More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
But his soul carried on, buried deep in Elspeth Spindle, the only woman Ravyn had ever loved.
“Don’t what?” “Pretend to flatter me.”
“Who’s pretending?”
“Developed a taste for removing my clothes, have you, Prince?” That shut him up. Elm looked away. He wanted to break things. And her, ripping her dress like that, only maddened the desire.
Wherever that unquiet ache was, he wanted to find it.
One Ione had slipped through the eye
of a needle and plunged into Elm’s chest, past all his bricks and barbs, though she didn’t yet realize it. It was uncomfortable, pretending she was not sewn into him—that it had not become vital to him, helping her find her Maiden Card. That he was not in some kind of pain every moment he was with her. It was all so terribly, wonderfully uncomfortable.
“I’d be your King, but always your servant. Never your keeper.”
“When I bed you, Ione, I want you to feel it.”
“I’d like to know the real you,” Elm said again. He kissed her slowly, intently. “I’ve wanted to know you since I saw you all those years ago, riding in the wood, mud on your ankles.”
“I’m yours. Even if you won’t be Queen—I’m yours.”
“Someday. But first, I want a hundred years with you.”
“I wish we could have had those hundred years, Hawthorn. I wish you could have been Queen.”
“A hundred years,” he said to her, as if she were the only one in the room. “I’ll love you for a hundred years—and an eternity after.”
