Page 5

Chapter Five

SYLVIE

A s servants cleared the food, I waited for Tanyl to instruct one of them to tend Briar for the night. Surely, he wouldn’t lean harder on custom and send me to supervise Briar’s bath.

But as he pulled my chair back, his voice flowed over my head. “My queen will see you to your chamber, Sir Briar. Whatever you require, you need only ask.”

Briar froze in the act of rising, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. Before anyone else could speak, Tanyl gestured to his manservant, and the two of them disappeared into his bedchamber, the door closing firmly behind them.

Frustration twined through me as I stared after them. Damn you, Tanyl. What was he playing at?

I turned back to Briar, who had straightened to his considerable height, his features strained as he gazed at Tanyl’s door. What was he to Tanyl? They had Saltvale in common but little else. They were absolutely nothing alike. Tanyl was hard and difficult, but fascinating in the way that puzzles were fascinating. No matter how many times I’d vowed to figure him out, he managed to surprise me. To beguile me.

Briar was…soft. Not physically. No one looking at him could have said that with a straight face. But something about him was easy. Restful, perhaps.

Sensing my stare, he looked at me, and his expression went instantly polite. “I don’t need much, Your Grace. Water and a towel will suffice.”

If the stories about the Citadel were true, he’d almost certainly made do with less. But he’d ridden from the coast of Andulum, crossing the Covenant and risking encounters with the Scarrok the whole way. Possibly, he’d fought the monsters during his journey.

“I think we can do a little better than water and towels, Sir Briar,” I said, smiling. And the expression wasn’t an effort at all. Not when the corners of his eyes crinkled, and the tension eased from his shoulders.

Because Tanyl was gone, I realized. Maybe he’d been right to leave. He and Briar had Saltvale in common. But Briar and I shared more similarities than differences. We had the gods in common. There was nothing higher than that.

When we entered his bedchamber moments later, it was obvious the servants had visited while we dined. His armor gleamed on a stand in the corner, and his pack sat on a chair near one of the windows. The bed was turned down, crisp white sheets gleaming in moonlight that streamed from the balcony’s double doors. A fire crackled in the hearth, and water glistened in the basin on the washstand. Crossing to it, I tested the temperature.

“It’s still warm,” I said, blotting my fingers on one of several towels folded next to the basin. When I turned back to him, he stood in the center of the room, some of the tension he’d carried at dinner returned to his posture. Mud caked his boots, which rose to his knees.

“I can send for a hip bath,” I said. “Or, if you wish, there’s a bathing chamber downstairs near the Great Hall.”

More polite reticence. Another slight shake of his head. “This is perfect, Your Grace.” He looked toward his armor, his brow furrowing. “But I wonder…”

“Yes?” I asked, following his gaze. He moved to the armor, and I drifted after him, curiosity tugging at me as he examined the mail shirt and the broad, shiny plates. The servants had draped his surcoat over the rack, and the blue stripe gleamed against its bed of snowy white. The blue represented the Perun River, of course, and the white stood for Saltvale, the Rivven’s famed proving ground. Tanyl rarely spoke of his yearlong crucible, but it still affected him. He was sometimes odd about food, shadows of panic flitting through his eyes when he felt the servants were being wasteful. Even with overflowing coffers and an entire kingdom at his fingertips, he worried about going hungry.

Because he knew what it meant to starve. Saltvale taught him that—and Briar had endured it alongside him, both of them cast into the salt plain with no food or water. No shelter. Barely any clothing, their skin exposed to the wind and sun.

Briar bent, fingering a piece of armor meant to protect a knight’s hip. His padded gambeson rode up, exposing the rounded muscle of his buttocks and the backs of his thick, leather-clad thighs. He straightened suddenly, and I jerked my gaze up as he faced me.

“The laces are missing,” he said, sweeping a look around the chamber. “I cut some of them when I undressed. The servants must have assumed they were ruined.”

“But they weren’t?” I asked. Tanyl never removed his mail in our quarters. Like his knights, he stood sweating and impatient in the armory while his squire lifted the layers away.

“Not all of them,” Briar said. “I tried to be careful.” Amusement—and maybe a little exasperation—gleamed in his eyes. “Most men would rather fight a Scarrok one-handed than work with fresh laces.” Briar held up his hand, two fingers less than an inch apart. “The leather is stiff, and the holes are tiny. My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be.”

Because he’s aging. It didn’t show. His skin was smooth and free of wrinkles, his hair rich and dark. If not for the faint sigils showing at his neck and wrists, he might have been any young knight from across the Covenant.

“How old are you?” I asked. Immediately, heat touched my cheeks, and I longed to snatch the words back. The best I could do was duck my head. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”

“No, it’s all right.” The scuffle of his boots on the floorboards brought my head up as he moved closer. He stopped a short distance away, his expression soft and open. “I’m seventy years old next month.” He smiled, and it climbed into his eyes. “I believe we’re close in age, are we not?”

“We are,” I said, relief washing away my embarrassment. “I’m sixty-five.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Curiosity tugged again, and it tugged me closer to him. I was tall enough to nearly look Tanyl in the eye. With Briar, I had to tip my head back. “You heard stories about me in Vetra?”

He nodded. “We did. The Rivven keep a close eye on the happenings in the Spring Court.” Briar’s teeth flashed white as he grinned. “It’s not gossip, according to the Grand Master.”

“Of course not,” I said, unable to control my own grin. “The warriors of the Citadel would never stoop so low.”

He leaned close, mirth twinkling in his eyes. “The elders are the worst. They’re like a bunch of fishmongers’ wives. If you want to know what color gown King Liam’s wife wore to last night’s ball, just ask one of them. Find one especially cussed and grizzled, and he can probably tell you what kind of jewelry she paired with it.”

I laughed, the mental portrait he painted making me put a hand over my mouth. His grin stretched, and then he laughed with me. After the intensity of dinner and Tanyl, it was like pressure releasing, and I grabbed more of it, indulging myself because I could—and maybe because I knew exactly what Briar meant. The older sestras had been the worst gossips, their wimples pulled over their mouths as they knelt next to each other during the Hours.

“I believe it,” I said between breaths. “But tell me, how did you get information about the queen’s shoes?”

Briar winked. “Oh, for that you have to go straight to the Grand Master.”

I laughed harder, and he joined me, each of us fueling the other. When the moment settled into an easy silence, I indulged my curiosity a little more. “Do you think it’s true what Tanyl said? Are halflings always male?”

He lifted one meaty shoulder. “I’ve heard that, Your Grace, but I don’t think anyone knows for sure. The Citadel’s library holds no records of a female halfling being born, so it’s probably true that mingling elven blood with human always produces boys. All I can say for certain is that I’m a male.”

He was, indeed. A large one, with thick arms and a broad chest packed with muscle. My gaze went there before I could stop it. I’d never seen a human but some of the pledges on the island had, and they whispered that the men were great hairy beasts with mats of fur on their chests. Maybe Briar had hair like that under his thick gambeson, his pecs covered with short curls the same rich brown as the waves that swept back from his forehead.

Something drew my head up, and I met his gray eyes, which were suddenly serious. And they weren’t just gray. That was too plain a word. Too common. No, his eyes were like the sky after a storm passes through, leaving clean air and the memory of rain. The faintest flush stained his cheeks above the stubble on his jaw. And it was no wonder. I’d ogled him like a piece of meat, and now I stared at him. As awkwardness descended, I cast about for something to break the silence.

“What else do the Rivven say about me?” The second the words left my lips, my face heated. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m certain the Rivven don’t speak of me.”

“No, they do,” he said, his features settling into the polite, slightly solemn expression he’d worn in the courtyard and all through dinner. “They say you’re a good, devout queen, and that your husband is besotted with his wife.”

Now, the heat spread down my back. My scalp prickled, and a curious awareness settled over me. Briar and I had drifted even closer as we talked.

I stepped backward, my laugh short and brittle. “I don’t think Tanyl has ever been besotted with anything.”

Briar stared a half-second longer. Then he smiled, just the merest tilting of his lips at the corners. It was small, but it reached his eyes.

Tanyl rarely smiled that way. My husband was almost never that unguarded.

“Well,” Briar said quietly, “I’m not one question the gossipmongers among the Rivven. So I supposed we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

But he was still wrong. Tanyl wasn’t besotted with me. That would have required a loss of control.

“I’ll have a servant bring new laces for your armor,” I said.

He blinked, as if he’d forgotten it. “Thank you. Your Grace.”

“Please, call me Sylvie.”

His smile spread in his eyes, the expression slow and sudden all at once. Like the sun peeking over the horizon one minute and then filling the sky the next. “We might have to agree to disagree about that, too.”

I’d lingered too long. Tanyl might not have been besotted, but he’d miss me eventually—and wonder.

“Good night, then, Sir Briar. And Perun protect you.”

Briar’s smile vanished.

My heart knocked against my chest as I realized what I’d done. He was a priest, and I’d just invoked our god. A lifetime of habit had kicked in, setting us both on a reckless path—a well-trod path. The expected response to the invocation was carved as deeply into our shared culture as the Perun River that cut a sinuous length from the Spring Court to Vetra, not even the Covenant stopping its flow.

But I had to stop it. I had to leave. Except my feet were rooted to the floor, my scalp tingling again as if someone had run his fingers through it.

Briar’s chest lifted, and his nostrils flared as if he meant to steady himself. Stepping forward, he touched his thumb to my forehead. “And Perun protect you…” He drew his thumb down the air in front of my face.

Our gazes met. Held. My heart beat faster as I closed my eyes, waiting for the press of his thumb against my lips.

We follow the mighty god of the rivers and the tempest, a sestra said in my memories, her fingers guiding mine from my forehead to my mouth. We think on his strength, and we speak of his blessings.

A rough thumb grazed my lips. “Your Grace,” Briar finished, his voice as rough as his skin.

I opened my eyes just as Briar stepped back. “Thank you for your hospitality tonight,” he said.

It was a polite dismissal, but a dismissal nevertheless.

“You are most welcome, Sir Briar,” I said. Then I gathered my skirts and left.

* * *

When I entered my bedchamber minutes later, Tanyl lounged in a chair before the fire with a glass of lyssop in his hand. The pitcher sat on a table next to him. The balcony doors were ajar, allowing a soft evening breeze to filter into the room and flutter the bed curtains.

“Where are my ladies?” I asked, stopping just inside the door.

“They’ll be along.” He drained his glass and set it down. “How is our friend the priest?”

My lips tingled. I pressed them together, then stopped when his blue eyes fixed on my mouth.

He can’t know. It was impossible. But I’d done nothing wrong. I had nothing to hide.

“Sir Briar is your friend,” I said, moving forward. I stopped after a few steps. Better not to get ensnared in his web.

The quick smile in his eyes let me know he’d read my mind. Infuriating. And even more infuriating that he’d let me see it.

“Sir Briar is Crispin’s friend,” he said, strumming the fingers of one hand on the arm of his chair. “Remember?”

It wasn’t really a question. And based on the scant time I’d spent with Sir Briar, I’d swear to Perun that political maneuvering was beyond the Rivven knight.

If I knew it, Tanyl almost certainly did too.

“You don’t believe that,” I told him. “You believe Crispin acted on his own and then dragged the other lords of the Council along with him. Now that you have the information you need from Sir Briar, will you question my brother?”

“In the morning,” Tanyl said. “I’ve already ordered him to meet me in the Great Hall after Eura.”

The dawn prayer. The meeting time was both personal and political. Crispin hated rising early and almost never prayed Eura. But the servants would be busy at that time, stoking fires and fetching water. By summoning Crispin before most of the nobles woke, Tanyl was sending a clear message: You serve me the same as a scullery maid serves in the kitchen.

I nodded. “It’s the best time to meet. Crispin won’t be as sharp that early. I’ll go with you.”

Tanyl shook his head. “No. It’s better if he doesn’t connect you to my displeasure. Crispin still speaks to you in confidence from time to time. I don’t want to jeopardize that.”

Bitterness rose, and it pushed me a few steps closer to him. “That’s not the reason, and we both know it.”

Irritation crossed Tanyl’s face. “You’re still angry about the Council meeting.”

The bitterness twisted into anger, the latter raising my voice. “I have every right to be angry. You’re a king fighting an endless war. You’ve said repeatedly that you wish nothing more than to see its end. You should use every weapon at your disposal.”

“You’re my wife , not a weapon.”

“I have more magic than half the lords on your Council, yet you put a needle and thread in my hands when you should give me a sword.” I huffed. “If I have to listen to court ladies discuss dinner menus and hair potions one more time, I’m going to don armor and march down to the river.”

Tanyl stood so swiftly that his chair scraped the floor. “That’s not going to happen. Never, Sylvie, do you understand?”

Old battles spilled into the open, the arguments worn thin. The storm brewing in his eyes should have frightened me. Instead, something wild and intemperate within me lifted its head.

“No,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

His eyes flashed, tiny forks of lightning webbing his pupils. “You’re my subject the same as everyone else in Spring. When I give you an order, you obey it.”

A charge built between us. In the hearth, the fire leapt and twisted. My heart pounded in the face of Tanyl’s anger, instinct urging me to back down as his eyes darkened to midnight. But he was wrong .

Power humming under my skin, I lifted my chin. “No one is obligated to follow an unjust order.”

He caught his breath. Then he came to me, his steps slow and deliberate. He stopped a hair’s breadth away, magic flowing off him to lick at my skin. When he spoke, his voice was achingly soft, every word loaded with promise.

“If I ever discover you’ve disobeyed me in this…” He looked at my mouth—and then lower, his eyes sliding to my chest, which rose and fell quickly under my gown.

“What?” I rasped, the possession in his eyes making heat spiral through me. It had been there from the start, of course, twining around our anger. Always, he pushed me, and then waited for me to push back.

He waited now, his line drawn and the knowledge that I’d cross it glittering in his eyes.

“What will you do?” I asked, wanting him with a desperation that scared me.

He knew that, too, and it curved his lips as he leaned into me, his body carefully withheld from mine. His breath was a fluttering caress as he put his lips next to my ear.

“I’ll punish you, Beauty, and the memory of the things I’ll do to you will live under your skin forever. You’ll think of them and weep, wanting and reviling them. So be very careful, sweet wife, when you seek to make a monster out of me.”

A tremor frazzled through me. My mouth went dry, and my nipples tightened to hard, painful points. My heartbeat throbbed in them…and between my legs, where moisture gathered.

“Don’t threaten me,” I whispered.

Tanyl eased back. A tap on the door broke the silence.

“Your Grace?” a woman called from the other side. “We’ve brought the bath.”

Tanyl smiled, then turned and headed for his chair. “Come in,” he called over his shoulder.

Three servants entered, pausing briefly on the threshold as Tanyl resumed his seat. They curtsied as one, and he waved them deeper into the chamber.

“Don’t let me keep you from your tasks.”

The most senior among them bustled forward. “Yes, Your Grace.” She curtsied to me and then motioned to the other two women, who carried the hip bath I’d offered to Briar. When they moved toward the wooden screen in the corner, Tanyl spoke again.

“Put it in front of the fire.” He lifted the pitcher and refilled his glass. “I don’t want my queen to get cold.”

The women obeyed, flicking discreet glances at me as they heated water and fetched soap. They undressed me with quick fingers, peeling away layers of silk and linen steps from Tanyl’s chair. There was nothing overtly unusual about his presence. I’d obviously been nude in front of my husband, just as I’d been nude in front of the servants. But combining the two—stripping bare while everyone else in the room remained clothed—turned an ordinary task into a humiliating spectacle.

And, as always, the embarrassment robbed my breath and made my heart pound faster. It made my body react, and I couldn’t hide it. The servants continued their tasks, their touches impersonal and their eyes averted as my nipples pebbled and a flush spread down my breasts. Their hands swept over me, and every pass of the washcloth was a humbling, fiery lash.

With my gaze firmly on the fire, I recited the Hours in my head, my mind groping at the singsong verses as my body throbbed and tension made the air thick enough to cut with a knife. When one of the women nudged my thighs apart and drew the cloth down my sex, I gripped the sides of the bath until my fingers ached. My cheeks burned, and my pussy burned. My blood boiled in my veins. I didn’t look at Tanyl, but he dominated my vision anyway, his elegant body sprawled in the chair.

He sipped his lyssop and watched the women bathe me and then help me from the water. He observed as they patted me dry and dropped a nightgown over my head. He rested his chin on his hand, his gaze avid at the edge of my vision, as they combed my hair and cleaned my teeth. And when they stepped back and folded their hands, he set his empty glass on the table.

“Leave the water. The queen will need it again before morning.”

A moan hovered in my throat. Such a simple statement, yet so clear in its meaning. I’d need to wash again before Tanyl was through with me.

The women nodded. After another round of curtsies, they left. The fire snapped. The wind stirred outside, tugging the balcony doors wider.

At last, I looked at my husband. He’d never stopped watching me, his thighs spread and one hand resting lightly on the arm of his chair.

“Take it off,” he said.

My hands moved of their own accord, drawing the nightgown over my head and casting it aside. The scent of my arousal reached my nose.

“Come here.”

I moved toward him.

“No.” He pointed to the carpet between us. “On your hands and knees, my queen. Crawl.”

The moan slipped free, and the flush on my breasts deepened. At the lower edge of my vision, my nipples were dark pink with arousal.

Lust and power gleamed in Tanyl’s eyes as he murmured, “You know what to say if you want to stop.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Yes.”

“Then either say it or get on your knees.”

His erection was a thick bulge between his spread thighs, the length almost obscene. He’d concealed it in front of the servants. His control was exquisite, allowing him to keep his desire on a tight leash. The same leash stretched between us now, the tether wholly at his command—unless I snapped it. Part of me wanted to. Part of me would have given anything to open my mouth and put an end to Tanyl’s game.

Another part sent me to my hands and knees.

Tanyl watched with bright eyes as I crawled, my knees sinking into the carpet. Cool air caressed my swollen pussy. My breasts swayed and my hair slipped over my shoulders as I moved forward, wanting and helpless and wishing I didn’t need everything he demanded. That I’d learned something softer or kinder. But maybe Tanyl hadn’t really taught me anything. Maybe he’d only revealed what had been there all along.

“Little slut,” he growled, biting off the words like he meant to chew them. “Greedy queen.” When I reached him, he drew me to my feet and pulled me between his thighs. A sob slipped from me as he put his thumbs on either side of my pussy and pressed it wide. My clit thrust from its sheath, the button of flesh shiny with arousal. Tanyl pressed harder, spreading me lewdly.

“Please,” I whispered, hands fisted at my sides. Hot moisture trickled from my opening and wet my inner thigh.

“Do you think your women saw?” Tanyl murmured, his gaze fixed on my clit. “They must have, Sylvie, when they washed you. They saw this puffy clit and your slick lips. You’re very wet and pink here.” He pressed even wider, and my opening gaped. The taut, delicate skin burned under his perusal. Tears burned my eyes. “I wonder what they thought,” he said, his tone musing.

“I don’t care,” I gasped, rocking my hips forward. “Fuck me. Please. I’ll do anything.”

He looked up. “Anything? That’s a dangerous offer, Wife.”

“I don’t care,” I repeated. It was easier than thinking of something new.

Tanyl lowered his eyes to my pussy once more. And he pressed harder, his thumbs digging into my slick, swollen lips. Air tickled my entrance. “No one sees you here, though, do they?” he said quietly. “No one sees inside but me.” Leaning forward, he thrust his tongue into my passage and licked my inner walls.

His tongue was hot and invasive—and nowhere close to where I needed it.

“Stop,” I gasped, shoving his shoulder and grabbing at his hair. “Stop it.”

But the words were wrong, and he ignored them, licking me and offering no relief. The torture was just another facet of his game, its rules unchanged since the day he faced me in front of the godswell and ordered me to remove my wimple.

I would see all of my queen , he’d said. Later in our bedchamber, he’d repeated the order.

I squirmed on his tongue, my breasts trembling and my moans lifting around us. When he pulled back at last, lightning forked across his irises. Slowly, he released my pussy and then rested his palm on his thigh. Gaze locked with mine, he flipped his hand over, two fingers thrusting from his thigh in invitation.

“Sit down,” he said.

Another pitiful sob broke from me as I straddled his thigh. He hissed, his teeth bared, as I positioned my pussy over his fingers and then sank onto them. We groaned together as my passage clamped hard. Tapping my own power, I seized his throat.

His breath caught, his eyes widening briefly before he concealed his surprise.

“This isn’t over,” I panted, my pussy clenching as tightly as my fingers around his windpipe. “I’m still angry with you.”

His throat worked under my hand, and the lust in his eyes flared higher. “I know. Show me.”

I loosened my grip, but I kept my hand where it was as I rode his fingers, grinding my clit over his knuckles. Within seconds, I was ready to come. Release beckoned, and it was so, so good. But too fast. I was as greedy as he’d called me, and I wanted to stretch the pleasure. Even as I tried to slow down, I rocked harder, sweat prickling under my arms as I slicked his knuckles with my pussy. My breasts bounced. The chair creaked, and the thick smacking sounds of my arousal warred with my labored breaths.

Tanyl rested his head on the back of the chair, his eyes heavy-lidded as I fucked myself on his fingers. My hand twitched around his throat. Pleasure frazzled through me, everything hot and tight and wet. The world shrank to Tanyl’s glittering eyes and the hard, slippery curve of his knuckle. Fire suffused my clit. My passage clenched, and my breaths became panting sobs as my orgasm thundered toward me.

“I need to come,” I gasped.

“Go ahead.”

My release struck hard, and I cried out as I curled over myself, my mouth hanging open and a raw, high-pitched cry ripping from my throat. My hips jerked, and then my whole body jerked, threatening to topple the chair. Tanyl moved his free hand to my hip and held me in place. His lips met my damp temple.

“That’s my good queen. My good girl with a tight, wet cunt. Do you know how hot you are here, Beauty?” He shoved his fingers deeper into my pulsing sex, and I squeezed my eyes shut as the orgasm dragged into another. “More,” Tanyl rasped, licking at the moisture at my hairline. Whether it was sweat or tears, I couldn’t have said. “Your pussy isn’t finished, Sylvie. You’re not getting down until you give me another. So keep riding, love.”

“I can’t,” I moaned even as my hips rocked and the chair’s legs scraped the floor. Tanyl moved his hand from my hip and captured my nipple, his fingers pinching hard enough to bruise.

The third orgasm struck, pain and pleasure clashing in a thick, noxious haze. Dimly, I heard myself scream. Felt Tanyl pull his fingers from my body and swing me into his arms. The world spun, and then I landed on the bed, my spine already arching.

Tanyl’s body blocked the fire in the hearth, and the light formed a frenzied, orange glow around him as he stripped. Then he was on top of me, his damp fingers pushing into my mouth as he worked his shaft inside me. He entered me both places, spreading my arousal over my tongue and thrusting his cock to the hilt in one firm stroke. His hair slipped over his shoulders, the ends tickling my neck and breasts.

“So hot,” he grunted, bracing his weight on one forearm as he launched into hard, brutal thrusts. “So fucking, fucking hot,” he added, every word punctuated by strokes that battered my walls. They were angry words, and his lust was angry, every snap of his hips like lightning cracking across the sky. His sigils lit up from his neck to his wrists. Mine were reflected in his pupils, which were blown wide with lust.

He pulled out abruptly, then pushed my knees to my shoulders and pinned them there, folding my body into a tight, helpless knot beneath him. His shaft bobbed between his legs, my arousal glistening along its length, and I shuddered with the need to feel it forcing me open. My throbbing clit jutted at the top of my sex. Desperate, I reached for it.

Tanyl slapped my hand away. Then he slapped my pussy, the blow wet and sharp.

My scream echoed off the bed’s canopy. It came again when he delivered another hard slap. And another. And another. I wanted to slam my legs shut, and yet I thrust them wider and pumped my hips up and up, meeting the blows.

“My slut,” Tanyl panted, spanking harder. “My shameless, pretty queen.” He flipped me onto all fours, hauled my hips back, and entered my stinging pussy in a single, hard thrust.

We moved together, rocking the bed. His hands roved my body, pinching and kneading. Tugging at my hair. Squeezing my hips. He bent over me, his teeth closing over my earlobe as he rasped praise and filth in my ear. Telling me I was his, my cunt crafted by the gods to fit his cock like a glove. His fingers traced my spine and mapped the swaying curves of my breasts. Dragged down my scalp and delved between my buttocks to tease my asshole.

I moaned, prepared for him to take me there, too, but he growled and fucked my pussy harder. His cock pulsed inside me, his thrusts growing disjointed. He was close.

“Mine, Sylvie,” he said, one hand clamping hard on my shoulder, another on my hip. “Every fucking inch of you is mine.” He came on a roar, and I sobbed as the hot pulse of his seed flung me into another bone-shattering orgasm.

When it was over, he brought warm water from the tub and cool water from a carafe he fetched from the dining chamber. His voice turned tender, and his touch was gentle as he washed and inspected me, kissing every mark of his possession. Candlelight flickered behind my eyelids, and I knew he checked for broken skin. With slurred speech, I told him he’d find none. Tanyl was always too careful for mistakes.

He hushed me, and then he slipped into bed beside me and tucked me against him, his lips pressed to my hair.

Exhaustion dragged at me. Through the open balcony doors, the moon climbed higher in the sky. I couldn’t get too comfortable. Zadia approached, which meant easing from bed and going to the temple. Tanyl wouldn’t go. He never did.

His heart thudded against my back, and his breathing grew deep and even.

“Husband,” I said in the darkness.

Tanyl’s breathing stopped. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he’d opened his eyes. “Yes?” he asked.

“What is Sir Briar Finthir to you?”

Silence shivered in the tiny spaces between our bodies. Then Tanyl pulled me more closely against him.

“A Rivven. Nothing more.”