Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
“No!” he barked. “It didn’t. But weeks ago, Cat had a sword run from his gut to his gullet. Sofia was magically overcome by sirens-damned snakes. Now you take off on your own with not one single guard in a foreign land and go swimming.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
“You’re sorry?” he asked sarcastically.
“I was in no danger,” I told him.
“You were in no danger,” he repeated after me, again, sarcastically.
“Aramus—”
“You are beautiful.”
I shut my mouth again.
“The most beautiful female of any realm. Do you know what a man would do to possess that beauty?”
I stared up at him.
He thought I was the most beautiful female of any realm?
Before his words could sink in completely, Aramus kept ranting.
“Do you know what an enemy would do to that beauty to bring the man who possesses it to his knees?”
“I—”
“And you are queen. The queen of the mightiest realm in Triton. If someone abducted you, I would give our entire fleet to have you back unscathed.”
At this assertion, I fell back a step in shock.
“Yes, Ha-Lah,” he spat. “And not because you are my queen but because you are Ha-Lah. My Ha-Lah. Mine.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “Mine to hold. Mine to protect. Mind to keep whole.”
“I didn’t think—”
“No, you fucking did not.”
“You’d wake,” I finished.
At that, he shut his mouth and his powerful torso swung back.
He was not surprised.
No, he was angrier.
“Please listen to me, Aramus,” I said urgently.
He leaned toward me. “There is not one fucking thing you can say, woman, that will make me any less furious at you for being so bloody, fucking stupid.”
I forced myself to breathe deep and steady, stood still and held his gaze.
He breathed visibly shallow and erratic and glowered at me.
I gave it time. Time to watch his breath even. Time to watch the fury in his expression reduce to simply very damned mad. Time to remind myself that his words came because he was afraid for me, not because he actually meant them.
Time to let it settle he thought I was the most beautiful woman in any realm.
And he was in love with me.
Then, I spoke.
Quietly.
Not soothingly.
But calmly.
“You have an exceptionally foul temper, husband.”
“You terrified me, wife,” he returned.
“And I am very sorry for that, Aramus.”
That came quiet, and soothing.
He rocked back on his heels and crossed his arms on his chest.
I studied him.
And at what I saw, what had just transpired, and what I now understood to the depths of my soul about this man who was mine, it did not take long for me to make my decision.
“Will you come with me?” I asked.
“Come with you?”
“Yes.”
“Where?” he bit off.
“Please, Aramus,” I whispered, reaching a hand to him. “Just come with me.”
He stared into my eyes.
He did this a long time.
I kept my arm extended toward him that entire time.
He finally dropped his gaze to my hand.
After several more moments, he reached out and took it.
As he would.
For my husband was in love with me.
Thank Medusa.
Awkwardly, with my free hand, I wrapped the toweling around me as best I could so it would stay in place and led him to the flaps of the tent and out.
“You can tell them to go back to their pallets,” I said under my breath, referring to the milling soldiers.
“I will not—”
I squeezed his hand. “Trust me.”
He scowled down at me before he turned to one of his lieutenants, a man named Bondi, but called simply Bond.
“You can settle. All is well. We’ll return. But keep an ear out.”
Bond nodded, sent a ferociously unhappy frown my way, then turned to the others.
I led my husband down the beach to where my clothes had been left.
I only let his hand go when we arrived at them.
Quickly, juggling the sheet I had around me, I pulled on my nightgown then my panties.
I wound the toweling around my arm, took my husband’s hand again and led him farther down the beach.
As the distance from camp grew greater, Aramus’s fingers tightened around mine and he growled a warning, “Ha-Lah.”
I stopped, looked back at camp, which was not close, but it wasn’t far enough away.
But my king was not comfortable with the distance.
So it would have to do.
Still holding my husband’s hand, I dropped the toweling to the sand, moved so close to his front, our bodies were nearly brushing, and I tipped my head back.
“You once accused me of making you earn everything you received from me,” I reminded him.
In the moonlight, I saw his expression flicker from anger, to regret, back to anger.
He opened his mouth.
But it was me who said, “This, my husband, my king, I give you for free.”
And then I turned, still holding his hand, but lifting my free arm up in a wide arc.
The tingle surged from my womb to my heart to my fingertips, and a great break of water some fifty meters out and some twenty meters across rose toward the heavens on the trail of my arm, then dropped to the sea.