“No, I didn’t.” She squealed and laughed at his ridiculousness. “I can feel your emotions.”
Amos leaned over and bit her backside, hard. “Don’t downplay my pain.” His hands trailed down her body, and he kneeled behind her. “I’m on the verge of tears, wife, and you’re laughing.”
Her mate ran his tongue across her pussy, flicking at her entrance, and she buried her face in the soft blankets. “Yes, like that,” she gasped.
“Your greedy little cunt is weeping,” he groaned, swiping his warm tongue over her lips again. “What I wouldn’t do to fuck this tight little hole every day.” Another series of licks, each one diving between her swollen lips.
“Amos.” She pushed herself against his face, needing more.
“Are you about to come on my tongue, little viper?” he drawled. “Are you close?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted like a prayer.
He stopped abruptly and bent over her back. “What are you doing?” she wailed. “I was almost there.”
Twisting her head to look at him, she froze at the smugness in his expression. “Next time I give you a gift, say thank you.”
He straightened and patted her ass. “Get dressed and I’ll make you breakfast before you go.”
Clover stood and gaped at him. “If you walk out without making me come, I won’t write to you for an entire month,” she lied through her teeth.
The hazel eyes she loved so much narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”
She arched her brows. “I would.”
Prowling across the room, he grabbed her by the waist and threw her on the bed. “I was going to fuck you after breakfast anyway.”
Clover stood with Amos near the den’s entrance, cursing every god in existence. Their temporary separation grew harder as they aged because they both finally understood what they had but were forced to experience it at a distance.
“Write to me when you get to Dragon Village so I know you made it safely,” Amos said. “And when you arrive in the Human Kingdom.”
“I will,” she promised. They fell into silence, neither wanting to be the first to say goodbye.
“When I kill Paul, will you come home?” Clover knew that every time Paul returned to Dragon Village, he asked people about her. The villagers gave evasive answers. Some claimed not to know her, others sent him in circles. He’d figured out who her family was—likely from population records in the capital—but her father told him they hadn’t heard from her in a while.
The only thing keeping him from finding her was that almost everyone in Dragon Village was either Hydra or Hydra allies, and none of them would betray her. Over two years later, and the man had yet to give up. It didn’t make sense.
“Yes. I’d stay here now if we were ready for war, but I know I can’t risk going up against Paul and the king until the Hydra is ready.” Clover wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’re not the only one barely surviving. I just hide it better.” She kissed her husband like it might be the last time.
Amos deepened their kiss, and she didn’t need their bond to feel his longing and sadness. “I love you,” he murmured when they broke apart. “Always.”
“I love you too, Your Highness.”
He laughed as Clover climbed onto Sasha’s back and disappeared into the den.
21
TWENTY-THREE YEARS OLD
“Clover,” Franny called from the front of the bakery. “Someone is here to see you.”
Franny bustled through the door separating the kitchen from the front of the store with a wide smile. “I’ll finish up here. Go greet your guest. It’s been a few years since you’ve seen him, and I know how close you two used to be.”
Clover moved slowly toward the door, with no idea whom her sister-in-law meant. What if it was Paul? What if he’d lied? Franny didn’t know what Paul looked like.
With her hand around the hilt of her dagger hidden in the pocket of her dress, she pushed open the swinging door, poised to strike, and froze. “Thomas?”
Thomas lifted his head with a boyish smile, his golden gaze lighting up. “There she is.”
