Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
The chill only thawed as they approached the mountain and Fordham came back in range. Immediately, he was there, touching her through the bond as if she were already there in person, as if he could barely contain himself from the relief of knowing she was okay.
“We’re close,” she said as the mountain came into view.
Home.
She didn’t know when she had started to think of Ravinia as home. She missed her manor home, Waisley, back in Bryonica, but there was more heartache there than ever. She still didn’t know the fate of her attendants, Benton and Bayton, who she had saved from servitude in the House of Shadows only for them to be swept up into this war with the Society. Nor did she know about the other half-Fae she had sent to her ancestral lands. For the first time, it really felt like they had a chance of righting all these wrongs.
Tieran landed in the open aerie with the rest of his commanders—Gelryn, Dyta, Ordrax, and Avirix—and the noncombatant Amita as the other dragons scattered among the nearby peaks and surrounding valleys.
Kerrigan jumped off Tieran’s back and didn’t look back as she strode across the now-crowded aerie. The door banged open, and Fordham strode in, wearing full black-and-silver House of Shadows regalia with a long, embroidered cloak held up by a silver chain and a sword strapped to his waist. His dark hair was pushed off his face as if he had been running his fingers through it anxiously. Those gray eyes turned to liquid silver at the sight of her.
Between one second and the next, his hands were in the windblown threads of her curly braid and his mouth was on hers. Time stilled as everything narrowed to this one moment. Him. The connection between them sizzled to life.
“I missed you,” she groaned against his lips.
His tongue swept against hers, sparking something to life low in her belly. “I never wish to be parted from you again.”
“We have an audience.”
His hands slid down to her thighs and easily lifted her into the air, wrapping her legs around his waist and carrying her toward the open door. “Then let us find some privacy.”
She laughed as her whole body awakened with desire. “Don’t you want to hear how the mission went?”
“After I’m done with you.”
Fordham stepped through the doorway to a rumble of laughter. His next step was into shadow. Kerrigan barely had a moment to prepare herself as they slid through the nothing, and then they were in the king’s chambers.
She gasped. “I was not expecting a shadow-jump. Gods.”
He grinned and just captured her lips again as he leaned her down onto the bed. His fingers found the button of her leathers. He loosened them and then released her long enough to tug them off her toned legs. She unhooked her cloak and ripped off her top with zero patience. Then she was reaching for him, unhooking the ceremonial mantle and letting it slide unceremoniously to the ground. Next was the cravat at his throat, the buttons of his silk shirt, which she fisted out of his pants, and then those gods-damned trousers.
“Show me how much you missed me,” she pleaded as she lay back on the bed.
He crawled over her, his naked form a masterpiece of rippling muscles, his face as devious as ever. The quirk of his lips before they descended on her mouth said that he was going to do just that.
She lifted her legs to wrap around his waist as he settled between hers. His kisses turned furious as he drew out every ounce of her pleasure. There was a desperation in his movements, as if his fear that she wouldn’t come back had eaten away at him. Their time in Domara had marked both of them, and this was how it had left its mark on him—an unending fear that she would not return, that he could not save her.
“I love you,” she said, pulling back enough to look into his eyes. “I’m here and I love you.”
His nose brushed against hers. “I love you, my queen.”
“I’m safe now.”
A hand slid under her hip and lifted it to a slightly better angle. “You are always safer with me.”
“Always,” she agreed.
His fingers tightened on her hip as he drove home, closing the last bit of distance between them. She groaned as she was suddenly indescribably full. She had missed him, missed this—this completion that said that nothing else mattered. Only when her mate drove her to destruction and back.
He leaned forward on his elbows, his lips against the shell of her slightly pointed ear as he began a rhythm.
“Marry me,” he whispered.
She shivered. “Now?”
“We might need a witness,” he said. He shifted deeper, and she gasped.
“Don’t think I want a witness to this.”
“No,” he agreed. “This is all mine. As are you.”