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He tested these limits as much as possible, including visiting the human world, where he was befriended by a young couple with secrets of their own.
You are my light? What does that even mean? Heavens to Betsy, I’ve been in the sun too long.
If I have to tear the mountains from the earth, the clouds from the sky, the water from the sea, I will do it. Nothing will stop me from finding Rosalina.
As I stare at the horizon, I feel like it’s calling me in a way it never has before. A tether drawing me deep beneath the blue waves.
“I’ve forged worlds and created armies, but I have never created life such as you. I have never had a son. An heir.”
“I made you. I can unmake you just as easily.”
If I am not worthy of basking in her radiance, then I will walk behind her as a shadow. As her shadow, I will engulf any who would dim her light. If darkness is all I have, then I will use it to serve her.
“I’ve only ever stayed for you, Birdy. You know that. I would have run away twenty-five years ago if it weren’t for you.”
“Don’t make me kill you.”
Goodbye, little sister. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do right by you.
“It’s
like being stuck in the eye of a storm you can’t escape. It’s suffocating, consuming. It’s waking up every day with a weight on your chest, wondering if today will be the day it crushes you entirely. Love is continuing to drink poison because it’s also the only antidote. For me, it is a battle that if he wins, I lose, and if I win, somehow, I still lose. Love is the only reason I still choose to draw breath.”
stay there watching her in the dying light for a moment more, hating the world for turning my sister into a monster. Hating the world for making her fall in love with one.
I’m a masochist when it comes to you.
“Caspian,” she whispers, fingers digging tight into my jacket. “I hope you know how to swim.” Then my mate grabs me and pushes me into the pond, where cold water embraces me and the only thing I hear is her laugh.
“Oh, I see now, Flower,” Caspian says with a serpentine smile. “You know, there are easier ways to get me out of my clothes.”
replica cuffs Caspian’s wrist. “Fine then. Keldarion, I rescind the bargain.”
“I promise. Use me however you want,” he pleads. “Just please, don’t ask me to leave.”
Something wild flits through me, and I loosely thread my fingers in Caspian’s hair. “I can’t make you come, Kel. But he can.”
“Fine,” I continue. “I haven’t sucked anyone’s cock, and no one’s fucked me since you. Every time I did sleep with someone, it just felt . . . empty. Like eating food but not being able to taste it. Is that what you two want to hear? Besides, I haven’t been with anyone since she asked me to stop.”
“Wherever I go, you have me. Whatever desert I leave my footprints in, whatever wilderness I inhabit or mountain I scale. It was set by the Fates and bound in the stars. You have me.”
“Whatever it takes, I will return to you, my Queen. If I have to crawl, I’ll crawl. If I have to swim through rivers of fire, I’ll swim. If I have to defy the Fates themselves and rearrange the stars, I will do it.”
His old trident. “He knew your mother,” I say, as it finally dawns on me. “Because he was never a goat herder, just as he was never actually
Justus. He’s Aeneas, the first High Prince of Summer.”
His wet lips brush my ear. “Tell me to stop, Rosie. Fucking tell me to stop.”
A dark god with his dark queen.
“No, Rosalina, I would. I would know you in any form anywhere in all the Vale. By the gentle curve of your smile and the way the air sparkles when you’re around.”
“In the night’s tapestry, I would know you as a star or as a bloom in a field of flowers. Did you know there is a particular cadence to your heartbeat? Especially when you’re around me. I could pick it out in a symphony.”
“Dramatic would be saying that even if there was nothing left of me but shadows, I would know you.”
“As if I would let that happen. There’s only one other fae here I’d be at peace seeing you like . . . this.”
“Is that what you want? To be filled completely? By me? By Kel? By all your mates at once?”
“Every swing of my sword is for you. Every word I utter, every action I take, every beat of my damned heart.” His fingers tremble on my face. “Rosalina, I love you.”
“My love for you is deeper than all the depths of the sea.” His forehead dips to mine. “I will do anything you ask. Please tell me not to do this.”
“I don’t care. My honor was forsaken long ago. You are my creed now, the temple that I worship. I have nothing else to offer you, to make you stay with me, but this.” He places her palm on his cheek. “Please take it.”
I cannot keep away from you any more than the tides can resist the pull of the moon.
When we make love, it’s different than anything I’ve experienced before. It’s magic. It’s enchanted. It’s golden.
“Decent kiss, Cas, now be a good boy and keep playing along.”
“And yes, whatever you say, Blossom. If you asked for the stars, I’d pluck them from the sky.”
“I will love you across the ages.”
“I will love you in the desert, under a blazing sun, or in the deepest depths of the jungle. I will love you when the rain pours down and we’re covered in mud, or when the night is so dark, the only light beams from your heart. No time nor distance nor magic can break my love for you.”
“Love is an endless sea, and in its depths, I find your strength.”
We will not kneel in the shadows. We will rule again from a throne among the stars.
“Wake now, Rose, to a glorious dawn. Shadows may be falling from the sky, but you are the sun. People pray for your light.”
A growl sounds in my throat. “I told you that the next time I saw you, I would kill you. For all my evils, I do not break promises.”
