Page 48 of Merciless Is My Crown

His savage smile made my knees tremble. “I will take my sweet time with you. I will taste every delicious inch, Anaria, and only when you’ve forgotten your own name will I let my wolf come out to play.”

Then he yawned, coating me in the smell of a woodland forest and far-too-expensive liquor. “Get in bed.” Another flash of that wicked smile. “I’m right behind you.”

Damn him, but my fucking toes curled before I kicked off my boots and crawled in, the mattress sagging beneath me. Clothes rustled, something heavy hit the floor, then Tavion curled himself around me, his corded arm thrown over my waist. For a few minutes we lay like that, breathing.

Adjusting.

Maybe I was a damn fool, but I sucked in a breath. “When the healers come, let them look at you before we leave tomorrow. Please.”

“It won’t do any good. Not from what Lucius went through with mother.” He went still, though, as if he was considering it. “I’ll let them look, but you have to promise me something, Anaria.”

“What?”

“If I cannot be healed, if this is truly going to kill me…don’t leave me behind. As long as I can fight for you, as long as I can swing a sword, I do not want us to be apart. I deserve to see this through to the end, even if it’s my end. That is all I ask.”

He was right.

Stubborn and unbending and probably going to get himself killed…but right.

The thought terrified me to my very core. The idea of living a single day without Tavion was unacceptable. Like living without air or the sun or laughter. I needed Tavion. The revelation hit me out of nowhere, sweeping every other thought from my head and leaving only the fear behind.

“Okay. I won’t,” I said, trying to breathe around my terror.

His illness wasn’t a foul creature I could slay, or a problem money could solve. This was something I could do nothing about and that simple, undeniable truth rendered me utterly helpless. If I couldn’t find a remedy, I would lose Tavion.

So I’d find the fucking cure.

I’d save him because that was the only outcome I would accept.

“Your mother is a real piece of work,” he murmured, and my chest grew tight at the protective fury brewing beneath those words.

“She wants to use me, Tavion.”

“I heard.” He nuzzled into my disgusting hair with a sigh that almost sounded…content.

“We won’t let her,” he said as if the decision had already been made. “I’ll talk with Dane tomorrow, make sure the High Barrens are safe enough for you. If they aren’t, if my uncle deems them too dangerous, we don’t go. We wait here for Raz and Zor, then decide what our next move is.”

“As simple as that?”

“As simple as that. There are other armies out there. Armies that can be purchased if you have enough gold.”

“You’d buy us an army?” I felt his shrug before he sagged against me, warm, liquor-sweet breath skating over me as he hauled me closer.

“If that’s what it takes to keep you happy, wife, then I’ll do it.”

“That’s definitely the liquor talking.”

His sleepy smile sank into me, coating me in pure happiness, and something in me settled, every bit as content as he was right now. “Well…maybe a little.”

Then he started to snore.

19

TORIN

“I’m going in after him. It’s the only way.” I flexed my stiff fingers, trying to keep my teeth from chattering from the adrenaline and fear and outright panic coursing through me. The second I’d heard that ragged, distraught roar, everything else ceased to matter except Zeph was alive and I had to get to him.

“Torin, if it’s been three hundred years and he’s…” Zorander’s eyes flickered with all the same doubts flashing through my head.

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