Page 173 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

“Only adjacent?” I’d asked.

He’d grinned and used a conjured gust of wind to scatter the evidence to the breeze.

Luna didn’t know that I’d burn every single one he would have rewritten. She didn’t know that I’d burn everything to the ground to stop that from happening to her. I hoped never to have to prove it.

I had a million things to do to get us all out of this mess, but I didn’t want to move. So I indulged and simply existed in the purest moment of peace of my entire life. With Lunette, silence was her heavy warmth resting on my chest. It smelled like everything I never knew I needed. Before her, silence had only ever meant absence—the judgement of a room stilled by my presence, a court holding its breath.

If I stayed here, I thought, I might truly forget the world exists.

The mate bond thrummed between us in a steady rhythm. There was still the sharp, possessive edge I’d become comfortable living with these past few weeks, but now it had relaxed into something that felt anchoring as well. I felt her presence as readily as my own pulse, strumming beneath my ribs with a constant, effortless awareness.

I brushed my nose along the curve of her neck as I drew in a slow breath, my lips meeting her skin in an attempt to settle myself. Yet, inevitably, the peace thinned at the edges, dissolving as something colder slipped in through the back of my mind.

Vaustin Maeron was somewhere in the keep with his conclave, moving carefully, being too quiet, making no mistakes I could see. He needed to die, but my kingdom’s need for a strong leader had to outweigh my personal desire for justice. The problem was bigger than me. I had to wait for them to make the next move, even if it put me in an even worse position than I was already in.

I hadn’t spoken to Camrick since before Berian’s assassination attempt yesterday. I hadn’t gotten a full accounting of anything. Nor did I know what story was circulating about Lunette’s display of power—or whether our ploy to make the court believe she was mine had held after what Berian had said.

The ignorance ate at me. Worse, the illusion of control I’d been conjuring since yesterday would fracture if I didn’t reinforce it.

I pressed my lips to her shoulder then forced myself to move. She woke, and her lilac eyes followed me as I threw on clothes then moved to my armor racks. If my men were suffering in padding and steel, I would too.

I moved by habit, gambeson settling over me as I conjured shadows to act as my squire, tying and holding in place what I couldn’t reach with my own hands. Lunette had pushed herself up onto her elbows, hair a soft, tangled halo around her face, eyes still heavy-lidded but focused entirely on me. With every move I made, her rising worry bled faintly into me through the bond.

Mine. Cursed gods, she was mine—forever. I’d thought I was the luckiest man alive when my horse brought me to her front door, but having her made it undeniable.

“You’re brooding,” she said, lips curled in a tight smile.

“I’m putting my greaves on.”

“You’ve been holding the same plate for about a minute.”

I looked down. The greave was half-balanced on my ankle, half balanced on the chair leg beneath me. I’d briefly forgotten what I was doing, because I’d been so lost in thinking about her.

“Has it really come to you being in full armor?” she asked softly.

“Trying to avoid a war,” I said.

Or decide which version of it we can survive.

She sat up slowly, the furs pooling at her waist, granting me the delightful view of two dusky pink nipples. I tore my eyes away to notice her studying me.

“You’re going to tell me to stay here,” she said flatly.

“I am,” I replied without adornment.

Lunette made a soft, unimpressed sound and shifted, shrugging off the furs before sliding from the bed. She crossed the room without hurry and picked up her chemise. I’d been so distracted that I’d only gotten to the sabatons, greaves, and chainmail.

I’d just finished pulling on the chain shirt when she stepped between my knees, still undressed. My hands stilled. She reached out and caught my chin with her fingers, tipping my face up toward hers. The contact sent a shiver through my body.

“I want to be with you,” she said. Not quite a command, but not quite a request either. Always a temptation.

“You have to stay here,” I said, kissing her before she could organize any objections.

When I had somewhere to be, kissing her was also, arguably, a mistake—one I couldn’t bring myself to regret.

On first contact, the bond responded by flooding my body with warmth. My awareness of her sharpened until I could feel the echo of my own pulse in her.

By the gods, she wanted me. I could feel it. It seemed impossible that someone like me should find a mate like her.