Page 45 of Queen of the Wicked
“Yes,” I promise, pressing my forehead to hers. “He’s waiting for you.”
She’s shaking in my arms, but it isn’t fear anymore. It’s release.
I hold her tighter, as though I can press the months of absence out of existence. As though I can make everything she’s been through dissolve. All that matters is her heartbeat thundering against mine, her breath hot and wet against my neck, the bond line thrumming like fire between us.
“I need you Rowan. Please. Let me feel something real.”
The way she looks at me…it carves me hollow and fills me in the same breath.
I’ve spent so long searching for her, clawing across the world without wings, praying she was okay. Now she stands before me with eyes like shattered glass, begging me to prove what I already swore: that I am hers.
I can’t deny her. I wouldn’t even if I wanted to.
I step closer, my hand rising to cup her cheek. Her skin is damp with tears, her breath ragged, but when I touch her, she leans into me like she’s been starving for this.
“Darling,” I murmur, “you’ll feel me long after I’m gone.”
We do not make love as mortals do, careful and sweet. Wedevoureach other. We take and give in equal measure, until the forest itself seems to hum with the power spilling between us.
Every kiss, every gasp, every shudder is a prayer to survival.
When she moans my name, low and desperate, I nearly weep. Not because of the pleasure, but because it means she remembers I am real. That I am here.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her eyes wet and shining, her lips trembling. “Don’t leave me again.”
“Never,” I swear, voice breaking. “I am yours until there is nothing left of me. And even then—” My throat closes, but I force the words through. “Even then, I will find you.”
Her face crumples, and then she surges forward, clutching me like she’ll drown without me. And I let her, because I’ve been drowning too.
I press a kiss to her temple, not lust, not temptation, but reverence. The kind only grief and survival can carve.
Our bond is alive, coiling around us like molten lava, hot and merciless. It tugs at my soul until I almost collapse beneath the weight of it.
Let him feel it. Let Kaius know she is alive. She’s here. She’s safe with me.
I press my lips to her throat, tasting her pulse, her sweat, her tears. She arches against me with a sound that shreds me from the inside out. She wants to anchor herself in me. And I want to be anchored.
She sobs, pulling me closer, as though I’m the only thing keeping her from collapsing.
Forty-One
Kaius
Rowan steps into the ruin of the watchtower with his coat torn, his hair plastered to his face from rain. He looks hollowed out, yet there’s something sharp in his eyes, something alive I haven’t seen in months.
But she is not with him.
I’m on my feet before I realize it, fury already clawing its way up my throat.
“I felt it, Rowan. Ifelt it.The bond flaring like fire. And she isn’t here. So tell me,” My grip tightens on his coat. “Whose bed did you crawl into this time?”
His eyes flash. “Don’t you dare.”
“Don’t I dare?” The laugh rips from me, jagged and cruel. “You expect me to believe you weren’t sinking your claws into some poor soul, feeding that hunger of yours, while I—” My voice cracks, fury bleeding into anguish. “While I waited. While I grieved her.”
Rowan’s jaw clenches. His hands shove against me, but I pin him harder, my rage the only thing keeping me from collapsing.
“Say it,” I hiss. “Say you used her memory as an excuse to sate yourself.”
