Page 123 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
breathless
wet
equal
alive
And then we’re falling to the ground, and there’s no time to go to the house, no time to care about who might see, there’s only time to share what we’ve been missing all this time, what our bodies have been yearning for, and right there on the soft grass, in the warm sunlight, our three hearts beat a
s one once again and we share every breath, every kiss, every single drop of our love. Equal and alive.
Three.
WHEN I WAS TWENTY-NINE, I saw a king come back to life.
And we’ve been living happily ever after ever since.
EPILOGUE
ASH
Four years later
“Welcome home, little prince,” I say as Embry walks through the door, stamping the snow off his dress shoes, followed by three sets of small snowy boots behind him.
“Daddyyyyyyy!” screams Galahad, racing through the door after Embry and launching himself into my arms. Little Imogen, almost four, follows suit, followed by Arthur who, at barely two, still has a binky stuck firmly in his mouth. Soon I’m on the floor with my three children crawling all over me, my phone still warm in my pocket from my weekly phone call with Lyr, who’s settling into his off-campus apartment in Manhattan.
“You are going to get covered in snow,” Embry warns, hanging up his coat, because—sure enough—all the kids appear to have rolled from the car in the snow rather than walked, but I don’t care. It’s only been three days since I’ve seen them, but whenever they’re gone, I miss them like my skin is flayed raw. Same with Embry and Greer.
But that’s all about to change.
“How did it go?” I ask, helping my stepson out of his coat and boots before moving on to my daughter.
“Surely you were watching on TV—”
The door blows open, bringing Greer inside in a gust of white wool and long blond hair. Snow is caught in her hair and eyelashes, and already my blood is warming as I think about licking the snowflakes off her skin. Maybe tonight after we put the kids to bed, I can bring in some snow from outside and Embry and I can take turns teasing her with the cold…
And then she opens up her coat and I see something fuzzy and wriggling and alive cradled against her chest.
A kitten.
“What is that?” I ask with some amusement.
“Kay sent it home,” Greer says, toeing off her snowy high heels. “She said the kids would need something to remember the White House by, so she got them a white kitten. Imogen’s already named it Jana, by the way.”
Imogen nods solemnly at this, toddling over to her mother to carefully take the kitten and crush it to her chest. Arthur trails after her, not reaching for the kitten, just keeping watch with his bright blue eyes and his binky moving in thoughtful sucks. Even though he’s the baby, he’s the protective one, constantly following Galahad and Imogen around with a concerned look on his face.
“Kay was magnificent of course,” Embry says, unwinding his scarf and pulling off his gloves. “And I froze my balls off.”
“I hope not. I have plans for them.”
Even now, more than two decades later, my tone makes him flush, which sends Greer’s eyes flaring with interest. Which makes other parts of me flare with interest.
But first, bedtime.
Between the three of us, we get the three kids bathed and brushed and swaddled in warm footie pajamas. “Can we sleep in your bed tonight?” Galahad asks, and then cannily nudges Imogen, who looks up from her kitten prisoner to blink up at us with huge, soft green eyes, which none of us can say no to. So we end up all piled in bed, the snow falling heavily outside, the three adults still dressed and watching the news as our kids slowly melt into sleep snuggled against us. The kitten kneads little kitty biscuits on my thigh, and then curls up in my lap in a tiny, fluffy ball.
“Did you talk to Kay at all today?” Greer asks after a while. “I wondered if you’d get a chance.”
