FIFTY-TWO
Rune turned on his side, taking in Josephine’s sweet profile.
His gaze flickered over her lips, nose, cheekbones, and eyelashes. Stars reflected in her eyes as she stared up in awe, and he felt a tugging in his chest. This world’s actually so very small, love.
He could show her thousands of worlds. They’d need lifetimes to see them all.
He drank more brew. He’d been with her for the merest blink of an eye, yet now he was going to travel? Live a life of leisure? He had wars to wage, and secrets to uncover.
Maybe after the Accession . . .
His brows drew together as he watched her. She wasn’t just gazing at the stars—she seemed to be awaiting something. Almost as if she were listening.
“I want to know why stargazing is your favorite thing,” he said.
“Whenever I stare at them, I feel like I might be on the verge of remembering my past.”
“Do you think your parents are still alive?”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe my mother is. I have these vague impressions of fire and chaos. Like there was a natural disaster or something. I’ve never had an impression of my father.”
“Your mother could’ve traced away from a natural disaster, no?” Unless she’d never been away from her home.
“I don’t even know if those scenes are dreams or my imagination or part of my memories.” She sipped her flask. “I’ve wanted to know my parents so badly and for so long I could be making stuff up.”
For so long? Says the twenty-five-year-old.
At least Rune could name his parents. “Is that why you want a bond so much? The absence of a family?” Surely recovering Thad for her would help fill that need—and alleviate some of the pressure she’d been putting on Rune.
“No, it’s more than that. When I hang out in shells, I get to experience other lives. One time I ghosted into a bride on her wedding night. Her groom ended up being a dream man who gazed at her like she was everything. He promised her he’d die for her—and I believed him.” She turned on her side as well, facing Rune. “This man was looking me in the eyes and telling me these things. I know, not really me, but I was still staggered. Other people take being cherished for granted. But if you’ve never had it and then you get a hit, you need it.”
Dream man. Everything. Promises. Cherishing.
Damn, no pressure there, Josephine. She’d taken a wedding—an event engineered to be ideal—and she’d built a template for her love life.
Not for the first time, Rune recognized he wasn’t the man to give Josephine her dreams. He tried to make light. “The combat-boot-wearing blood-drinker wants romance.”
“If I had that bond, things in my life would get . . . fixed.”
“Like what?”
“I have a fear as strong as your phobia about heights.” She nibbled her bottom lip. “I’m afraid I’ll just float away. Especially if I sleep-ghost.”
“Sleep-ghost? Like sleepwalking?”
She nodded. “I float through the bed into the ground. When I come to, I’m basically in a grave. Why shouldn’t I fear going the other way? And those stars seem to call to me.”
“You never did that during the past two weeks.”
“It only happens when I’m filled with . . . loss. Or yearning. If I had a bond with someone, it would—I don’t know—maybe anchor me here.”
She fears floating away; I fear extinguishing my emotions forever.
Every time he went cold with a target, he wondered if he was like Darach—one fateful transition away from permanence. Or like Uthyr, the dragon shifter, who’d abandoned his human form and became a dragon forever.
Josephine wanted Rune to be her anchor? To hold her hand and keep her tethered to him? That, at least, seemed achievable. In return, she could make sure his heart never fell to ash again.
Maybe we could be each other’s anchors.
He reached for her, smoothing his thumb over her full bottom lip, that little dip. Her eyes grew even more luminous. As he stared into them, he said, “I could keep you with me.”
Her face lit up; his fell.
He’d used zero qualifiers. Was she mesmerizing him again? Exasperated, he said, “I want you, Josephine. I’ll wait no longer.” He was about to go into all the reasons her refusal was ridiculous—
“Okay.”
Huh? “I want you completely.”
Her lips curled.
“As in sex. I want sex.” He was fumbling. What in the hells was wrong with him?
Her smile deepened.
He could disabuse Josephine of her hopes right now. Or he could let her believe they would be exclusive, when he had every intention of bedding others.
Every intention of remaining the same.
She’d told him she had expectations, and they were sky-high. Tomorrow he would manage them for her. She would change. If they were to have any kind of future together, it would be on his terms—or not at all. “Are you sure you want to risk my poison?”
“Already told you I don’t think there’s a risk. But if we’re even talking about this, then you must think there’s some chance I’m your mate.”
“I’m not going to lie. I do think there’s a chance. I’ve got protection.” He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a runic combination he’d inked in preparation.
“I’ve never seen those symbols.”
“It’s an ancient contraception spell to keep me from spilling seed.” He was about to get what he wanted. He’d won. He had seduced the impressionable Josephine with a ball and drinks and compliments.
If she knew how much he’d manipulated her—a millennia-old master versus an inexperienced young woman.
“But how will you know if I’m your mate?”
Rune already did. In that ballroom, when he’d seen her black blood . . . even amid his panic, a bewildering thought had arisen: She’s me, and I’m her. “Does it really matter? Tonight won’t change how we go forward. We’re still going to be together.”
Together in bed. In the Møriør. In war.