Page 132 of Crave Me

“Yes,” he agreed. “But Kaspian will heal.”

“He will,” I agreed. “And he killed Paxton rather humanely, too.” By slicing his head off with the Gold and Garnet House sword.

Vesperus stared up at the moon for a beat before meeting my gaze. “I suspect Klas won’t die as quickly.”

“No, I suspect he won’t.” Because Fallon was angry. Hurt. And deep down… scared. That male had broken her spirit with his potion—forcing her to obey him, tohelphim, to honor him.

And then killing her… while using potions to keep her alive…

I shuddered. “I hope she makes him suffer.”For a very, very long time.

“Me, too,” Vesperus agreed, his gaze on the stars now. “I wish I could say that healing the moon would earn your favor with the other Houses, but…”

“It won’t,” I said, leaning against him, my stare following his to the night sky. “I hurt their trust. However, they never really earned mine, either.”

He hummed, the sound one of agreement.

We sat in silence for a long moment, enjoying the tranquil ambience of his roof as stardust fell over us from the sky.

“This world is too established,” I told him, my voice quiet so as not to disturb the beauty of the evening. “I want a reality like this one, filled with magic where supernatural beings don’t have to hide from humans. But I need it to be a world that respects me—respectsus.”

“A world where perhaps you’ve set the seeds for magic to grow into something that embraces you rather than rejects you,” he surmised.

“Yes. A world where powerful beings walk the earth, but they don’t fear the creator that moves among them.”

“And where would we find that world?” he asked, his gaze meeting mine again. “Can you create a new medallion to take us there?”

“I can try,” I replied, my lips twisting. “But it’ll be a new sentient energy, not the one I lost. Which means it’ll have a mind of its own. So I have no way of knowing what reality, or even time period, it’ll take us to.”

“Time period?” he repeated.

“Well, when I created my first medallion, it kept jumping realities and time.” I canted my head. “Dinosaurs existed, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

His eyebrows rose. “You time-traveled?”

“Sort of,” I said slowly. “It took me to an ancient era, where I wandered for a bit. Then I slept… and woke up in the current time. So it fixed itself, but it wasn’t immediate.”

“I see.” His silver-black eyes flickered. “That sounds dangerous.”

“Creation magic is always a risk,” I murmured, shrugging. “You can make something with good intentions, but you can’t control what they actually do.”

He considered that for a moment. “I understand that to an extent. It’s just like leadership—you can provide counsel, but that doesn’t mean your people will listen to you or follow your advice.”

“Yes, exactly that. Creation magic works the same way. Just because I wish something into existence doesn’t mean it’ll do precisely what I desire. Like that elf the shopkeeper wanted. Had he survived, who knows what he would have done. She’d just wished for him to exist. He would have chosen the rest.”

“Makes it rather disappointing that Raymond killed him, then.”

“Yes and no. Yes, because he didn’t deserve to die. No, because I don’t think this world would have accepted him as my creation.” Which was precisely why I needed to leave. This reality would not allow me to be myself.

And it wouldn’t allow Vesperus to thrive either.

We hadn’t formally discussed the decision to venture to a new realm. We both just sort of reached the conclusion on our own.

Which made it that much more powerful. Because we weren’t leaving for each other—we were leavingwitheach other. An important distinction, at least to me.

I wanted Vesperus to be by my side because he wanted to be there, not because of a fated-mate spell or the fact that our destinies were forever bound. But because he actually desiredme.

And he did.