Page 43

He sat back on his knees and started on his buttons.

I reached for his trousers with clumsy fingers, eyes stuck on the way his flat stomach and strong chest bunched and flexed as he removed his shirt.

He was exquisite, shaped as perfectly as the statues that littered his palace.

He watched me with dark, heavy-lidded eyes as I took him in.

The curves of his muscles, the dark hair on his chest, the thin trail that ran down toward where my fingers hovered.

I undid the fastening, pushing his trousers and underclothes over his hips.

I reveled in seeing him bare, in seeing his eagerness and the large, straining shape of him. I wrapped my hand around him, and he let out an aching breath.

“Lie down,” I said, my lips against his chest.

“You don’t have to—”

“Shut up.” I pushed him back into the pillows with my own self-satisfied smile curling my mouth.

I set my lips around him, and elation fell through me at the hiss of air he pulled into his chest. His hand clasped the back of my neck, fingers gripping my hair.

His head rolled back against the pillow, his swollen lips open in a quiet moan.

I was greedy too. I wanted to possess him completely, wanted to be consumed by him, wanted to string the memory of him through my sinew, my marrow, and carry it with me for as long as I lived. Finally, he gave a dark, frustrated growl and hauled me up into his lap.

He looked up at me with a warm, sweet emotion I didn’t bother to decipher.

It would be hard enough to cut him from my blood, let alone from my heart.

His lips were fervent, adoring, as they met mine, as they dragged to my neck, my ear.

He guided my hips over his and watched with taut attention as he lowered me, so slowly, around him.

“Gods.” I gasped at the rapturous strain of being filled with him.

“Imogen,” he said against my neck. He adjusted himself, grasped my backside, and sank all the way inside me. “ Immy. ”

I didn’t breathe when he first guided me up and back down around him. He whispered his approval, his awe. Ecstasy was carved into his features, his heated gaze clinging to my every movement. A slow, replete smile lit his face.

“What?” I asked on a moan. He shook his head, hooked an arm around my waist. I squealed as he rolled me back and set a new pace above me. “Tell me.”

He stopped, breath heaving as his smile faded into an open, wondrous look. “I have never wanted anything…” He paused. “… the way I want you.”

My heart burst. He kissed me before I could reply, and we became a huddle of heavy gasps and trembling muscles and rapturous moans. He swept through every part of me on a rising tide, dissolving all lines, all rationality. Together we sank irretrievably into the sweetest, darkest deep.

The middle of the night was quiet and still.

I dozed with my head on Theodore’s chest and a heavy leg thrown over his.

My finger traced circles across his stomach.

Over the weeks, I’d grown to know his mood by the rhythm of his breaths.

They came soft and easy now. No tension pulled at his graceful muscles, no agitation splayed through his fingers, as it so often did.

He was at peace. And I envied it. My mind was an eddy of schemes, worries, and awful thoughts. It wove itself into knots trying to piece together some plan that would let me keep him, that would let me stay, but no matter how it twisted and spun it could not find one.

Theodore’s breaths were growing shallow as he slipped off to sleep. As his hand fell from where it rested in the narrow of my waist, a knock sounded. I raised my head from his chest.

“Your Majesty?” came a man’s voice from the other side of the door. “I got the books.”

Theodore grunted, then called out groggily, “Leave them.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” A thud sounded. “Night, Your Majesty.”

“What books?” I asked Theodore in an overloud whisper. I rose from the bed and padded toward the door, listening closely to make sure no one remained on the other side.

“You have too much energy after all that,” Theodore mumbled. “I feel like I’ve failed you.”

“No, I am wrung dry. Utterly spent. Delightfully sore.” I smiled at him over my shoulder.

“I’m just too anxious to sleep. It’s like there are bees in my skull.

” I pulled open the door. Close to a dozen small books, bound in old, cracked leather, were piled into a basket on the floor, a folded piece of paper laid on top.

I dragged them over the threshold and scooped up the topmost book with the folded note that lay upon it.

Theodore watched me with dreamy, tired eyes, the barest smirk on his lips. “Beautiful.”

I gave him a coy smile. “As are you.” I unfolded the paper and crawled back into bed to read it.

Hermitess Vasili,

I have taken a wife. As a gift, I humbly request use of any and all of the Great God Jesop’s books that pertain to magic, the Mage Seers, and the like. As you say, the books belong to the realm of Leucosia. Please know that they will be used to aid, protect, and keep it.

Your King,

Theodore Ariti

Praise be to the memory of the Great Gods that you have found a wife worthy enough to kneel before. You were growing too old.

Here. Return in two days. Just as they are.

I snorted at the curt reply. Theodore chuckled as he looked over the note.

“She lives in the palace,” I said. “You should have said you’re ‘soon to take a wife.’ She’ll realize the wedding hasn’t happened yet and come after you with her stick.”

“The woman hasn’t left the basement in forty years.” He kissed my arm. “Besides, I meant you.”

“Oh.” My cheeks warmed. “What’s this mean?” I asked, my voice soft with overwhelm. “‘A wife worthy enough to kneel before’?”

“In Leucosia, a king or queen will kneel to their betrothed, and only their betrothed, as part of the binding ceremony.” His eyes were closed.

He shrugged. “My father never did it. The hermitess must have remembered that, and stickler that she is, she’s likely trying to guilt me into honoring tradition. ”

I remembered Nemea’s mountain the night I’d escaped.

The howling wind, how terribly I shook, and Theodore dropping to his knees before me when I swore my oath of fealty to him.

I set the book on the mattress, turned on my side, and swiped a lock of hair from his forehead.

“You knelt for me.” The words were timid, laden with a question.

That dimple of his appeared and disappeared with a quick curve of his mouth. “And I’ll do it again later.”

I pushed weakly at his shoulder. “When we escaped Nemea’s.”

He opened his sleepy eyes, looked into mine, then closed them once more. “I’ve been besotted from the moment I saw you on that overlook in that ridiculous dress. It was easy to kneel.”

“You lie,” I said, breathless.

He shook his head, eyes still closed. He whispered through a crooked smile.

“Besotted.” Theodore wrapped an arm around my waist, pulled me close.

He gave me a long, slow kiss. Despite his heat, a chill crackled through me.

He fell off to sleep, but I remained awake, my eyes on the bed’s canopy.

Rohana’s decrepit voice ran through my head in a taunt.

You are a Goddess-queen.

Take what you want.