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“What do you not understand? I care nothing for my life if she is not in it.”
“This means nothing,” I said to the emptiness, imagining Livia could hear every word. “Bond or not, you are mine, and gods, I’m yours, love.”
“Your daughter is my beacon. I will never regret taking her, for she is my home. I love her, Queen. There is no part of me that would choose anything over her. Let. Me. Go.”
“My heart has been hers for turns, not weeks. It has been bonded to her since the war. That is what I mean when I say she is more than my queen. She is my every thought, my every breath, Prince.”
“What is your given name?” Jonas’s mouth curved in one corner when he faced Celine. “I’d love to know what to call you if ever we are alone together.” “Aye,” she said. “I do love when men cry out my name as I gut them.”
“Listen to me, love,” Erik whispered against my lips. “Whatever that bastard thinks he took from us, he failed. I belong to you, every wretched piece of me. I’ve no need for spells or bonds to prove it. I choose you, Livia Ferus. For much longer than my last breath.”
“I may not be skilled at gentility, but I don’t want the violence I feel to keep you from speaking to me about anything. I will always hear you first, then rage later.”
“Serpent?” “Songbird.” “I would follow your darkness, every ugly truth, across the skies and seas.”
your darkness across the skies and seas. You are mine, a beautiful monster, a passionate lover, a loyal friend, a vicious king. All mine. And that is all I will ever want.”
One look, one pause, and I said the words I should’ve said at the end of the war when the first glimmer of hope to a deadened heart came from a smile through the bars of a prison cell. “You are my light in the darkness!” With a nudge from Valen, Livia was urged belowdecks, but before her face slipped from view, she called to me. “A thousand turns, Erik Bloodsinger.” I closed my eyes and faced the sea. A thousand turns, Songbird.
“They played, that serpent and songbird, from sunup to sundown.”
Without words, only using what was felt, I whispered. Hello, love. Livia’s eyes burned in a new heat. Hello, Serpent.
