Page 301 of Kingdom of Ash

But she was not half-asleep. For once. And each brush of his fingers on her foot had her sitting up, something warming in her core.

His thumb pushed along the arch of her foot, and Elide indeed let out a small noise. Not at the pain, but—

Heat flared in her cheeks. Grew warmer as Lorcan looked up at her beneath his lashes, a spark of mischief lighting his dark eyes.

Elide gaped a bit. Then smacked his shoulder. Rock-hard muscle greeted her. “You did that on purpose.”

Still holding her gaze, Lorcan’s only answer was to repeat the motion.

Good—it felt so damnedgood—

Elide snatched her foot from his grip. Closed her legs. Tightly.

Lorcan gave her a half smile that made her toes curl.

But then he said, “You are well and truly Lady of Perranth now.”

She knew. She’d thought about it endlessly during these hard days of travel. “This is what you really wish to talk about?”

His fingers didn’t halt their miraculous, sinful work. “We haven’t spoken of it. About Vernon.”

“What of it?” she said, trying and failing for nonchalance. But he looked up at her from beneath his thick lashes. Well aware of her evasion. Elide loosed a breath, peering up at the tent’s peaked ceiling. “Does it make me any better than Vernon—how I chose to punish him in the end?”

She hadn’t regretted it the first day. Or the second. But these long miles, as it had become clear that Vernon was likely dead, she’d wondered.

“Only you can decide that, I think,” Lorcan said. Yet his fingers paused on her foot. “For what it’s worth, he deserved it.” His dark power rumbled through the room.

“Of course you’d say that.”

He shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “Perranth will recover, you know,” he offered. “From Morath’s sacking. And all Vernon did to it before now.”

That had been the other thought that weighed heavily with each mile northward. That her city, her father and mother’s city, had been decimated. That Finnula, her nursemaid, might be among the dead. That any of its people might be suffering.

“That’s if we win this war,” Elide said.

Lorcan resumed his soothing strokes. “Perranth will be rebuilt,” was all he said. “We’ll see that it is.”

“Have you ever done it? Rebuilt a city?”

“No,” he admitted, his thumbs coaxing the pain from her aching bones. “I have only destroyed them.” His eyes lifted to hers, searching and open. “But I should like to try. With you.”

She saw the other offer there—to not only build a city, but a life. Together.

Heat rose to her cheeks as she nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “For however long we have.”

For if they survived this war, there was still that between them: his immortality.

Something shuttered in Lorcan’s eyes at that, and she thought he’d say more, but his head dipped. Then he began to unlace her other boot.

“What are you doing?” Her words were a breathless rush.

His deft fingers—gods above, thosefingers—made quick work of her laces. “You should soak that foot. And soak in general. As I said, you work too hard.”

“You said I should rest more.”

“Because you work too hard.” He jerked his chin toward the bath as he pulled off the boot and helped her rise. “I’ll go find some food.”

“I already ate—”

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