For a while, only the rasp of our breathing filled the room.
I frowned as he withdrew at last—but he didn’t go far. He stretched out on his side, head propped on a fist, and traced idle circles on my stomach, along my breasts.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he murmured.
“It’s fine,” I breathed. “I understand.”
Not a lie, but not quite true.
His fingers grazed lower, circling my belly button. “You are—you’re everything to me,” he said thickly. “I need … I need you to be all right. To know they can’t get to you—can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I know.” Those fingers drifted lower. I swallowed hard and said again, “I know.” I brushed his hair back from his face. “But what about you? Who gets to keep you safe?”
His mouth tightened. With his powers returned, he didn’t need anyone to protect him, shield him. I could almost see invisible hackles raising—not at me, but at the thought of what he’d been mere months ago: prone to Amarantha’s whims, his power barely a trickle compared to the cascade now coursing through him. He took a steadying breath, and leaned to kiss my heart, right between my breasts. It was answer enough.
“Soon,” he murmured, and those fingers traveled back to my waist. I almost groaned. “Soon you’ll be my wife, and it’ll be fine. We’ll leave all this behind us.”
I arched my back, urging his hand lower, and he chuckled roughly. I didn’t quite hear myself speak as I focused on the fingers that obeyed my silent command. “What will everyone call me, then?” He grazed my belly button as he leaned down, sucking the tip of my breast into his mouth.
“Hmm?” he said, and the rumble against my nipple made me writhe.
“Is everyone just going to call me ‘Tamlin’s wife’? Do I get a … title?”
He lifted his head long enough to look at me. “Do you want a title?”
Before I could answer, he nipped at my breast, then licked over the small hurt—licked as his fingers at last dipped between my legs. He stroked lazy, taunting circles. “No,” I gasped out. “But I don’t want people … ” Cauldron boil me, his damned fingers—“I don’t know if I can handle them calling me High Lady.”
His fingers slid into me again, and he growled in approval at the wetness between my thighs, both from me and him. “They won’t,” he said against my skin, positioning himself over me again and sliding down my body, trailing kisses as he went. “There is no such thing as a High Lady.”
He gripped my thighs to spread my legs wide, lowering his mouth, and—
“What do you mean, there’s no such thing as a High Lady?”
The heat, his touch—all of it stopped.
He looked up from between my legs, and I almost climaxed at the sight of it. But what he said, what he’d implied … He kissed the inside of my thigh. “High Lords only take wives. Consorts. There has never been a High Lady.”
“But Lucien’s mother—”
“She’s Lady of the Autumn Court. Not High Lady. Just as you will be Lady of the Spring Court. They will address you as they address her. They will respect you as they respect her.” He lowered his gaze back to what was inches away from his mouth.
“So Lucien’s—”
“I don’t want to hear another male’s name on your lips right now,” he growled, and lowered his mouth to me.
At the first stroke of his tongue, I stopped arguing.
CHAPTER
3
Tamlin’s guilt must have hit him hard, because although he was gone the next day, Lucien was waiting with an offer to inspect the progress on the nearby village.
I hadn’t visited in well over a month—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even left the grounds. A few of the villagers had been invited to our Winter Solstice celebrations, but I’d barely managed to do more than greet them, thanks to the size of the crowd.
The horses were already saddled outside the front doors of the stables, and I counted the sentries by the distant gates (four), on either side of the house (two at each corner), and the ones now by the garden through which I’d just exited (two). Though none spoke, their eyes pressed on me.
Lucien made to mount his dapple-gray mare but I cut off his path. “A tumble off your damned horse?” I hissed, shoving his shoulder.
Lucien actually staggered back, the mare nickering in alarm, and I blinked at my outstretched hand. I didn’t let myself contemplate what the guards made of it. Before he could say anything, I demanded, “Why did you lie about the naga?”
Lucien crossed his arms, his metal eye narrowing, and shook the red hair from his face.
I had to look away for a moment.
Amarantha’s hair had been darker—and her face a creamy white, not at all like the sun-kissed gold of Lucien’s skin.
I studied the stables behind him instead. At least it was big, open, the stable hands now off in another wing. I usually had little issue with being inside, which was mostly whenever I was bored enough to visit the horses housed within. Plenty of space to move, to escape. The walls didn’t feel too … permanent.
Not like the kitchens, which were too low, the walls too thick, the windows not big enough to climb through. Not like the study, with not enough natural light or easy exits. I had a long list in my head of what places I could and couldn’t endure at the manor, ranked by precisely how much they made my body lock up and sweat.
“I didn’t lie,” Lucien said tightly. “I technically did fall off my horse.” He patted his mount’s flank. “After one of them tackled me off her.”