Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
She barely dared to breathe. “Knew what?”
“I knew I was irrevocably, undeniably in love with you. That I wanted to mark you, not as my property, but as my mate. And that I wanted to be marked by you.”
Her breath caught as she flattened her hand against her chest. “This means I’m your mate?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. Didn’t break eye contact. “That design doesn’t, no. That’s merely a promise. A promise that I will not be long in following you into the afterlife. Because when you go, I will be a hollowed-out creature. You will have taken my soul with you. My heart. I will merely finish my duty, and then I will find you again. If you are reborn, I will return, only so I can meet you anew. So that we can fall in love naturally, without all this shit around us, and have a chance at the forever that is currently denied to us.”
She let out a slow, quivering breath. A tear overflowed from her eye.
He reached for her with a shaking hand. “I thought I loved Sansa, and maybe I did, but it didn’t feel like this. It wasn’t this strong. This powerful. It’ll kill me how this ends, but I’m glad the chalice turned out to be you. I’m glad I was able to know you, to feel you, to spend even this short amount of time with you. We’ve lived through hell and have yet to meet the gods in the afterlife, but each touch from you has been like living among the stars. A blessed life. And so, when the king took you, even with your new magic, I couldn’t stand by and allow it to happen. Each fight in that court took every ounce of willpower I possessed to leave you to it, but once the king had you, I couldn’t… I couldn’t risk things going wrong and losing you like that. Subjecting you to that.”
“You certainly took your sweet time.”
His smile at her quip didn’t linger. “The king anticipated me. He had three times the number of guards barring my way. It was why the other royals intensified their defenses as well. They all knew I’d go for you and, despite the magic trapping me, would find a way to kill him. And I did…through you. You didn’t need me at all.”
“I mean, if we’re being honest, I could’ve used you before he sliced me up and wrestled me to the ground…”
Now the smile did linger, a teasing tone riding each word. “Ah, but…you wouldn’t have figured out the new facet of your ever-expanding magic. You really should be thanking me.”
Fat fucking chance.
He laughed and kissed her deeply. “I was about to pull him away from you when you called me off. You did it. In the end, you did what I always needed you to do, and it turns out, it had to be you. The gods are surely entertained.”
“The gods can get fucked.” She rested her forehead against his, closing her eyes. “I think you were right—what you said in that hotel room what seems like a lifetime ago. When I had my knife pressed against you, and you said I wouldn’t be able to kill you? You were right. At this point, even if my life depended on it, I wouldn’t be able to.”
“Nonsense.” He slipped his hands under the hem of her shirt. “For your family, you’d slit my throat and be pissed at me for breaking your heart in the process.”
“Breaking my heart?”
“Yes.” He ran his hands over her breasts. “Because you feel this every bit as much as I do. You just don’t want to admit it. That’s okay. I have all night to get a screaming confession out of you.”
(She had admitted it—to herself, at least—but now… Well, she liked his extra motivations…)
He pulled away with a quirked eyebrow, knowing she’d thought something away from his prying mind.
“I still can’t read those thoughts,” he murmured with a smirk.
“Good. It would be annoying if, in addition to everything else, you were also all-knowing.”
He pulled off her shirt and bent, flicking her nipple with his hot tongue. She groaned, scooting back so she could hurriedly work at his pants.
“We’ve already made love on the couch,” she said as she freed his hard length.
He waved his hand. A burst of power stopped her breath. Their clothes vanished completely. She didn’t stop to marvel. She didn’t even check into the currents of magic. There was no point. She didn’t have much time with him. She didn’t want to waste it on analysis.
Instead, she rose, her heart hammering, needing him. Needing this. Wishing she’d known about the mates thing when they were getting marked. She wanted that now. Fearing intimacy and commitment was for another life. Another person. Daisy wasn’t that person anymore. Now, she wished she had more time.