Page 162 of Her Soul for a Crown
And it had. Just as the list had. Just as the bargain had.
A new age had begun, and with it, a new vision. Anula lifted the blade above the smoke and dropped it into the bowl. It hissed as it died, bones creaking and cracking, dissolving in the tincture one splinter at a time, until not even ash remained. Only peace.
“You are right,” Raejina Devi Dunni whispered. “You are more than I think you are. But I believe you are more than you think you are, too. Do not worry my raejina, your loveliness and bravery will bring a husband’s warmth to your bed.”
“I don’t need a husband for that.”
“But you want one.”
Anula growled. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to break the frame again. Throw the pieces in the fire or the Kuttam Pokuna bathhouse—
Thump.
Anula jolted. A bound book landed unassumingly next to the bowl. The title, scrawled in gold script, readRise of the Raejina.
“Sohon wanted you to have the first edition,” Reeri said, smile reaching saffron eyes. “A coronation gift.”
“You didn’t disappear.” She stood, taking him in again, as if she hadn’t danced with him for hours at the celebration.
Reeri planted a kiss on her forehead. “Never.”
His words, his touch, soaked into her. The rain’s final arrival in a drought. “Aren’t memory books written about the dead? Don’t tell me you’ve come to warn me that I’m about to die. I’m not a fan of spoiled endings.”
The Blood Yakka chuckled. “It is merely volume one. Your story has yet to finish.”
“Among other things,” Anula murmured, teasing the edge of his tunic, remembering how they’d started the day—or had tried to.
He touched her long earrings, fingers grazing her neck. A light kiss followed.
Anula shivered. “Are you here only to deliver my book?”
He met her gaze. “No.”
She shifted, an invitation in her hips, a challenge in her eye. “Then are you here to pray?”
She slowly licked his lips.
“To watch me get on my knees?”
She nipped his ear.
“To hear me beg?”
Reeri trembled.
Anula grabbed his hardness. Saffron eyes flashed.
He growled low. “I am here because I love you.”
“Why?”
His lips found hers, hand twisting into her hair. “You are beautiful, body and soul.”
“Is that all?”
“No.” He softened their kiss and deepened it.
The aching in her core flamed bright. A want, a need, a calling of something more blessed than a relic. Anula pushed into him, backing him into the bed and tipping him over the edge. She pulled off his sarong and tore off her sari, then crawled on top, wrapping over him like a gift. He stood at attention for her, and she lifted her hips, sinking down the length of him. Reeri rumbled from his depths, a thrum threading from his body to hers, a spark igniting the vastness within, twining around and through her very soul. His breath became her breath. His rhythm, hers. His heart, his soul, his love and want and need, hers. The moon, the stars, the sun flickered in and out, the entire cosmos colliding.
