Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“I’m supposed to know? I’ve never forgiven anyone for anything.” My sister tapped her chin. “If ever I fall in love—and I will never fall in love–I’m going for a human. Immortals are ridiculously complicated.”
Despite myself, I chuckled. Adelaide would eat a human alive. “You might not know about relationships and forgiveness, but you know people. How they think. Why they do what they do. So tell me how I can fix this for him? The guilt is eating him alive.”
“You don’t,” she said simply.
I blinked at her. “Come again?”
“You can’t fix this for him because you can’t. Only he can fix it.”
Ugh. “You are so annoying when you’re right.”
“I know.” She fluffed her hair, and I realized I’d gotten the gesture from her. “You can’t take away his guilt, but you can make sure he knows how you see him.” She tossed me a coin I hadn’t known she’d pocketed. “He loves you. Remind him of that.”
A little flutter started beneath my ribs, an idea forming. Maybe I was trying too hard to find the right words now. The Tideweave, the wrist-clasp, the first dance we shared together, and yes, even battle. Every piece of us had movement attached to it.
I didn’t need to say anything to remind him. I only needed to dance.
We reached the palace. “I have to go. I need music. And the garden. No, my room. The studio he built for me.” I grabbed my sister by the shoulders and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You’re brilliant,” I said, springing from the vehicle.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
When he calls you “mine,” believe him.
–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival
Isent a message to my husband and waited in the studio. Mirrored walls. A barre of pale driftwood, worn satin-soft. A sprung floor laid with slate-gray marley that gave under my feet. Tall windows veiled in sheer white, letting in ribbons of muted dome-light. The air smelled of salt, resin and clean wood.
He had built this studio because he’d wanted me to have it, no matter the duration of my stay. And maybe he’d also hoped for a private show. Now, we would both enjoy the fruits of his labor.
I stood in the center and pulled the pins from my hair and laced my shoes. He entered seconds later, as if he’d followed directly on my heels. He didn’t speak, but he smoldered plenty.
“Sit,” I said, fighting a smile.
On the little bench against the wall, this enormous king, in his black leathers, sat with his hands loose between his knees.
“I have told the stories of many queens and kings. Swan Lake. The Firebird. The Sleeping Beauty.” I raised my chin. “But this is the story of us.”
Wonder lit his features. As he watched, rapt, I danced. I danced a throne room and a man who played with fire, eager to get burned. I danced our ups and our downs, a ball and a garden game where a king laughed out loud for the first time in decades. I even danced a monster’s dinner.
And then I danced the rune. I felt the exact moment he understood what he was watching, because the tether went white-hot and his hands closed on the edge of the bench hard enough to splinter it.
Next I danced what came after. The things he didn’t know. Days spent inside a cave, observing the man I loved leave slaughter in his wake. A woman who willingly entered a monster’s house. A husband, cold as the bottom of the sea, crossing twelve feet of rising water to reach for a wife he couldn’t remember loving.
And then I stopped dancing the past. I danced what came next.
A woman who stayed. Who knew exactly what her husband had done and exactly what had been done to him. Who understood that guilt might follow, that healing wouldn’t happen in a single night, that some wounds would ache long after the blood disappeared. A best friend who would be missed and buried with honors.
Sebastian flinched at that one but didn’t look away.
I danced mornings in Krakenströnd. Arguments neither of us won. His ridiculous piles of treasure appearing whenever he thought I looked sad. Music drifting through these rooms while he pretended not to watch me rehearse.
I danced years.
Decades.
Centuries.
A life neither of us had to earn. Only choose.
I danced a family we cherished. When I finished on my toes with both arms open, chest lifted, my whole heart on display, I invited him to join me.
Sebastian stood, eyes storming and wet. He crossed the studio, and he did not stop until he was close enough that I had to tip my head back. Then he was kissing me, because he had wordless things to say too.
At the top of the list? You are mine.
Hours later, my body ached, my heart sang, and my beloved husband carried me to the throne room, draped over his shoulder. Because “I’m told it is the dragon way.”