Page 38

Thea

T he sky had grown purple with dawn when I decided that I could not delay this any longer. I had to tell him, and I had to tell him now before he returned to the bed and all of my thoughts scattered again.

I gathered the sheets around my naked body, stretching my limbs after hours of learning and relearning his form. Our lovemaking was a lot like our conversations, effortless and meandering. Even in my own mind it was impossible to articulate the ease with which we’d done the most obscene things to each other.

Hector was standing over the table by the window, indulging in a cup of warmed blood. A tray with a mouthwatering array of food had materialized by the fireside, where the huge armchair was draped in blankets and pillows. The whole room smelled of butter, fresh bread, and creamy milk tea. And him.

“Hector?” I ventured warily. “I must tell you something. Something that might upset you.”

He grimaced, but there was humor in it. “Well, this is exactly what every man wants to hear after what we’ve just done.”

“This isn’t about—”

“I mean, you could have at least waited for the sun to rise—”

“Will you stop for a moment—”

“To be discarded in the same night as—”

“Hector!” I grumbled, throwing my hands up in the air.

The sheet fell away, exposing my breasts, and Hector’s mischievous little smirk turned triumphant. “You were saying?”

I glared at him. “Stop this. And come here. Right now.”

“Yes, please, summon me like a pet. I don’t mind at all,” he drawled as he settled down next to me.

I let out a groan, my head dropping on the wall of his chest. “Why are you being so disagreeable this early in the morning?”

He curled a hand at the nape of my neck, guiding my eyes back to him. “I’m just really happy. I didn’t think I’d feel like this again.”

“Hmm,” I cooed pleasantly. “While on the subject, your mother is haunting the Castle.”

Poor man almost fell off the bed. “ What? ”

My nod was as rueful as ghastly was my amusement. “Yes, you see, I went to the heart of the Castle—and no, you do not possess the magical arsenal to do so yourself—and discovered that your mother has been haunting us for quite some time now. The Castle refused to free her soul, which I’m afraid is literally and mystically bound to it. Although I do believe it released her right before I came out of the mirror.”

Hector’s complexion turned from starlit-pale to nausea-green. “Well, I certainly hope so considering what we’ve just done.”

I burst out laughing as he grabbed the sheet in a panic and tried to cover my chest with it. “This isn’t funny. I don’t want my mother seeing this.”

“I’m sure that if she were still here, she would have looked the other way,” I consoled.

Hector shook his head furiously, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Did she say anything at least?”

“She said that if she knew that she was going to have you, she wouldn’t have taken the Vow.”

For a moment, Hector was seized by that stillness that was his alone. The stillness of old, unwavering things, of mountains and sea rocks. Then a whisper, “I know.”

“That’s what I told her too.”

Slowly, like the gloomy sunrise outside, the smile returned to his face. He wound his arms around my waist and pulled me to him until I was straddling his hips with my thighs and our lips were only a grain of sand apart. I loved the way our limbs slid against each other, finding all the paths we had already explored but still felt new.

“So you can see ghosts now,” he prodded, watching me through dark, half-lidded eyes.

“If the ghosts want me to see them,” I guessed, stifling a sigh as his mouth landed on the curve of my shoulder. “I’m hoping my professors at the Academy will be able to enlighten me on the subject. Perhaps I will have to take a few necromancy courses.” His fangs scraped my neck, and I chuckled at the canopy. “Or perhaps you can teach me.”

He pulled back, one brow raised. “Me?”

“Since you’re such an experienced neck- romancer.”

Hector rolled his eyes, muttering wryly under his breath, “Neck-romancer jokes. Very original. And not terrifying at all.”

I shot him a haughty little look. “Is the vampire sovereign scared of ghosts?”

“I’m scared that ghosts might be haunting my wife,” he grumbled good-naturedly, but as soon as he registered what he said, his whole body stiffened. I, on the other hand, was nearly shimmering and floating through the ceiling with happiness. “Sorry. I know we’re not really—”

“We should be,” I blurted out.

His brows shot up. “We should?”

“Not right away, though,” I clarified. “We have to discuss the matter of your immortality first.”

“You know very well that I have no desire to live forever. I’ve been drinking the potion ever since I turned twenty. I will age as you.”

“I also have to concentrate on my studies.”

Hector squinted at me, reading me like an open book. “You’re just afraid to tell your parents, aren’t you?”

I scowled at him. “You know me too damned well.”

Smirking, he pinched my lower lip between two fingers. “What a foul mouth you have, Lady Aventine,” he teased as I’d done earlier today. Or had it been yesterday? Time always seemed to bend in new ways in his presence.

“Well,” I said, pushing at his chest until he was lying back on the bed. He shivered as I drew back all the covers so I could watch him rise with desire. I bent, my hair cascading over him, ebony on granite. Then I bent even lower and painted kisses down his stomach. “Allow me to put it to better use.”

And, oh, I did.