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She followed me, her hands clasping onto my shoulders and forcing me to turn around. “Rook, stop.” She seized my face in her hands. “We’ll get out of here. One day, somehow, we’ll be home. Inourhome. Remember? We’ll wake up together, every morning. I’ll wake you with the words you want to hear. And you’ll put your hands on my belly, feeling our child kick, because he’s heard your voice and loves it most of all.”

My eyes burned as I looked down at her, at her beautiful, desperate face. I wanted her to promise me. I wanted to hear her say it even though I knew it was impossible, even though I was asking something of her she could never promise to give me. “Do you swear it?”

“I promise you. That is our future. I’ve seen it. I don’t know how, I don’t know when. But it will be.” She threw her arms around my neck, and I lifted her into my arms. Her legs wrapped around my waist, and she kissed me sweetly, urgently, as though every kiss she laid on my mouth was the last. I held her to me, her skin cool from the water, beads of it dripping from her long hair down my arms. “I’m sorry.” She whispered between her shower of kisses. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I murmured. “We’ll be home soon.”

Her kisses changed as her skin heated against me, her tongue seeking mine hungrily. I carried her down to the ground, kneeling underneath her as she braced her feet against the mossy floor, and with a jerk of her hips she’d taken me inside her.

There was nothing slow or drawn out now. She rocked herself furiously on me, holding on to my shoulders as she rode me. It was a promise, the most intimate way she could show me she loved me, the most exposed and vulnerable she would ever be. It was raw and sharp, dragging through my chest as her heart beat next to mine. Her eyes stayed on me as she panted, as she moaned and drew me out of myself.

“Rook,” she whimpered. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours, princess.”

Her head fell back, and she sobbed her way through a violent climax, stilling as I released inside her. Her chest jerked as she cried and tried to breathe, and then she collapsed against me, hot tears running down my skin.

She laughed after a while, brushing the backs of her hands across her face. “Keir always used to tell me I never cried, and I feel like all I do with you is cry.”

I clutched her to me. “I don’t care. I want you to share everything with me. Tears, laughter, anger, hope, joy, all of it. All of you.”

“I ruined the afternoon.”

I shook my head. “No, my love, you didn’t. Not one moment with you could ever be ruined.”

She raised her head a little. “The sun’s starting to get low.”

“Mmm. There’s a ball tonight too. We should get back soon.”

Her head shot up. “Aball?”

“The dragons are coming.” I brushed the hair off her forehead, and wiped away the last of her errant tears with my thumb. “Coming out of their lands to beg for favor.”

Elara’s lips tilted into a crooked grin. “Dragons? Like… like you?”

“More like cousins of mine,” I said, grimacing. “True dragons are vile creatures. Slippery. I don’t trust them. And Caedmon, the one coming tonight, he’s especially odious.”

Elara rolled her eyes with a sigh. “I suppose Theron will want to show me off like some oddity.”

“No doubt.” I kissed her jaw. “But anyone who looks at you in a way I don’t like won’t see the dawn.”

“What’s it like to fly?”

I leaned back on my hands, gazing up at the sky. “It’s incredible. Being purely weightless, moving with the wind. I miss it. Along with a great many other things.”

She took my hand, gazing at it intently. “And the shadows?”

I laughed softly. “I was wondering if you’d ever ask about that.”

Her eyes met mine. “What can you do with them?”

“I can turn the day to night.” I ran my hand down her chest. “I can create a wall of darkness so thick that it’s almost impenetrable, but I can see, as though it was brightest daylight.” She sucked in a sharp breath as my thumb grazed over her nipple. “I can press the air from someone’s lungs. I can fill their entire body with nothing but night.” I squeezed her nipple between my fingers, and her eyes fluttered closed as she sighed. I lifted her wrist to my mouth, raking my teeth along her soft skin. “I could bind these wrists to the bed.” I smacked her ass with my other hand, and she let out a sound that lay somewhere between surprise and pleasure, pressing herself against my chest. “I’d have you bound with this perfect ass in the air while you begged me to claim you.”

She moaned against my neck as I gripped her hips, rolling her against me. “I thought we needed to get back.” She was panting, rocking herself back and forth.

“We do.” I nibbled her earlobe, and she shivered. “I told you, you’ve cast a spell on me. You’re in my blood, and you’re all I can think of.” I wanted to throw her down on the ground and drive myself into her one more time before we had to return.

But the buzzing of the golden bindings on my arm suddenly brought me back to reality. The sun was beginning to sink down towards the horizon. I cast a gaze out over Elara’s shoulder, towards the vast forest that stretched out behind us, and wondered just how far we’d get before the bindings would hex us. What would happen if they did.