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‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’ Wilder told her. Instead, he reached for those loose strands of hair in her eyes and tucked them gently behind her ears, relieved to find her leaning into his touch.
‘Did you go to Tver to get your stallion?’ he asked, closing the little distance between them, wondering once more if this was a trick of his mind, if the Archmage of Chains had broken into his dreams again.
Thea raised her brows. ‘There was something a little more pressing to attend to first, Warsword.’
‘I can’t imagine what…’ Wilder’s gaze dropped to her lips.
‘Besides, I thought you might want to be there with me. You did threaten to name my stallion Pancake, after all…’ Thea’s warm hands trailed up his torso, and he was surprised to find that he was still bare-chested. One less thing to remove, he thought distantly, leaning in.
Thea threaded her fingers through his hair, a sigh escaping her, as though she’d been holding it in all this time. But there was something he had to know, something that would define them from here on.
‘Did they grant it to you?’ he whispered, as his mouth almost brushed hers. ‘Immortality?’
Thea drew back, only slightly, and shook her head. ‘No,’ she answered, briefly hesitating. ‘You never told me what you asked… What you asked instead?’
Tension rolled through Wilder as he pressed his brow to hers, trying to contain the ache in his chest. The grains in the hourglass moved against them at breakneck speed now. Less than a year… That was what they had left together, and that was if they survived the war to come.
‘Wilder?’ Thea pressed.
‘I asked them if I’d regret it… not seeking immortal life.’ He met her celadon gaze, memorising every one of her features anew. ‘They told me that I’d never regret it. That while my life would hold much pain, it would also hold more love than I could ever imagine.’
Thea’s stormy eyes lined with tears. ‘Fuck,’ she muttered, looking down. ‘I told myself I wouldn’t —’
But Wilder gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, bringing her face up to his once more. ‘You never have to hide your tears from me.’
Thea’s hand slipped from his hair and cupped the side of his face, her expression softening. ‘I love you,’ she said, her voice cracking.
Wilder’s legs threatened to give way beneath him. She had spoken those words amid the carnage of the Scarlet Tower, and they had uttered them to one another before in Tver… In the hot springs, on the eve of battle, afterwards as well… But Thea had never been the one to say it first, and he’d told himself he understood, that it didn’t matter. He would take whatever she gave him and be fucking grateful. And then everything had changed. The Great Rite had called her and he’d stopped her from saying it. In the dank cells of the prison, it had mattered, and in his darkest moments, he’d feared he might never again hear those words from her lips.
‘Say it again,’ he murmured, his heart racing, his grip tightening on her chin.
Thea traced the lines of his face with reverence. ‘I love you.’
A shuddering breath escaped Wilder. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Thea peered into his eyes. ‘I have never been so scared in my life, never —’
‘I know.’ His voice threatened to falter. ‘Me either.’
‘There is so much I want to tell you, so much I want to —’
‘Later,’ Wilder said, and kissed her.
He kissed her to close the distance he felt between them, the distance created not by time and space, but by each not knowing what the other had been through. His lips ghosted over Thea’s and her mouth opened for him, his tongue brushing hers.
She drew him tighter to her and moaned, the sound vibrating down into his chest, into his soul.
‘I love you,’ he whispered, breaking away for just a moment. ‘I love you so fucking much.’ And then he deepened the kiss, claiming her fiercely, dragging his hands over her body as though he could imprint the shape of her onto his palms.
As her mouth moved over his and her hand rested against his heart, he wondered abstractly if it was another dream.
If it is, he thought, his blood heating as he pushed Thea against a table and she wrapped her legs around him, I’ll stay here forever.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEA
Wilder kissed her like a man possessed, and Thea whimpered, giving everything she had right back and refusing to let go as he laid her down on the table, covering her body with his powerful frame. They were a clash of tongues and teeth and pawing hands; that familiar dark frenzy that had always been between them threatened to take hold. He gripped her hard enough to bruise and she bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. A low rumble of desire escaped him, the sound sending a bolt of longing straight to her core.
