Page 90 of Luna Rising

“What’s our agenda?” I asked, accepting the glass of blood he poured and offered me.

Ewan emptied the rest into his own glass and grabbed a second bottle to take with us into the living room. “To enjoy our bonded life.”

“Okay, simple. I like it. What gets us there?”

He sank down on the sofa and kicked off his boots. I slipped off my sneakers and stretched out with my feet in his lap and sipped my blood, pretending it was red wine.

“Gaia, I don’t know. Peace, I guess. Walter’s right that we can’t undo what’s been done. The reveal is here, and the sooner we accept that the better. Not that we need another thing to argue about, but I want to propose sending enforcers into the cities to slow the attacks. Too many more nights of this, and the humans will never trust us.”

“And that’s what we want, for them to trust us?” I asked.

“We need them to trust us. It can’t be like before. We need to exist alongside them in this world. Otherwise, we’re doomed to another thousand years of war.”

I frowned. “Is that part of the prophecy?”

He downed his blood and refilled the glass. “No. I’m judging by history. Both times the fae made warriors, it was to fight the humans. And both times, it backfired. So, why don’t we try not doing that.”

“Okay. What about Mat? Do you think we should reunite him with Demi and banish him to another realm?”

“I’m not against the idea,” Ewan admitted. “Make him someone else’s problem.”

“Do you think that’s fair?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But we can’t kill him, so banishing him to another realm is really the only way to be rid of him.”

I had been holding onto the secret about the cure for way too long. I would have liked to say that I finally came clean for any reason besides that I didn’t have a choice.

“So, at the risk of never getting my shiny bauble, I need to tell you something. There might be a way to kill Mat. If we cured him first. Unless we can get our hands on Cassius again, we will come back eventually. But that’s a problem for later us.”

Ewan went very still. “Cure?”

He was definitely mad, and that was definitely fair. My justifications for keeping this monumental secret from him still felt valid, and he softened when I said that I had wanted to use it on him. Only having one dose also helped steer him toward my way of thinking.

“You’re positive Winter hasn’t told anyone about it?”

“Yeah, pretty sure. If Walter knew she had it, she wouldn’t still have it. And she wants to give it to Lena, so I know she still has it.”

“Nobody can know, Zara. It’s too valuable, and I don’t want to give the others the chance to vote against giving it to Mat. Once it’s done, we’ll deal with the fallout. We just need to convince the others that banishing him to another realm is best, which is the only thing no one adamantly opposes, so it shouldn’t be hard.”

I studied him over the rim of my wine glass. “I thought there would be more yelling over this. You’re calmer than I expected.”

“I had plans for the night that didn’t involve fighting with you.” He ran his hand up over my knee and squeezed my thigh.

“Oh, yeah? Like what?” I bit my lip and batted my eyelashes, relieved he was willing to skip ahead to the making up.

“First, you’re going to stand up and take off your pants.”

I hurried to my feet and shimmed out of my jeans. “Now what?”

“On your knees.”

I ran the tip of my tongue slowly over my lips and sank down between his legs, fingers going for his belt. He leaned back against the cushions and wound his hand in my hair.

“Gaia, you’re good with your tongue.”

I smiled around him. Yeah, I was pretty good, and so was he. Something he reminded me of before we went upstairs for the night. The sex was good because we always had good sex. It was great because, ridiculous as it was, I’d missed him the previous night. I’d missed his arms around me and his scent enveloping me, the way comfort and security of his skin against mine. The way he worshipped me even though he was still mad. The way he loved me without reservation, and the way I truly believed that we were the only thing right in a world full of wrongs.

And when I fell asleep with my cheek pressed against his chest, I wished that everyone could experience even an iota of my love for him. It felt selfish for us to have so much and others to have none.

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