Page 47 of Of Songs and Silence

I wrap my arm around her shoulders, pressing my lips against her forehead. Though I know Zaina loves me, she rarely says it explicitly, and it tugs at something inside of me to hear that she doesn’t want to survive in a world where I don’t.

Even if I feel the exact same way.

Even if I still wake up every night terrified of the same thing, that Ulla will find a way to take her from me.

“You asked me if I’ve thought about my life when this is over?” she says softly. “No. I haven’t. I can’t. I won’t until we get through this because the second I allow myself to hope, to hold onto something in this life, Madame finds a way to rip it away from me.”

“We can’t go into this believing we won’t come back out, Zaina,” I murmur against her skin. “I have faith in you, and in us.”

She lets out a harsh breath.

“Do you?” She backs up to look at me once more. “Because we still don’t know what she will have turned me into by the time this is all over. Haveyou thought aboutthat?”

I don’t ask what she’s referring to. I saw the moment she decided not to intervene with Katriane. I heard her say she would have happily used the dragons if not for the time it would have taken to subdue them.

I know who she is, and it doesn’t scare me.

“I don’t know what any of us will have to do to end this,” I tell her. “But never doubt that I will still be standing here on the other side.”

She holds my gaze, her eyes boring into mine. I see the moment she accepts my words, in spite of herself. Her shoulders relax ever so slightly, her features softening incrementally.

“Someday, I would like to find my family,” she says quietly. “My first family.”

The corner of my mouth tilts up. It’s a small thing, for most people, but progress for my stubborn wife.

“Done,” I say simply.

“Just like that?”

“I am a king, after all.” I inject my tone with extra smugness to make her smile.

It works. She gives me a wan smirk.

“Are you?” she teases. “You haven’t mentioned it before.”

Zaina leans up then, her lips brushing against mine. She has gotten more comfortable with initiating affection in the time I’ve known her, but each kiss still feels like a victory. She is trusting me with the most vulnerable part of herself, and I will never take that for granted.

I tug her tighter against me, savoring the taste of her lips and the feel of her body melting against mine. She pushes me back on the bed, straddling my hips, her lips never breaking contact.

My hands go to the bottom of her gauzy tunic, breaking the kiss just long enough to slip it up over her head. I trail my lips down her jaw, her collarbone, and lower, exploring every inch of exposed skin. She lets out a breathy sound, arching into me.

I could drown in that sound, consume it, live off of it for the rest of my life and die happy with her perfect skin against my lips.

I shift her until she’s lying on her back and I’m balanced over her, sliding her sheer pants down her legs. Then she is bare before me, staring up with her swollen lips and her flushed cheeks.

Zaina tugs on my tunic until I pull it over my head in a single fluid motion. She devours me with her gaze, her eyes trailing down my chest, lingering on the V just above my waistline.

Then she reaches out to pull me against her, leaning up to place a kiss on my lips that is almost more tender than it is hungry.

“I love you,” she whispers against my mouth.

This. This is what we’re fighting for.

“I love you, too,” I murmur back.

Then it’s only my wife and me, tucked away in a space away from the rest of this ship and the rest of the world and everything Ulla has tried to take from us.

But, of course, that can’t last.

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