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I laugh again, then take another deep pull from the skein. “You’re just trying to get me drunk, aren’t you?”

He presses a hand to his heart like I’ve wounded him. “You’ve figured out my master plan.”

I pass the wine to Memnon, who also takes a long drink of it.

“I really do like this,” he says, pulling the canteen from his lips and appraising it. He restoppers it and tosses it onto the blanket he set out. “Now come here,” Memnon says, his magic reaching out for him. “I’m cold, and your body heat might be the only thing that will keep me warm tonight.”

Another peal of laughter escapes me. It’s high summer. “So dramatic,” I say, even as I all but trip over to him.

“How dare you suggest such a thing,” he saysdramatically. He leads me over to the blanket, where the two of us sit, our eyes on the heavens. Only then does he grab the canteen and pass it back to me. “I swear the stars look different since you’ve been by my side,” Memnon says.

“Different how?” I ask, bumping his shoulder playfully.

He bumps me back. “Less lonely. And far more beautiful.”

“Is that right?” I say.

He turns to me. “Everything is more beautiful since I found you—the sky, the grass, horseshit, all of it.”

“Ah yes, lovely horseshit, how can we forget that?”

The two of us laugh, leaning together like coconspirators. Somewhere in there, I hiccup, which causes us to laugh harder.

On a whim, he turns and presses a kiss to my shoulder. I don’t even think it’s meant to be amorous, but my body reacts, and I tilt my head to his, finding those lips with my own.

He tastes like spiced wine and wonderful, wicked thoughts. I cannot get enough, taste enough. I get to my knees, pulling him closer. Ineedhim closer—much, much closer.

His hands find my face, then my shoulders. The tingling sensation of magic slips up my arms, under my tunic and kurta, down between my breasts?—

I inhale sharply. It feels like a caress. An intimate one.

Memnon smiles against me. “Do you like that?” he whispers.

“Are you doing that?” I ask.

He smiles. “What do you think, little witch?”

I think that if he is going to tease me with his magic, it’s only fair I do the same.

Tentatively, I send my own power out, imagining it like phantom limbs. I will my warmth into the touch as my magic moves over his body.

Memnon inhales sharply when it reaches his cock. He bows his head and groans. “You’re going to torment me?”

“Just a little.”

Then, things happen in a rush. Armor and weapons, clothes and boots—we strip away all that glittering, intimidating opulence until there is nothing between us.

Memnon lays himself over me, his face so close. “I love you, my queen,” he says, searching my face, his expression serious, fervent.

“And I love you, my king.”

Memnon smiles then, and not even the darkness around us can dim the light of it. He shifts his hips, the head of his cock right at my entrance.

Memnon kisses me fiercely as he sinks into me. There’s only me, him, the endless grasslands around us, and the heavens above us.

“I am yours forever,” he breathes against my lips. He pulls away to search my gaze, his features bathed in the soft orange glow from my magic. “Forever.”

CHAPTER 21