Page 48

“You’re different tonight,” I say. “More here.”

“Here is the only place I want to be,” he says.

I swallow rather loudly.

“If this is to be my last visit, I wish to experience it fully,” he adds.

My thoughts scatter. My mind scrambles for words, composing several things to say and discarding all of them. I think about all the versions of this conversation I could have, the practical ones, the frightened ones, the ones where I ask about marriage requirements and prophecies and everything Felix told me. Sitting here in the dark with him finally, properly beside me for the first time since the pause began, I find that none of those questions are the ones I actually want to spend tonight asking.

“I made tea earlier. Before you came. Couldn’t sleep,” I finally babble.

Dark smiles softly. “I could not rest either.”

I force out a chuckle. “We make quite a pair. Both of us awake in our separate rooms, missing the same thing, too stubborn to admit it until one of us finally broke the rules.”

Something in his expression shifts at that, warm and aching all at once. He reaches up, slowly, giving me every chance to pull away, and brushes his thumb along my jaw the way he did that very first time he kissed me in the library.

“I should not be here,” he says, low. “We agreed. The pause.”

I should agree with him. Point at the door, brisk and sensible, the way I pointed him back down the pavement three nights ago. Instead what comes out is, “I know,” in a voice that isn’t asking him to leave at all.

“I came anyway.” Something almost sheepish crosses his face as he says it, his eyes dropping briefly to somewhere around my knees, an ancient shadow being caught out and fully aware of it, with absolutely no intention of using that awareness to actually leave.

“I’m glad you did,” I say, and mean every word of it, traitorous as that probably makes me. “You don’t have to look so guilty about it. Some rules are allowed to bend, just this once, for a night like tonight.”

Something in him eases at that, visibly, like he’d been braced for a very different response and hadn’t quite let himself hope for this one. He looks at me the way he looked at the bunny ears, all that time ago, like I’ve handed him permission for something he didn’t know he was allowed to want.

“I told myself I was only coming to tell you about the throne,” he says. “That it would be quick. Necessary information, delivered properly, rather than left for you to hear secondhand again, the way you heard everything else.”

“And now?” I say, but my voice sounds breathy and nothing like me at all.

“Now I find I have very little interest in leaving quickly,” he states, amber eyes flaring.

The space between us closes slowly, inevitably, both of us leaning towards something neither of us has the strength left to resist tonight. Not after everything, not with tomorrow bringing a crown and a coronation and every complication we’ve spent so long trying to hold at arm’s length.

“Tomorrow you’ll be king,” I whisper, our foreheads nearly touching now.

“Tomorrow is not tonight,” he says.

“No,” I agree, and close the last of the distance myself. “It isn’t.”

His mouth meets mine, soft at first, then deepening, desperate in a way neither of us bothers pretending it isn’t. Somewhere in the back of my mind I know exactly what this is, one stolen night before everything changes, and I decide, quite deliberately, not to think about tomorrow at all.

Chapter 19

Bittersweet

My arms lift up and wrap around his neck. Underneath the swirling shadows, he is firm and very real. Cooler than a human, but far warmer than a real shadow.

My body presses against his until we are flush. No space between us at all. Two beings melded into one another, while his soft shadows coil around us both.

I can feel the true shape of him now. He’s big. Not just tall, but broad. A wrestler, not a dancer. All strength and magnificence. Firm muscles and a heady masculinity.

His hand drifts down ‌my back. Large and confident, but touching me featherlight. Gentle despite his size. In his arms I feel small, but oh so safe.

The kiss deepens. My lips chase his. A small whimper escapes me, and his tongue slips into my mouth. Claiming it and tasting me. I lift up on my toes so he can explore me deeper. He rumbles a low growling sound of appreciation, and then suddenly his hands are on my hips, lifting me off the ground. My legs apparently know exactly what to do, with absolutely zero input from me. They lift and wrap around his waist with no hesitation at all. As if this is a dance we have practiced many times before.

Oh, that’s so much better. No more stretching up for me or bending down for him. Like this, we are equal height, and I can kiss him every bit as deeply as I like.