Page 152 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Njall’s jaw tightened and his eyes seemed to gloss over.

“Your father…” Gavriel hesitated. Njall was here. They had clearly run.

Elara answered to spare Njall the pain. She told Gavriel of Njall’s return without his father. Of the storm that buried their tracks. Of wolves in the dark. Of the prison escape. Of where they meant to go next.

Gavriel bent forward, one hand braced on his knee. “So we’re going to Lunnholm.” He lifted his eyes to Njall again, at a loss for anything sufficient.

“Then to Celestine Isle,” Elara added softly.

Chapter 71

Duncan

For nearly a week they barely left the bed. Silver trays came and went, their contents forgotten after a few distracted bites. Sleep came in fragments, each waking met with hands seeking each other with the hunger of the starved and the reverence of the saved.

Duncan had not known peace could be not the absence of fear, but the patient unmaking of it, until what remained felt startlingly simple: the slow rebirth of the man he had once been.

But this morning, duty returned. He eased his arm from beneath Kora’s cheek with the care of a thief in the night and slipped from the bed. Cold prickled at his skin as he gathered his clothing and dressed mostly by memory. Linen shirt. Trousers. Doublet. Sword. His fingers felt clumsy after the long, stupefying tenderness of their seclusion.

Before fastening the last buckle of his cloak, he paused to look at her. Kora lay on her stomach, one arm reaching toward the warmth he had left behind. The blanket had fallen to the small of her back, leaving the length of her spine bare to the pale wash of morning light.

She was beautiful in gowns and glittering jewels. In plain Marrowgate dresses. More beautiful like this. Unaware. Unarmored. Softened by sleep.

He cursed the useless moons and bent for his boots.

“Must you leave?”

She had sat up and turned toward him, leaving the blanket behind, the soft curves of her breasts a welcome suggestion beneath dark rivers of hair. His restraint thinned to a thread.

“Wolmer has summoned me.” His smile slanted helplessly. He crossed to the bed and knelt beside her, pressing a kiss into the center of her palm. “Then I am needed at the border. Not for long, I hope,” he added gently, though he knew the bitterness of it could not be softened. “I have already been away longer than I meant to be.”

Sadness touched her features, but she did not protest.

Duncan leaned his forehead against hers, commiserating. “We are expected to winter at court,” he continued, brushing a stray curl from her cheek because he could not stop himself from touching her. “Likely through spring. But when summer comes, and we are home at Emberglade, there is something I want to show you.”

She pulled back slightly, interest catching in her green eyes.

“We have a hunting cabin west of the low hills. My father took us there when he wished to be no one and answer to no one. Few know it exists.” He pulled her closer again. “I will take you. We will have a week like this again, in a place no emperor or war can reach.”

Kora smiled, mischief warming it. “I would like that very much.”

Then she leaned toward him.

Duncan meant to keep the kiss brief.

It did not remain so. Her hands slid behind his neck, drawing him back with delicate insistence. She breathed his name against his lips. Question. Invitation. Refusal to let him leave cleanly. The blanket slipped further away, and Duncan let out a low sound he would deny before any soldier.

There went the neat buckles.

There went Wolmer’s summons.

There went the last resolve of a dutiful duke.

He stripped away what he had only just fastened and took her again—slow at first, then not slow at all, as though he could imprint the memory of her into his skin before leaving.

When he finally emerged, the sun had climbed well above the palace roofs. Isander, who had been waiting just outside, took one look at him, choked back a laugh, and joined his flight through the corridor with an indecently humorous grin. “It’s fortunate Wolmer does not execute men for tardiness,” he said, amusement unchecked.

A passing steward wisely averted his eyes as the Duke of Lemierre jogged down the hall with hair untamed and cuffs uneven, a faint echo of a woman’s laugh trailing behind him.