With a defeated sigh, he pressed his forehead to hers. “Aye, woman. I think I loved ye from the moment I set eyes on ye. At first, I blamed the feeling on the mate bond, the need to unite with ye not only for myself but for the prophecy. But this feeling is more—so much more than the need for my soul to be mended.” He lowered himself the barest bit, pressing his chest tighter against hers until their heartbeats pounded together. “This is my heart needing ye for its own.”
She wanted to cry, to laugh, but mostly, she wanted to feel thepowerhe’d spoken of, the power of their joining. “I love you too.” She buried her fingers in his hair and pulled him down for a long, slow kiss. “I never thought I’d say that to anyone,” she said when he lifted his head. “I never thought I’d ever feel safe enough to tell anyone that I loved them.”
He shuddered, shifting the long, hard ridge of his maleness against her.
Slowly wrapping her legs around him, she cradled him with an aching need she knew he couldn’t possibly misunderstand. “We can rock our way gently into the shadows,” she whispered against his ear. “Please? I promise you won’t endanger me.”
“May the gods forgive me,” he said through clenched teeth as he slid inside her, thrusting deep and solid with a perfect tilting of his hips.
She forgot how to breathe, but she managed a groan as he rocked into her again and again. Slowly. Perfectly. Exquisitely. Then reality exploded into blinding bits of energy that showered her across the universe in blissful pieces of ecstasy. She heard a scream. No. Wait. That was her. She’d actually cut loose with aloud, rapturous scream as she swirled through a tunnel of light, color, and heavenly music. She had to be dead. This couldn’t be real. For one, with her voice, she couldn’t scream, and secondly, no sex she had ever enjoyed hadeverbeen like this.
Magnus rammed in harder, then froze, threw back his head, and unleashed the bellowing roar of a prehistoric beast claiming dominance over the world. With a final, deep groan, he shuddered and sagged on top of her, once again pressing his forehead to hers. “Dinna wish to crush ye,” he mumbled, groaning as he locked his arms around her, creating a muscular arch of space between them.
“I love the feel of you pressing me into the bed.” She kissed his cheek, smiling as she tickled her nose in the scratchy softness of his close-clipped beard. “You made me love you, too, you know?”
He lifted himself and looked down at her, his expression hard to read in the shadows. “Are ye all right, my love? Pray tell me I nay hurt ye.”
“You made me feel more loved than I have ever felt before. Stronger. Happier. You could never hurt me.” She traced a fingertip along the outline of his brows, then the line of his aquiline nose, then the fullness of his bottom lip. “This Thirteenth Realm of yours is an amazingly beautiful and frightening place. But as long as I have you, I think I can survive it.”
“Ye will always have me, my love. Always.” He shifted and pulled her tight against him. Keeping her in the curve of his arm, he rolled to his side. “But remember, I always need ye as well. Ye mustn’t take risks. I dinna wish ye anywhere near Kcirred, ye ken?”
“Maybe we can find a way to fight him with the music like we did in the tower. It affected that wall of his without us being up close to it.”
“We will think on it.” He pressed a tender kiss to her temple. “Now, sleep. Ye are still verra weak. I hear it in yer breathing and yer voice. Dinna make me regret giving in to yer temptations, ye ken?”
She smiled up into the darkness and nuzzled closer, breathing in the perfection of the moment. “I ken…my love,” she whispered, but couldn’t help but look forward to when her energy was fully restored and she and the husband she’d never thought she’d ever have could enjoy each other without any reservations.
Grudgingly,Lyla had agreed to a breakfast tray in bed even though she found it fussy, overly pampering, and downright embarrassing. She wasn’t an invalid and was still coming to terms with having a maid who scurried to take care of her every whim before she even thought about it.
Then that first sip of coffee made everything better. She smiled and took another while relaxing back into the mountain of pillows Albionna had piled behind her. “Tern outdid herself with the coffee this morning. It’s even better than before.”
“Aye, well”—Albionna clucked like an industrious chicken searching for bugs—“Mistress Tern regrets the past with all her being. ’Tis a wonder she remains as housekeeper. Many of us feared she would resign her post and take herself to the abyss.”
“What is theabyss?” Lyla wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. She’d come to the disturbing realization that the Thirteenth Realm could be a very unforgiving place—as unforgiving as her twenty-first-century home. “It wasn’t her fault about Martha. She didn’t know.”
Albionna buzzed around the room, pulling back the window coverings to welcome in what little sunshine the cloudy day would spare. “Those condemned to the abyss—either by their own consciences or by our chief or Lord Darkmist—suffer eternally. It is a place of nothing but darkness and pain.” She hurried back across the room, plumped the pillows on a trio of chairs in the seating area beside the hearth, then moved them closer to the bed, arranging them in a cozy arc as if Lyla were the main display in a store window.
Not particularly pleased with the arrangement, Lyla decided to tackle one battle at a time. Apparently, the abyss was the Thirteenth Realm’s version of hell. She was glad Tern hadn’t gone there. Setting her coffee cup back on the tray, she idly fiddled with the steaming, buttery scones on the platter in front of her. “What happened to Martha, Albionna? Was she sent to the abyss?”
“Martha is no longer here, Divine One. Meaning no disrespect, my lady, but that is all ye need to know of it.” The maid nodded at the breakfast tray. “If ye dinna eat, our chief will not be pleased.”
“She was only trying to save her brother.” Deep in her heart, Lyla knew Martha hadn’t been bad; she’d been cornered into a situation where she felt she had no choice.
Albionna eyed her for a long moment, her great brown eyes reflecting an odd mix of sadness and determination. “Accountability, Divine One. When we make choices, we are accountable for those choices and must accept whatever comes to us because of them.” She nodded at the tray again. “Please eat. Yer color is so much better, but ye must get stronger. Our chief will not allow the Weavers an audience with ye if ye dinna eat and prove to him that ye are well on yer way to reclaiming yer strength.”
“I am not a child to be kept prisoner in my room.” While Lyla appreciated Magnus’s protectiveness, she refused to be obsessively coddled. “And I can sit in a chair when I see them. I’m not so weak that I need to stay in the bed.”
“Just for this one visit, aye?” Albionna rested a hand on the nearest chair. “Besides, I have already moved them into such a pleasing arrangement. The mighty MacRaith will be impressed that ye allowed me to do so.”
Lyla recognized a load of crap when she heard it, but wouldn’t make the maid’s job any more difficult by calling her out on it. To humor the hawk-eyed servant, she took a bite of the buttery scone, then washed it down with another sip of coffee. “Delicious.”
Magnus lumbered into the room, suspiciously scanning the place like a ready-for-a-brawl security guard. When his focus landed on the breakfast tray, his brooding expression darkened even more. “One bite?”
“I like to enjoy my coffee first, and then the food.” Which wasn’t a lie, but she could tell by the look in his eyes that he wasn’t buying it. She held up the plate that was loaded down with entirely too many scones, chunks of cheese, slices of apple, and questionable strips of something that smelled suspiciously like smoked or cured pork. “By the way, while I appreciate Tern and the kitchen’s efforts, could you let them know I don’t eat meat? Want some?”
“Ye dinna eat meat?” He sat beside her on the edge of the bed, kissed her cheek, then scooped up the meaty strips and downed them in one gulp. “How can ye not eat meat and live?”
“Vegetables. Fruit. Cheese. Eggs. Bread. They keep me alive quite nicely.” She shrugged. “It bothers me to think about an animal dying so I can eat, so I don’t eat meat.”
