“That choosing you meant abandoning them.” His voice dropped to a register I’d never heard from him. Stripped of every title and every century of practice. “Every person in Veyndral who depends on the crown to hold. If I chose you and the throne collapsed, those deaths would be mine.”
My chest tightened.
“So I told myself duty required the rejection. That a king who sacrifices his people for his mate isn’t a king at all.” He swallowed. “But that wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth is that duty was easier than admitting I’d fall apart if you didn’t choose to abandon this world for the burden of the throne withme. With us. So I hid behind a kingdom full of people to avoid being honest about one woman.”
He stood three feet away. Close enough to touch, far enough to give me the space to walk out if I wanted to.
“You didn’t even let me say a word,” I said. “You didn’t hear my reasons.”
“I was too much of a coward.”
“You decided what I could handle before I had the chance to prove you wrong.”
“Yes. I was wrong for not trusting you.”
“And then you watched me almost die from it. Our children almost died. Because you were too afraid to let me choose you.”
His jaw clenched. The muscle worked beneath the skin and his hands trembled at his sides, fists that wanted to fix what fists couldn’t reach.
“Yes,” he said. No defense or justification. Just the word, laid bare.
The person standing in front of me with no armor left, waiting for the verdict, braced for the rejection they believed they deserved.
“Come here,” I said.
He didn’t move.
“Lucian. Come here.”
He closed the three feet between us. Stopped with his chest inches from mine, his height forcing me to tilt my head back, his scent flooding my senses with the familiar warmth that had been muted for months behind the wall he’d built.
I reached up and pressed my palm flat against the scar on his chest. His heart slammed into my hand, rapid and desperate, and the bond wall between us vibrated with the force of everything he was holding back.
“I forgive you, Lucian.”
The wall didn’t crack. It dissolved.
The third channel blazed open and the bond network completed. Three channels pouring into each other, Percy’s brightness, Solomon’s depth, and Lucian’s overwhelming warmth flooding through every connection.
My knees buckled. Lucian caught me. His arms wrapped around my waist and my hands gripped his shoulders and the sensation was so complete, so full, that for three seconds I couldn’t tell where my heartbeat ended and his began.
“I’m sorry,” he said against my hair. “For every day you spent unforgiven. For every night you carried alone.”
“Your Majesty, shut up and kiss me.”
He kissed me.
Lucian’s mouth claimed mine with two centuries of restraint snapping at the seams, one hand gripping the back of my neck, the other lifting me off my feet.
My back hit the map table. Patrol schedules scattered and Solomon’s broken pen clattered to the ground.
He pressed me against the surface with his hips pinning mine, and I fisted the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. Kissing him back with the anger and the grief and the forgiveness all tangled together, my legs wrapping around his waist, grinding as the bond screamed and my body was following orders my brain hadn’t approved.
His hand slid beneath my shirt. Fingers spread across my ribs and the sound I made against his mouth was not dignified. His growl vibrated against my lips, hips rolling forward, and the friction made my spine arch off the table.
Somewhere in the forest, two alphas felt the third channel explode open and knew exactly what it meant.
Percy’s frequency erupted with relief. Solomon’s pulsed once. A single beat of acknowledgment that carried more emotion than most people expressed in a lifetime.
