She smiled tremulously. “I can hang on. Just get us out of here.”
With deft fingers, Sev quickly checked that his rope was still fastened securely about him. Satisfied, he squatted so that she could straddle his back.
“We’re ready,” he shouted up, and then they were ascending. Sev’s legs worked, his booted feet moving along the rocky wall, helping leverage them as they were hauled upward by several pairs of hands.
Grier clutched closely to him, mindful that she not choke him with her clinging arms. It seemed like forever before they cleared the top, but in reality it could only have been a few minutes.
She and Sev collapsed together in a tangled pile. He breathed heavily beside her, his hand reaching for hers, fingers lacing with her own.
“Grier!” Cleo dropped down beside her, pressing her much warmer hand to Grier’s grimy face. “Oh dear, you’re cold as ice.”
As if that was the only reminder Sev needed that she had spent the night injured and exposed to the harsh elements, he jumped to his feet and swept her up in his arms.
She rested her cheek against the warm solidness of his chest as he marched them through the same woods she had raced through last night, a real-life devil in pursuit of her, intent on stopping her from marrying Sev—even if it meant ending her life.
She moistened her parched lips. “Your cousin—”
“He’s dead.”
She lifted her head and studied the hard set of his profile. “Did you—”
“He ran in front of a carriage. I doubt he suffered.” A muscle flexed along his jaw. “Not as he should have. Not as I would have had him suffer.” His fiery gaze locked with hers then. “For what he’s done to you . . . what he wanted to do, he deserved far worse than a swift end.”
Shaken at the intensity of his expression, she lowered her head back to his chest, let the rocking motion of his strides lull her into deep relaxation.
Content, secure that she was free from danger and safe in Sev’s arms, she surrendered to the pulling drag of sleep.
A warm glow of light greeted Grier as her eyes fluttered open. She jerked at first, immediately back on that outcropping of rock, still hovering there, trapped on the cusp of death.
Swallowing back a whimper, she scanned her surroundings. The tension ebbed from her body as she realized she was safely tucked in her own bed, the soft sheets pulled to her chest. Warm and safe.
A familiar dark-haired head rested beside her on the bed, buried facedown in his arms.
She lightly touched the silky strands, running her fingers through the luxurious thickness.
Sev lifted his head, muttering her name as he sat upright in his chair beside her bed. Blinking, he dragged a hand over his face. “You’re awake.”
“And it appears you’re not. Why don’t you find a bed?”
“I did.” His glittering gold eyes held hers. “Yours is sufficient.”
“Sevastian.” She stroked his cheek. “You must be exhausted.”
He seized her hand, trapped it against his face. “It’s nothing compared to what I’ve endured when I thought I lost you. Grier, I can’t ever live through that again.”
She moistened her lips, remembering her time trapped on that ledge. Even before that. She remembered when she’d awakened on the floor of that lodge and confronted the harsh reality that Malcolm would never let her return to Sev. She’d been filled with regret for not telling Sev how she felt about him—that he’d come to mean everything to her. But she could do that now.
“Sev,” she began, clearing the dry scratchiness from her voice, but he didn’t let her continue.
“As soon as you’re rested and fully mended, we’ll leave for Maldania—”
“Sevastian.” She said his name sharply, determined to bare her heart to him, to expose herself as she once vowed never to do. Fear would no longer hold her back.
He looked at her, stared curiously at her face.
She could only stare back at him, conveying with her eyes the words that hung on the tip of her tongue.
A slow smile curved his mouth. “I love you, Grier.” His smile deepened. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Her breath locked in her chest. She released a gust of breath and with it the word, “No.”
His smile slipped.
“I was going to say . . .” She propped herself up on her elbows. “I love you . . . Sevastian .”
His smile returned. “Amusing imp, aren’t you?” He leaned down, brushing his mouth over hers once, twice, and then a third time. This final kiss lingered, slower and deeper, almost as though he couldn’t help himself. She was panting, clinging to his shoulders with clenched fingers when he finally pulled away.
“So you love me?” His mouth quirked into a smug smile.
She smiled, giddy inside. “Hmm-mm. And you love me?”
“I do.” His expression turned sly. “Enough to know your actual birthday.”
“You’re still harping on that!” She half laughed, half snorted. “Nice try. You’re going to have to do better than that. It might take years of loving me to get that out.”
His mouth lowered to hers again. “Years of loving you sounds simple enough. I can content myself that I shall have it out of you one day.”
Grier slipped her arms around his neck, ecstatic to think of those long years ahead. Of them sharing it all together. It was more than she ever hoped for . . . more than she dared dream.
Epilogue
Eight months later . . .
Sunlight filtered through the mullioned windows lining the lavish bedchamber. Grier crossed her arms and stared at the beams of light enviously. “When can I get out of bed? This is absurd, you know.”
“Not until the physician declares it safe,” her husband announced beside her where he reclined upon the bed. Unlike her he was dressed for the day and had already enjoyed a morning ride. She could smell the crisp autumn air on him.
She punched the bed between them in a display of pique. “Holy hellfire—I’m having a baby. Women do it every day. I’m not dying.”
He set down his paper and gave her his full attention. “Be that as it may, you’re not just any woman. Not to Grandfather and especially not to me.”
“Don’t tell me you agree with all this cosseting. Truly. I’m fine. A little nauseated in the mornings. Nothing more. I’m fit and hale. The physician will say whatever your grandfather wants him to say. He’s terrified of the old goat.”
Sev’s lips twitched. “Most people are.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m not.” At least not anymore. As apprehensive as she’d been upon first arriving at the palace, she quickly realized the king was more bark than bite. He was not about to tell the grandson he so obviously loved that he’d disappointed him or made a mistake in marrying her. Although the king looked at her through narrowed eyes at first, he’d held his tongue. And even that had changed in recent months as he observed Grier and Sev together. His narrow-eyed gaze had vanished altogether when she announced that she was increasing. Now she could do no wrong. Newfound life danced in his eyes.
“Your lack of fear is a fact which impresses him endlessly. Oh, and the fact that you’ve so quickly managed to find yourself with child.”
This time Grier grinned. She stroked Sev’s arm. “I cannot take credit for that alone. You see, I happen to be married to this very virile man who bothers me to no end with his insatiable appetites.”
He chuckled. “And you’ve been unwilling, have you?”
Sev kissed her until they both grew heated and anxious, writhing against each other, she in her nightgown, he in his jacket and trousers. She slid her hands beneath his jacket, palming his firm chest through his shirt. “I know the perfect cure for me.”
“Do you now?” he asked huskily against her mouth.
She cupped his hardness beneath his breeches. “You can call it an early present, too.”
“Present,” he murmured against her throat. “For what?”
“Oh, for tomorrow.”
He pulled back to gaze at her with a strange expression on his face. “What’s tomorrow?
She smiled coyly. “I suppose I can tell you.” She slid a hand over his hard belly, loving how the taut muscles rippled beneath her fingers. “Tomorrow’s my birthday. And now you know that you’ve married an older woman.”
A wide smile stretched his lips. “Not quite.”
She cocked her head.
He continued, “You see . . . tomorrow’s my birthday, too.”
She stilled. “You jest.”
He laughed and the sound vibrated through her. “This is rich! We have the same birthday.”
“We’re the same age?” She shook her head, marveling.
Chuckling, he kissed her again, nibbling at her bottom lip. “Which begs the question . . .”
“Hmm?” she murmured, then gasped with pleasure as his hand found her sensitive breast.
“What time of day were you born?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she pushed him back on the bed and straddled him. Lowering her head, she whispered against his lips, “You’ll have to work very hard to earn that information.”
And he did.