“And the second,” I exhaled, the scent of my own uncertainty now clouding the air, “is by saving someone’s life.”
“Ah,” he said. Golden eyes delved into mine. I spilled into them, a free-fall I didn’t care to try and catch myself on as I tumbled forward. Letting myself plunge headfirst into their depths, catching fire as I dropped. Kye planted a small, beautiful kiss on the top of my knee. “I guess you are entirely stuck with me, then.”
69
Maren
His kiss left a moist patch on my knee, and I watched him come back up, slowing as eyes met.
“It’s more than justfor life,” I said. My heart gave a small lurch, and every beat that followed thudded a bit harder, a bit faster against my ribs. “It’s changed our blood. Yours and mine.”
Mouth inches from my leg, Kye’s breath stroked my thigh. “Meaning?”
Something tightened in my abdomen, watching him hover there. “Meaning you’d be averse to laying with anyone else.”
“There’s only one woman I’m interested in laying with, Leihani,” Kye said, wrapping a warm hand under my calf. “But I’m glad to know you’d be opposed to more favorable prospects.”
“You aren’t upset?”
Kye paused, his gaze darting at me as he watched me askance. “Upset?”
“That you didn’t get to choose? Choose me?”
His eyes opened and closed several times. He tilted his head the smallest inch, then used both hands to smooth my dress back over my leg. “Let me make this very clear. You’re the jewelof the kingdom, Leihani, and I’m little more than a fucking purloiner who stole you before some other more noble, heroic bastard might have taken you for himself. I consider myself beyond fortunate in this matter and will henceforth be upset about absolutely-fucking-nothing when it comes to the fact that you’reminethe rest of my life. However, it leaves me only with the greatest anxiety that you should ask, given that you’re so completely beyond the stature of any other woman in the history of anyone or anything with a fucking pulse while I’m little more than an ogre with a sword. Areyouupset, Leihani?”
“No,” I said, fighting to stave off the smile that erupted over my mouth.
“Anything else?”
“Oh. Yes. I’m a queen.”
“What the fuck?” His mouth twitched. “A queen of sirens?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Well, that makes perfect fucking sense,” he quipped, drumming his fingertips over my knee. “You’ll tell me more about that tonight. Now. Was that all of them?”
“All of what?”
“All of your secrets.”
My stupid grin widened. “I think so.”
“Aalto alive, woman. Would that have been so hard two months ago?”
“Kye—”
“I’m joking. Can I fucking kiss you, Leihani?”
I laughed. “Yes, you—”
Kye pulled the last word from my mouth as he shoved upright and swept himself beside me. His lips met mine, soft as pearlescent satin, and I opened for him on impact. Whether I or he or the moon-damned world was upset that we’dcordaedbecame utterly, irrecoverably irrelevant as his hand wrapped under my chin, commanding my face toward his in the same moment he crashed into it. His jaw widened against me, his tongue cool and deliciously sweet, and I became aware of the room spinning aimlessly, a compass without a magnet.
The primal animal I kept locked away raised its head into the air, ears drawn back as it woke from its slumber. Kye broke away to sidle up closer, his knees almost digging into the side of my hip.
