Page 506 of Kingdoms of Night

“Do you?” He rose up to sit by me, still holding my hand. He wore a silver-blue sleeveless tunic that stopped at his knees, its hemlines patterned with platinum thread and the neckline cutting down to the middle of his chest, similar to how Mahala was depicted.

“I’m dead,” I told him. “I doubt I even left something behind to bury.”

From the bedside table, he brought me a glass of water. I paused my displeasure with the illusion to gladly gulp down what he brought to my lips. Crisp and cool, it tasted far better than I ever remembered it to, and seemed to instantly rejuvenate me.

Numbness fading, I sat up. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Concern weighed down his soulful eyes. “Meissa, it’s me. It’s truly me.”

The sad, deprived part of me, that mourned the life we could have had, wanted to believe him. But the rational side that kept me afloat all these years refused to.

I raised my chin, defiant—and hid my quivering mouth. “Prove it.”

“When we first met, you believed me to be the proxy sent to retrieve you and tried to convince me to join you in killing the Shadow King.” He couldn’t help grinning at that, the raise of his lips baring his sharp teeth like a warning snarl, its intimidation dimmed by the delight in his eyes. “You also thought I was going to eat you.”

A flush elevated my temperature. It was him. Nothing else in existence had such an instantaneous effect on my senses. I couldn’t help smiling back. “Hard not to when you have teeth like that. You could very well devour me whole.”

Tamuz came closer, rumbling in my ear. “If I recall the type of screams my feasting upon you inspired, you enjoyed it immensely.”

Fully flustered, I tried to hide my face in the pillow until he traded my hand for my jaw, urging me to meet his gaze.

“It’s definitely you.” I rested against his touch, savoring it for however long we had. “So, are you doing what Ashtara never did for your father, visiting me in the underworld?”

“Beloved, we are as we’ve always been, on the Moon you saved from my mother.” He brought us nose to nose, and I couldn’t help nuzzling. “Do you remember what happened between you?”

Through the tired pauses, I recounted the events that led up to impaling her with her own weapon. “—then she just burst apart, and she no doubt burned me to soot instantaneously.”

“Except that’s not what happened,” he said. “Iltani led me to that crater you lured Ashtara to, and all I found was you, fully intact, in the middle of a charred star-burst.”

“How?” I sat further up, alert with bewilderment. “How could I have possibly survived that?”

“I don’t know why fate spared you the tragic sacrifice, but I refuse to complain about illogic when my curse has ended with a blessing.” He reunited our faces, foreheads pressed together, cooling my flushed skin. “I thought I would never see you again, that all was lost to her as she unleashed hell on the heavens. Against all odds, you defeated her andyou came back to me.”

Realism be damned, I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him like our lives still depended on it. Hands on my waist, he pulled me up with him into a kneel, fang tips nipping my lips in an exhilarating prick of pain with the rising pleasure of mapping the body I could now see.

“Where are your wings?” I gasped between kisses, pulling at his tunic.

He reached under my nightgown, squeezing at my thighs and backside, injecting the rush of surprise into my mounting arousal. “Breaking the curse returned my control over my appearance. I can retract them now, among other changes once I ascended.”

I raised my arms to ease removing my clothes. “Ascended?”

“Barring coronations here and on Earth, you are looking at the new God-King of the Moon,” he said proudly.

Latent worries about what we’d do once that was achieved returned. What would happen to me? Would I just become like the mortal consorts his grandmother chose to live out their lives alongside her?

His delight dimmed. “What’s the matter?”

This issue could be dealt with later. Now I wanted to be with my husband without the stress of the curse hanging over our heads, and without the shadow hiding him from me.

I tugged at his tunic. “You still have this on, that’s the problem.”

“You don’t like it?” he teased. “I was hoping to see you in similar garb, but we can discuss specifics once I gather other gods at the coronation.”

“Gather them for what, an earful for not helping you all these years?”

He held onto my hips, kissing down my jaw. “To aid in deifying my queen.”

Oh.

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