“Testing the bond,” I corrected, and felt a giddy rush at the idea of being bonded to Varidian. Why shouldn’t we have this, when so many myths had come back to life? Why shouldn’t we have something light and good, when all that had been reborn was darkness and death? Self-hatred tried to rise, telling me I didn’t deserve this, that I was a killer who deserved only bad things, but I imagined driving a sword through the chest of that voice.
Yes, my magic could only kill, but I’d used it for good today. I stopped a king who wanted to cast darkness and painacross all Ithanys. I killed those wyverns, preventing them from attacking any more of our cities, our innocents. Maybe I did deserve something good. Maybe I did deserve this, him. We were both flawed, afraid, and haunted by dark reputations and darker pasts, but we could have this light, together.
“You need a meal, a good night’s rest, a heart-to-heart, and me buried deep inside you.”
That was… scarily accurate. But— “In that order?”
“I think we can rearrange it,” he said, his voice dropping to a low purr and his eyes turning smoky with arousal. A thrill went through my belly, and I knew when he grinned that he felt it.
“Dick first,” I said, reaching between us and positioning him at my entrance, delighted with his groan, with the frantic way he throbbed in my hand.
“Arms around my neck,” he said in a rough burr of a voice that stroked its way down my body, making my toes curl again. When I obeyed, he surged inside me. “That’s my girl,” he groaned, withdrawing an inch only to thrust deeper. “You’re so good for me. Look at how you take me, look how divine we are together.”
He leaned back so I could see where we fit together, and the sight made me clench, made me so wet that he filled me entirely on the next thrust. My gasp was hidden by the loud, carnal moan that shook my husband’s throat. When he tipped his head back, eyes falling shut, I fastened my mouth to the thrumming pulse in his throat and said, “More.”
“Fuck, menace,” he grunted. “Any more of that and I think my heart might give out.”
I shrugged. “That’s a price I’m willing to pay,” I said and kissed him, swallowing his laughter like he swallowed my groan when he began to move in earnest. His hips crashed into mine as memories intruded, as the weeks apart reminded me how precious this moment was, how rare.
“I love you,” he said between desperate kisses and thrusts that turned my body to liquid heat. “I love you so much it drives me insane. I love you so much I’ll never survive if we’re parted. I love you so much the thought of you being away from my side again makes me want to unleash a lightning storm powerful enough to bring the sky down around us.”
“Bad idea,” I managed to say, though the next convulsion of my muscles around him addled my mind with sheer bliss. I locked my ankles at his back, gripped his neck, and rolled my hips to meet every quickening thrust.
“If anything happens to you,” he rasped, “I will kill everyone in this world, and the next, and the next. If you are stolen from me, I will end every scrap of life in the universe out of spite.”
His violent promises made me smile, even as I debated teasing him that his obsession was on show again. Instead, I asked, “And if I live a long life, unharmed, at your side?”
His fingers dimpled my thighs as he tightened his grip, grinding deep within me. “I will spend that long life with you, working to make this land worthy of your presence. I will make it a kingdom deserving of you as its princess. And I will—I will ensure I am a man deserving of you as my—my wife.”
I kissed him hard, hot, and fast as his thrusts turned erratic. “I love you. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. I never even knew it was possible.”
“Don’t leave me again,” he whispered.
“You were the one who left me in Morysen,” I argued.
His reply was a whine, as if he was beyond words. I kissed his cheek, his brow, and said, “I’ll never leave your side again. Even if fears speak to you, even if you think I’m safer away from you, even if the entire world turns against us, I’ll never leave.”
“Ameirah,fuck,dearling—” He clutched me desperately, bottoming out every time until hot, tingling pleasure built at thebase of my spine. “I need—I need you to bite me. I need to know if it’s real, if you can feel me, too.”
My caninesachedat the thought, a sudden pulsing sensitivity that urged me to sink them into Varidian’s skin to answer his plea. I didn’t expect a bond to spring to life when I sank my teeth into his throat; I simply wanted to bite him, mark him, place a physical claim on his body so everyone else would see it and know he wasmine.
Pleasure erupted like a fire, uncontrolled and devouring, and my back arched as it poured over me, throughout me, and made every cell in my body burn and glitter like embers. And when I floated back down, little more than ash on the wind, my mind completely empty, I felt it. Felthim.
Awe and disbelief and satisfaction so raw, so complete that it made me sigh. And on the heels of that, a swell of possessiveness so dark it made my toes curl.
“I feel you,” I laughed. “I really—I can feel you. Sothisis the madness that makes you swear to end worlds if we’re parted.”
“You feel me?” Varidian drew back, the emotion in his eyes like starlight, sparkling with the hope I felt burst behind my rib cage. “We’re bonded, like those soulmates in your stories?”
I grinned, pulling him closer until no inch of us was separated. “We are,” I confirmed with disbelief and some of that awe that glowed from his soul. “We’re bonded.”
CHAPTER 34
AMEIRAH
The next morning, I was reluctant to leave our bed, but when I closed my eyes again, the queen’s face flashed behind my eyes. Not Adeela, the queen of Ithanys—the Zalaam queen. The woman, monster,thingthat stabbed my grandmother with twisted black magic and obliterated any hope of a future with her in my life. But I wondered about the other people in the portraits, the rest of the family.
Varidian and I stayed up half the night talking about everything that happened while we were apart, and while some parts of my soul were soothed—especially since I couldfeelhow much he loved me, and how tormented he was by separating us—everything else loomed like a shadow. As tired as I was, and as early as it was, I couldn’t go back to sleep.
