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“Together,” she echoes and grabs the waistband of my pants to draw me closer. “I also remember you saying you’d fuck every man and woman in the Vale before me.”

I laugh and lower my body, pinning her beneath me. “That was quite the lie.”

“I know that now. But the thought made me furious at the time.”

“You should be thankful for me,” I say, chuckling again. “If I hadn’t made you so angry, you may not have discovered your other mates.”

She flicks me on the nose. “Why? Because I would have been so content with only the High Prince of Winter?”

“Perhaps.” Even as I joke about it, I know it’s not true. Rosalina was meant to find us all, the way the sun rises in the sky and the way the moon draws the tides.

“As if you could live without Cas.”

I give an indignant huff, then begin to nibble the soft skin below her ear.

“And admit it. You love the others.”

I scoff again, but she knows it’s only for show. What would my life be if it were not intertwined with the other half of my heart and my brothers? I raise up on my forearms and look down at Rosalina. “I’ll protect them all. I promise you.”

Her bottom lip quivers before she responds. “I think this battle might be too big for you to protect everyone, Kel.”

“It won’t stop me from trying.”

That is what Rosalina’s given me after all: the ability to try, to hope, to live.

I kiss her mouth, soft and welcoming. She melts in my embrace, ringing her arms around my neck. “No ice tonight?”

“No,” I whisper. “Tonight, I just want you as you are, with me as I am.”

“As you are, my beast.” She tips her chin, tugging at the laces of my trousers. They slide away with a shiver, and she draws her palms up my thighs.

I tear the dress from her with both hands, and she gasps. She tilts her head back, hair spilling over my arm as I ease the ruined fabric from her body, baring the length of her, finding myself starved for every inch. Firelight plays over her long neck, the dip of her collarbone, and the line of her shoulder where the velvet sleeve slips away. Will there ever be a time I am not completely mesmerized by her?

My mouth moves along her body, covering her neck and shoulder and then the tight bud of her nipple. She pulls me in with wordless invitation. I kiss my way down her ribs, across the softness of her belly.

Fading bruises still mar her skin from trying to climb the rocks up to the Gardens of Ithilias, and there are new scars along her body. I kiss each one, moving lower and lower until her thighs part. I settle between them, tracing her with my tongue, gentle and slow until she’s trembling and whispers my name like a prayer.

“Kel, kiss me.” She drags me up by the roots of my hair, greedy for my mouth, and I let her taste herself on me. My scars too are mapped by her fingers, the grooves on my arms, the puckered flesh from a spear right above my heart.

I brace myself above her, and for a moment, we just breathe, her eyes locked to mine. And in these eyes, there is more than love. There is forgiveness and faith. She loves every wound, as I know she loves every part of me.

I push into her, slow and steady, and my wife arches, keening, arms tight around my shoulders.

“Oh, Kel.” She sighs. “I wish you could stay here forever, inside me.”

I said nearly the same thing the first time we made love. Now it’s my turn to echo her words. I smooth the hair from her brow. “We don’t have forever. Not yet. But I will fight for it. For you, beside you.”

“Fight for forever,” she whispers, then kisses me.

We move together, not in a frenzy but in deep sureness, a storm building.

Her nails scrape my back, pulling me in, and I chase her through every gasp, every shudder. It’s like dying and being reborn, over and over, like the world outside our walls might continue on, but in this bed, time can’t hurt us.

“Don’t let go, Kel,” she whispers, and I grip her hips, anchoring her to me. The room is nothing but heat and shadow, our bodies all that matter.

She’s about to shatter; I feel it, every muscle in her tensioned, straining, drowning me in her need. But I want to stay here, keep her at the precipice so she can live in this moment forever. She claws me closer, her legs locking at my hips, and I relent only because I intend to give her everything, always.

“Nothing will part you from me,” I whisper against her sweat-slick skin. “Not magic or time, not even the stars falling from the sky.”