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Wilder Hawthorne reached for the lone piece of hair that had escaped her braid and tucked it behind her ear. ‘Thea…’ he murmured, his voice broken and hoarse.
‘But when it’s used on someone you love?’ he said. ‘There is nothing more powerful.’
‘I don’t want you,’ she told him, knees buckling. ‘I don’t believe you.’ He closed the small gap between them, still clutching her hand. ‘My shirt smells like you,’ he murmured, the sound a low rumble in the shell of her ear. ‘I still have your marks on my back from our last night together. You claimed me long ago, Thea. You don’t get to say I’m not yours now.’
‘I knew from the moment I first kissed you that I’d never think of another woman again. That you were it for me. Despite everything, that hasn’t changed. Nor will it.’
‘You think this is a game to me?’ He yanked her back against him, so she could feel every inch of his cock, even with the layers between them. ‘I haven’t stopped burning for you,’ he growled. ‘And I never will.’
‘If you need something to believe,’ he said, his blood heating as he closed the gap between them and hauled her body to his, ‘then believe this.’ He kissed her. It was the kiss he’d been dying to give her, the kiss that fractured every doubt between them and reforged the cracks with something golden. She tasted just as he remembered, like hope and salvation, like home and his.
‘Come find me at Thezmarr, little brother,’ he said. ‘We’ll be Warswords together.’
‘He loves you. That was never in any doubt. Not to us. I’ll wager that everything he does is for you.’
‘I told myself that it was enough,’ he murmured into her hair, his voice hoarse. ‘That I should be grateful for the time we had. It was more love than most people get in a lifetime. But the truth is, Thea… A thousand lifetimes with you wouldn’t be enough.’
Thea waited for the current coursing through her to ebb, to leave her feeling sated and dazed. But whatever hummed in her veins didn’t leave her. Wilder’s sharp intake of breath forced her eyes open. Thea nearly choked. For at her fingertips danced little bolts of lightning. Power crackled through her, and that dormant beast within her awoke from its slumber. She stared at her magic. Wilder’s deep voice rumbled against her, warm and full of pride. ‘There you are, Princess.’
Wren rushed forward, flinging her arms around her sister before whispering something only Thea and Wilder could catch. ‘Remember what you are, Althea Nine Lives.’ ‘Let’s hope that name serves me well,’ Thea replied, attempting to release her sister. But Wren held on a moment longer. ‘What you are, Thea…’ she repeated. Thea pulled back, meeting her gaze. Something Wilder didn’t understand passed between them. ‘I am the storm…’ Thea murmured. Wren smiled and let go. ‘That you are.’
‘I was right, all that time ago…’ Wilder mused, watching her carve up the monsters. ‘About what?’ she managed between blows. ‘You’re even more beautiful with steel in your hands, and the blood of your enemies splattered across your face.’
‘When I stand against the gods at the end of my days,’ he told her fiercely, ‘I will regret nothing. Not the lies I’ve told, nor the lives I’ve claimed or the rivers of blood I’ve spilt. I do not regret a single moment, because every one of them led me to you.’
