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“All I’ve ever wanted was you.” I touch the diadem nestled in my loose hair. “Not this crown. Not this palace. Certainly not the world.”

Memnon’s jaw hardens. “But you’ll get it all the same,” he says resolutely.

I stare at him for a long time. “I’m sure I will,” I say. “You have accomplished everything you’ve put your mind to thus far.”

I again sense Memnon’s urge to plead with me. I can practically feel the ache in his knees to bend them, to press my hands to his forehead and beg for more than just my forgiveness: for me to concede to this plan. Deep in his heart, I know he wants me to believe in this vision every bit as much as he does.

“Why do you trust her?” I ask. I don’t need to say who.

Memnon’s gaze flickers. “Beyond her loyalty to my family…I have peered into her mind.”

I widen my eyes; a surge of something ugly and possessive rises in me. He’s touched her? Looked deep into her thoughts? There’s a sort of intimacy that comes with the act, one that cuts like a blade.

“She has shown me only her sincere respect for the both of us,” he says.

I frown, knowing intuitively that cannot be true, but I trust Memnon implicitly, and if he has peered into her mind…it is hard to argue with what he’s seen.

“What if I told you to banish her back to where she came from?”

Memnon’s brows rise. “I would banish her.”

He must know the words are on my lips because he looks at me beseechingly.

“She’s the only connection I now have to him,” Memnon admits hoarsely.

Ilyapa, Memnon’s powerful,deceasedfather. The man who loved Memnon as much as he could, despite the toll his power took on his conscience. And now he’s forever out of Memnon’s reach.

What I would give for even an object that my father once touched—or my mother or my siblings. What logic I would evade, so long as it meant holding on to that item. And if thatitem were instead a person, a flesh-and-blood being who could share memories of my family with me? Who could influence me and coax out my highest ambitions, just as they had my relatives’? There is little Iwouldn’toverlook, just to keep them near.

I breathe in deeply. If Memnon wants to have Eislyn around in order to be closer to his father, I can be accommodating.

“Fine,” I say softly. “I will not ask you to banish her—for now.”

He gives me a small smile before it falls away. Memnon searches my gaze. “If you are not here to banish Eislyn or to talk me out of my plan, then why, sweet mate,areyou here?”

I step up to him, laying my hand on his heart. Beneath my palm, it beats swiftly. He’s nervous, even if he won’t say so.

“Foolish man,” I whisper, “I’d walk through the Underworld for you. So if we’re to do this, really do it, then we do it together.”

Memnon’s eyes smolder, a bit of his magic shining through them. His hands grip my upper arms, and he drags me in for a kiss.

His lips are rough, the sweep of them frantic and greedy. I meet each stroke with my own, my hands sliding up his back and tangling in his long hair.

“Too good,” he whispers, “you’re too good for me.”

Even as he says it, he reaches for my breeches, loosening them.

And now he does fall to his knees, taking my pants down along with him.

I suck in a sharp breath at the feel of the winter air against my bare skin. Memnon uses his magic to do away with my boots and the trousers tangled at my ankles.

“What if someone sees?” I ask, as Memnon nudges my legs apart. Ferox swiftly flees the room, his tail twitching in annoyance as he gives us our privacy.

Okay, what if someonehumansees?

Memnon wraps his arms around my backside, dragging my pussy closer to him.

Then I will wipe their minds of the memory.