"And Erlik?" she said.
"I met him. In the shadow paths, before the portal scattered us. He wanted me to come to Kara Cehennem and claim my birthright." I let the contempt in my voice be real, because that part at least was. "I refused."
"You refused the God of the Underworld."
"I told him I have a life here. People I care about." I pressed my forehead to hers. "He wasn't happy. But right now, I'm here. With you."
She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was careful in a way that meant she was being very deliberate about every word.
"Don't ever disappear on me like that again."
"Ada —"
"I'm not asking you to tell me everything right now." Her hands tightened in my shirt. "I'm not — I know there's something you're not saying, Hakan. I'm not blind and I'm not stupid and I know your face better than I know my own." She pulled back enough to look at me directly, and her eyes were dry now, the tears burned off by something steadier and harder. "But I also know that you came back. You're here, and you came back, and whatever happened in those three days — you chose to come back." Her jaw set. "So I'm going to give you the space to tell me yourself. When you're ready. But when you are ready, you tell me everything. Not the version you think I can handle. Everything."
I looked at her — the gold of her eyes, the particular set of her chin when she had decided something — and felt the lie sit in my chest like a stone.
"Together," I heard myself say. "We'll face it together."
She held my gaze for one more moment, making sure I understood that she'd heard exactly what I hadn't said.
Then she pulled me back in and held on, and I pressed my face into her hair and made myself memorize the way she felt — warm and certain and entirely herself — because I knew exactly what was coming. I had agreed to it. I had looked a god in the eye and said yes, and the price of that yes was standing in my arms right now, trusting me, giving me space to tell the truth,and I was going to break her heart because the alternative was watching her die.
I held on tighter.
And I began to mourn what I hadn't lost yet.
CHAPTER 24
LIGHT REALM
Ada
I woke to the weight of Hakan's arm across my waist and the steady rhythm of his breathing against my neck.
Dawn light filtered through the silk curtains of his chambers—our chambers now, though the formal announcement hadn't been made. I'd stopped pretending I slept anywhere else weeks ago. My belongings had migrated here piece by piece: a hairbrush on his vanity, my books stacked beside his, my scent woven into his sheets so thoroughly that neither of us could tell where one ended and the other began. It felt odd not to have my own independence but I loved him too much to stay away.
I lay still, unwilling to break the spell of this moment—his body warm and solid against my back, his shadows curling lazily around us both even in sleep, as if they couldn't bear to let me go.
Three days since the healers had declared my father's recovery genuine. Three days since the crushing terror had finally lifted from my chest. Three days of celebrating in the only way I knewhow: wrapped around Hakan in every conceivable position, in every room we could find.
Yesterday it had been his study, bent over his desk with my skirts around my waist while he fucked me so hard the inkwell had shattered on the floor. The day before, the hidden alcove behind the tapestry in the eastern corridor, his hand clamped over my mouth to muffle my screams while a patrol of guards passed mere feet away. And last night—gods, last night had been its own particular madness.
I shifted slightly, feeling the delicious ache between my thighs. Hakan had been insatiable, taking me against the wall the moment we'd stumbled through his door, then again in the chair by the fireplace, then finally in this bed where he'd kept me pinned until I'd lost count of how many times I'd shattered apart beneath him.
My body bore the evidence of his attention. Bruises on my hips from his grip. Bite marks scattered across my throat and breasts. A pleasant soreness that reminded me with every movement exactly who I belonged to.
I loved every single mark.
Hakan stirred behind me, and I felt him harden against my ass before he was even fully awake. His arm tightened, pulling me flush against him, and his mouth found the curve of my shoulder.
"You're thinking too loudly." His voice was rough with sleep, sending shivers down my spine. "Stop it."
"I was admiring the evidence of your barbarism."
"Mm." His teeth scraped the mark he'd left on my neck last night, making me gasp. "You didn't seem to mind my barbarism when you were screaming for more."
Heat flooded my core at the memory. He was right. I always screamed for him, wanting more. He was never enough. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
