Lorcan squeezed my arm.
“My mum pointed out my father, but I hardly saw him. I was looking at you. She asked what I was thinking, staring so rudely, and I foolishly told her, ‘I’m going to marry Princess Zosia.’ Got a severe reprimand for my impertinence.” He grinned at the memory. “Deservedly.”
“And here you are. Surveying your domain.”
He turned me within the circle of his arms and took my face between his hands.
“It was never about that, Zosia.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “It was always about you. From the first. You were wrong in Tenáho; if you’d been a girl from the village, I never would have left to chase after a princess. I should never have let you believe otherwise. I wish I’d told you from the beginning.”
“You’d have been removed from my service if you had.” I smiled gently. He traces my lower lip with his thumb. I rested my hands on his waist, admiring, as I always do. Running my thumb over the ridge of scar tissue on his abdomen.
“Not this summer, I wouldn’t have.” He pulls me into an embrace. “I should have told you everything.”
“Neither of us is exactly accustomed to speaking openly, from the heart,” I mumbled into his shoulder. “Let’s both of us try to do that a bit more? At least here, when we’re alone.”
He runs his fingers through my hair. “Would you really have done it? Had a baby and not told me?”
I didn’t want to say it, but there’s no avoiding it. “Yes. I think so. Again, every idea I had to conceal a pregnancy from you seemed unlikely to work, and you weren’t going to give me the opportunity anyway.”
“True.” He holds me hard. “But would you have done it? Hidden it from me, if you could have?”
That’s a different question. “Probably. I wanted to keep some part of you so badly, and I was so tired of feeling alone in the world.”
He went very still.
“I’m used to having to choose between bad options, Lorcan. I am rarely presented with good ones.”
“I know.” His arms tightened around my shoulders as he murmured against my temple, “I will never give you a reason to doubt me again, Zosia.”
Of all the vows and oaths we’ve spoken today, this is the one that hits me hardest. I sighed into the crook of his neck. “Nor I, you.”
* * *
Our nest of private bliss lasted for as long as the wedding feast—three days—and then it was back to work. In between lolling about in bed, we ventured into The Walled City to dance in the streets, me in the white embroidered dress from Tenáho, which Rya had brought with her when she and Arya moved to the castle.
But the honeymoon was far from over.
During one particularly heated discussion with Ifran and a woman insisting she is granted her family’s lot prior to the war to build her new shop—hardly unreasonable, but that lot had already been doled out as part of Saskaya’s payment plan last summer; none of the other solutions I offered would suffice—my patience hung by a thread.
Lorcan came over, took me by the arm, and said, “Excuse me, I need to fuck my wife.”
Blood rushed to my face. My ears burned with embarrassment. Not that it’s any great secret, how the royal newlyweds can’t keep their hands off one another. Still, it was a bit much.
He pulled aside a tattered tapestry. The stairway behind it once led to my old room. Now there’s a gaping hole midway up, covered with boards. The cloth hung over the entrance is partly to deter people from coming up here and partly to cut down on drafts as late fall sets in.
Conveniently, there’s a window with a deep enough ledge to perch on while Lorcan pushes aside my skirt and takes me hard and fast. Cold from the thick glass seeped through the wool at my back, a welcome counterpoint to the sweaty heat and friction. My cries echoed from the stone.
“What brought this on?” I asked, breathless and teasing, when we were finished.
“I missed you.”
“It’s been five hours since you left.” I can’t stop giggling. I love these surprise attacks. He essentially spent the six weeks before our wedding training me to be aroused at the mere sight of him. Brilliant strategist, using his powers for (my) good. “You don’t have to get up so early every day. Try sleeping in once in a while.”
He touched his forehead to mine. “Too much to do.”
“Tell me about it.” We fixed our clothing. “I cannot believe you said that,” I laughed in between kisses as we exited the stairway.
“What?”
