cheeks. “I started collecting them years ago. Whenever I traveled to forge alliances or settle disputes, I’d search the local markets for witch supplies. At first, it was a way to feel connected to you, to keep hoping. Then when I learned who I would marry…”
“You prepared a workshop for me.”
“I wanted you to have a space that was truly your own. Somewhere in this cold fortress that could feel like home.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I wanted to prove I’d been waiting, even when I thought I’d lost you forever.”
Tears pricked behind my eyes. No grand gesture could have moved me more than the thought of him collecting herbs and crystals for years, clinging to the possibility of me coming back into his life.
“It’s my favorite place in the castle,” I said.
His arms tightened around me. “I’m so glad.”
Eventually, exhaustion pulled at me. The intensity of the evening, the magic I’d expended, the earth-shattering pleasure—all of it caught up with me at once. My eyelids grew heavy, and I felt myself drifting.
“Sleep,” Kieran said, his lips brushing my temple. “I’ve got you.”
“Don’t leave.” The words came out slurred, barely coherent.
“Never.” His arms tightened around me. “I’m never leaving you again.”
I believed him. Felt the truth of it in the bond, in the steady beat of his heart beneath my palm. This careful, lonely king who’d searched for me for six years. Who’d defended me to his court, worried about my comfort, and just given me the most intense pleasure of my life while asking for nothing in return.
He was mine. And somehow, impossibly, I was his.
