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faces. Damn the pretending. Damn the hiding. Damn everything but him and us and this moment where I need him.
watch Paedyn through the gaps of a gawking crowd, just as I will for the rest of my life. I’ll be forced to spend my days at her service but never at her side. In her shadow but never truly seen. In love with a girl I’d have bowed to long before she became my queen.
Why couldn’t we have just stayed in that field of poppies? I would spend the rest of my days making her flower crowns if she
wanted to be a queen. My queen. Not Kitt’s. Not Ilya’s. Mine.
“So much as breathe on her again,” I snarl, “and I’ll ensure it’s the last time you ever do.”
am no one’s queen.”
“Is that so?” My fingers find her cheek before trailing down the smooth slope of her nose. “Then you have no idea how much power you hold over me.”
“You’re not supposed to touch me at all.”
“But you could command me to,” I drawl. “Then I’d simply be following an order.”
“Darling, I’d be in this bed beside you if my brother hadn’t slipped a ring onto your finger.”
“So slip it off.”
“Did the burning desire to see me wake you?”
“My pretty Pae. Tell me you missed me.”
Her hands grasp at my hair. “I’m an engaged woman.” My voice is low. “Oh, I know.”
I’ve moved before even realizing. My hands are on her hips, and I’m spinning her around to face me before my mouth crashes into hers. It’s incessant. Fervent. Relief.
“I’m selfish, Paedyn. I burned your home to the ground just to have you and now it is all of Ilya standing in my way, tempting me to light a match.”
(Oh, I can bite. You only need to ask, darling.)
“Paedyn, I love you. Like nothing else before, I love you. And I’ve been waiting to tell you since I realized your eyes are my favorite color and your freckles the only constellation worth looking at. I could lie—say that you’ve stolen my
every thought and heartbeat like the thief you are, but all of me was already yours. Pae, you are my inevitable.”
“I love you, Malakai. I love you.”
“You don’t need a blade. I would bleed if only you asked.”
