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For the souls forged from the darkness that broke them
I’ve a wife to punish.
To remain in the dark archives of the heart is to ignite grave consequence. If you cannot find the balance, then you must feel nothing at all.
I’d never been able to do as he had.
All I desired now was a quiet life away from what I’d found, and to escape him before he made that impossible.
Return to your wretched husband. Not even he will have you now.
“The moment I laid eyes on you was the moment I knew I could never end your life.” My heart thrashed. “So you did plan to.” I hadn’t doubted it since learning of it—yet I’d wanted to. Even now, I so desperately wanted to. “I was always supposed to kill you, butterfly.” His dark lashes dipped, his thumb glossing my lower lip. “But now, I will bring you the remains of anyone who tries.”
Gane didn’t move. “The answers you seek can only be found with the king.” His tone softened. “Just know that I have never wanted to hide anything from you, and I’ve never been wholly aware of his intentions.”
His voice was almost a whisper. “Run and hide from me if you must, butterfly.” He leaned close to press his lips to the corner of my mouth, his eyes brightening and piercing mine. “Make my cock even harder than you already do.”
“All these years dedicated to enacting vengeance so as not to miss any minute detail, yet you’ve not an ounce of patience where this wife of yours is concerned.” Truer words had never been spoken.
I needed the father who’d destroyed every dream I’d ever had to pay for what he’d done.
“If they were, you’d see that I care far more than I ever wanted to.” He laughed, but it held no humor. “You’d see that I feared for you. I’ve tortured and killed for you. I went insane with desperation to get you back, and I couldn’t, Tullia. I couldn’t reach you.” His chest heaved. “Every time I came close to sleep, it was stunted by terror.” He swallowed thickly. “By thoughts of what he might be doing to you, and you…”
“My mate.” His eyes held mine as he licked my upper lip. “My wife.” He dragged his fingers free to rub my clit. “My fucking queen.” I fractured.
“That’s it, butterfly.” His lips and low laugh brushed my ear. “Drink my blood and take my seed, my fucking lifeforce, like the defiant yet greedy little creature you are.”
Since you came back to me.
Logic and heart seldom coexisted.
Then again, monsters so rarely believed they were monsters at all.
The deep blue tunic and tight pants were a fucking crime committed to doom me.
“I don’t want you mincing words. I want you to say what you mean, and with the lack of restraint I’m accustomed to.”
Despite all I’d done, despite all she still refused to give me, it was me she’d materialized to. I was her place of refuge.
“Sweetest creature.” His mouth caressed my cheek, the heat of his hand branding my lower back. He inhaled deep, then released it with, “Nothing, not even death, will keep me from being the only one who can see to your greedy needs.”
“I can tell you that I have no desire for anything that isn’t you until the sun and moon cease to rise.” Silken soft, those words grazed my shoulder, a burn he soothed with his lips. “You won’t believe me until you let yourself see it.”
“Lies no longer fit between us, sweet creature.”
“That I’m so wretchedly in love with you, it’s both saved and damned me.”
He watched me come undone. “My sweet butterfly.” Stars danced upon the rock ceiling of the cave. He kissed me, then licked my upper lip. “My queen.” I grasped the back of his head when he dropped his mouth. “And now…” Pain mingled with pleasure as he once again feasted on my neck, emptying inside me with a gravel-coated groan. “Forever my mate.”
I’m so wretchedly in love with you.
“A sense of humor. Good.” Then he bowed. “I would be honored to join you, my queen. Thank you for the offer.”
It pleasured better than any orgasm. It burned worse than any brand.
It was a furious longing of the soul. A need to keep this forevermore.
I wanted to have this always. I wanted his punishing devotion and his gentle wrath. I wanted the possessive captivity and the future riddled with freeing adventure. I wanted every inch of the soul he shared through his eyes and the heart he’d forced into my uncertain hands. I wanted all he was beyond his forgotten dreams and the nightmares that had delivered me to him. I wanted everything I’d been too afraid to want. I wanted it so badly it hurt. So desperately, it caused more guilt to nudge at my chest. Not because I shouldn’t want it when he’d married me with the intention of humiliating and
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Florian is as cold as the unforgiving winter haunting he and his bloodline, but he is right in his deeds, no matter how wrong. Stay with him, Peony had written, and far away from Molkan. Should you choose neither, write to me. I will come for you.
Corina suspected he would kill her, Peony had written. She wrote to tell me she feared it might happen, but by the time I received the letter, word soon followed that she’d given birth to you early. Mere days later, I arrived at the palace gates to discover I was too late. Molkan sent me away with a warning that should I speak a word of my asinine beliefs, then he would see that it was the last thing I did.
Beyond it all, the sun crested as midday neared. Hours that’d seemed mere minutes, and the brushstrokes of brutality began to slow. The screams began to fade to pained moans. The numbers dwindled. Mercifully, not our own.
This first dance with death drew to a close. The living were cut down if they wore brown and green. Some were bound together in small groups if they put both arms up and tilted their faces toward the sky—a plea to the goddess to breathe another day.
Maybe it was cruel of me to deny him. Maybe he was more cruel for refusing to acknowledge me unless he had to for days that felt like an eternity. Maybe we were both stubborn idiots.
I’d known better than to think I could claim anything that could be so easily taken from me.
“Vengeance won’t heal you.” “I don’t expect it will.” I stepped close and vowed, “But I will have it all the same.”
“You are a light in my soul that unearthed my heart. You now hold it in the palms of your perfect hands, and to say that has been an adjustment is a fucking understatement.” His thumb stroked the corner of my mouth, fingers firming over my jaw and cheek. “I will get jealous, butterfly. I will always be territorial. I will get this wrong far more than I will ever be willing to admit, but mark my words…” His head lowered until our foreheads met. “Every realm will freeze over before I allow you to believe that I want to do this without you.”
“The heart you hold is not rational, but it is yours.” His lips whispered over my cheek. “So essentially…” His smirk entered his voice. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m somewhat sorry for my behavior.”
“Soil below, stars above, Mythayla witness this pledge of love.” I shivered, and he splayed his hand over my bare back. “Through rising seas and setting suns, this bond will endure, two souls linked as one.”
