Page 32 of Given to the Black King

“Now I am wondering what you will let yourself do.”

A growl moves through my chest.

Her shoulders draw tight.

I stop two steps above her. If I reach, I can take her by the waist. If I bend, I can put my mouth on the pulse beating beneath her ear.

“You are close enough for me to grab,” I say.

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one you are getting while you stand there smelling like that.”

Her lips part.

My claws extend fully.

She watches them. “Will you touch me?”

“I want to.”

“But you will not.”

“Not until you know the whole law.”

“Then tell me.”

I force my hands open. The claws retract slowly. It hurts enough to steady me.

“My true name is part of the offer. Spoken alone, it is only a name. An intimacy. One man in this hold knows it because he carried me off a battlefield when I could not walk.”

“Ghenn.”

“Yes.”

“No one else?”

“No one else uses it. Ghenn is the only man who says it to my face and keeps his head.”

She takes that in without smiling.

I continue. “The woman my blood chose must speak my name with a summons. She must mean it. No accident can trigger the rite. No trick. No word forced from her mouth.”

“What summons?”

“Come here.”

Her heartbeat stumbles.

I hear the phrase in her voice without her saying it. My fangs throb so hard my vision darkens at the edges.

She whispers, “That simple?”

“That final.”

“And then you bite me.”

“If you still want it when I reach you.”