Sanctuary With Kings (Tempting Monsters, #3)

by Kathryn Moon

Whoring was clever work for one of Hedone's daughters, and I was never starving.

"I lived in a nightmare for a third of my life, Laszlo. I am not sure there is any shield that can hold my mind back from the reckoning now that I am free. Even Hywel."

Perhaps possession would be a simpler course of action than fighting for my own identity. I could let Asterion pour his love into me, use it to fill all the empty caverns of my soul once more. I would not be my own, but I would be someone's.

I would love this man. I would love him as no one else had tried to love him in his life. I'd thought love would come back to me, the sudden swoon and storm of feelings that had seemed to possess me of their own accord when I was younger. I was making love a choice now, a course I would follow every day, actions I would relearn and practice and memorize. I knew where I wanted to start.

"Asterion, I will always need you," I said, voice breaking. "Just as you will always need me. Can you bear to run far away enough from me that it will cease this craving?" "There is no such distance," he said, fists clenched.

"I will share your bed, alone or with others," Asterion said, looking up at me. I sighed and nodded, urging him to continue. "I will claim your body, alone or with others. I will protect you, alone or with others. And I will love you, no matter what."

I will fight until I am free, even if that freedom is death.

The truth was, I didn't really care about treasure, whether it was valuable or curious or mythical. I cared about these men. I cared about the life we chased after, fought for, celebrated in.