Page 154 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

He opened his arms wide a little too excitedly and it made me hesitate a little before curling up on his lap. “That sore?” he murmured, leaving little pecks on my lips.

“A little.”

He wrapped a large arm around my neck and pulled my cheek for a kiss. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you sorry about suffocating me, too?”

He chuckled, loosening his hold on me a little. “Terribly.”

Resting my cheek on his shoulder, I threw an arm around his neck. “Then I forgive you.”

“Rora,” he said after a while.

“Yeah?”

I felt his chest under my palm raise just a little faster. “Let’s start again.”

“Start what again?”

“All of it. From the start. Let’s do this properly. Let me make you mine properly.”

Looking up at him, I said, “Are we not proper now?”

“I don’t want to confess and kiss when one of us is bleeding. I want a do over.”

“I liked the last one.”

“You did?”

“A lot. Minus the ten years I’ve spent trying to loathe you, I don’t want to do over any of it. I like how things were and are. I like that you were my best friend and that you still are. And most of all, I am yours. There is no other way. Will never be.” I’d said too many words instead of just telling him that I loved him. I’d been ready to tell him that a long time ago, perhaps if I had been a bit more spiteful, I would have told him that night at the tavern when he pushed me away.

He put his brow to mine. “Are you still sure you’re sore?”

“Are you still sure you want me?”

He searched my gaze as if he couldn’t believe what I’d just asked. “There hasn’t been a moment when it has been otherwise, Rora.”

“If only I had known,” I whispered, trying to hold back my treacherous tears. “Maybe my heart would have hurt a little less.” Or more. I didn’t know.

“Will you ever forgive me?”

“I’m going to try.”

Chapter thirty-five

Navy Aconites

Thora

The attacks had gotten more frequent since more of Iskyla’s old clans had made their way inside my lands, accepting me as their queen. What made me wonder was their severity. She sent less soldiers. Less trained ones, too. Which then made me think this was a tactic of hers to study me since she had no intentions of giving me a real challenge. The end was approaching, I could feel it. The end I had waited for so long. And I was finally so unready for it. Never had I been this unprepared. So weak.

Though my powers were hiding still, my people weren’t. Somehow, their support had grown these past few days. Maybe it had been a blessing to lose my magic. Maybe it had been a sign.

But I missed them. Part of me had been taken. I no longer felt entirely whole.

Elias handed me a folded letter just as I stepped out of the meeting room to head for the Academy and see what mischief my students were up to. “His royal majesty wanted me to pass this to you.”

“A letter?”