Chapter 13

CHAPTER13

We drift down the hall where all the other rooms are now shut, passing a few soldiers as we go. We stop at the tall ebony doors of what I know is the throne room from when I passed it with Ediye. Ashen pushes them open and I enter it for the first time.

“I wanted you to see this space, so you could decide how to make it yours,” he says as he walks into the massive room.

Tall, narrow windows look out across the Bay of Souls, the horizon of the black water veiled under heavy fog. The vaulted ceilings ascend several stories to slanted skylights, and the room is filled with gentle light even though they don’t breach the clouds. In the center of the room is a long, black marble table surrounded by matching chairs finished with black velvet upholstery, all facing the dais where a single throne looks out upon the room, framed by the view of the anguished sea.

“Well, the room brings the drama,” I say, turning slowly to take in the tapestries and paintings hanging along the walls, all in dark colors with pops of red that display many acts of carnage. I point to the nearest tapestry, which seems to be one in a group of eight similar works. “Big fans of impaling, I see.”

“Yes. I thought you should see what kinds of changes you’d like to make.”

“Burning the tapestries is a start.”

“Noted,” Ashen says, the smile warming the edges of those two syllables.

I continue on toward the table, running my finger across the spotless, glossy surface. “I don’t want the throne on a dais either,” I say as I look at the chairs, trying to envision the Council of the Shadow Realm sitting around this innocuous slab of stone. I imagine Ember here among them, her expression likely smug and self-important after sending me to be tortured at the hands of Gallus. Did any of them pretend to be merciful when they talked about their sentences against immortals like me? Or had they given up true justice centuries ago? I guess those are questions only to be answered by imagination. All I know now is that I want it to be different. I don’t want to just pretend that anyone else has a voice, even if I may be the person who ultimately has to decide which souls to save and which to take. “When we have a new Council, I want to sit at the table with them.”

Ashen’s voice is as rich as thick honey warmed in the sun. “As you wish, vampire.”

I smile to myself as I drift toward the dais, Ashen trailing behind me like a faithful shadow. I draw closer to the tall black throne.

“It doesn’t scream ‘mercy’ to me. It more just…screams,” I say, leaning forward to sniff one of a semi-circle of little heads adorning an iron skull in the center of the high backrest. I recoil at the musty scent of the leathery old skin. I touch it with a tentative finger and it’s surprisingly sticky. “Eww, Ashen, what the fuck.”

“Yeah… Eshkar had a fascination with shrunken heads and bodily preservation. You should have seen him when Body Worlds became a thing. He was giddy. It was the only time he went to the Living Realm in the last century”

“That’s a lovely story. And I am not sitting on that throne, Reaper. Get fucked.”

“You are a surprising creature to me, even now. I find it odd that you would be bothered by it, all things considered.”

I level the demon with a dead-eyed glare. He manages to contain his smile, but it still lights up his eyes.

“I may enjoy killing humans, but I drink their blood to live, Ashen. I don’t cut their faces off and make them into upholstery. That’s just so Leatherface, or that dude from American Horror Story.”

“Oliver Thredson.”

“Right.” I give him the side-eye and he throws his hands up as if to say it’s not his idea to make skincloth. I turn back to the fuck-ugly throne and poke one of the little heads that has a fuzzy tuft of dark hair. “Regardless, I’m not sitting on a sticky old skin chair with a crown of tiny heads.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I figured that might be the case.” Ashen keeps his eyes on me as he whistles for the guards. I feel his gaze linger on my face, even when I look away to watch six soldiers wheel in a structure covered in black velvet cloth. They lift what looks like a very heavy chair from a pallet on wheels. Ashen’s eyes are still fused to mine as the soldiers then step away and he whips the cover from the surprise.

It’s a throne of polished lapis lazuli, the color of the deep sea. Seams of pyrite shimmer within like shafts of sunlight. The rolled edges of the arms are capped with scrolling gold waves in the exact shade of my mark, shaped to look like the surf caught in a suspended moment in time. And above the curved waves that cascade from the throne’s high back, a stone scepter topped with a golden crescent moon cradling an eight-pointed star, framed by two familiar words.

Sunu liiktisuma

May they be bound.

A caged breath escapes my lungs in a thin stream between my pursed lips.

It’s ornate. It’s opulent. But somehow, it’s still…me.

My fingers flow along a wave that rises at the end of the armrest to fall down the front of the chair in dripping gold. “It’s stunning,” I whisper. The heat of Ashen’s gaze warms my face. I feel his pride ripple beneath my skin.

“I could not really picture my Lu on a throne of fallen souls,” he says. When I look up, I’m lost for a breath in his subtle smile. Ashen’s eyes dip to my cheeks and my flesh heats with a blush. His gaze lands on my lips and stays there for a long moment before he meets my eyes once more.

“It’s so beautiful. Thank you, Ashen.”

He doesn’t say anything in reply, just smiles a bit wider and then gives a little bow of his head.

I test the cushion of crushed gold velvet with my fingertip. It’s definitely plushy enough to be comfortable for a few hours at a time. The same gold fabric is stitched across the backrest.

“What about you?” I ask.

“What about me?”

“Where will you sit? Where’s your throne?”

“I will stand. Next to you.”

I look from my finger where I’m still pressing into the fabric and meet Ashen’s watchful gaze with a furrowed brow.

Ashen stalks closer until he can take my hand away from the soft velvet. “I will not rise from a chair to meet an attacker. I’ll already be standing, ready to kill.”

“Well, that’s…bleak. Sweet and reassuring, but bleak.”

Ashen pulls my hand to his lips and places a kiss to my fingertips. His eyes burn with intensity. His voice is low and quiet when he speaks. “You and I both know that this is the Shadow Realm. We need to be ready for anything.”

We watch one another, unmoving. The reality of his words is already known to me. He presses another kiss to my fingers before lowering my hand, but he still holds on.

I shift my attention toward the soldiers that wait in the shadows for their next instructions. I nod at the one who I figure ranks highest among them. “Please take the skin throne and leave me and my…demon…alone.”

I can almost hear Ashen’s eyes rolling. “Husband,” he says, letting my hand go to press on the mark on my chest. I grin as I swat his hand away.

“Person of romantic interest.”

“Hus. Band.”

“Booty call. Is that still a thing?”

“Vampire––”

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it. Bae.”

“Fucking hell.”

“Yes, please leave me and my bae. We have work to do.”

The guards give each other a confused glance before they turn and depart with the sticky skin throne, shutting the hall doors behind them. I hear four of them stride off down the hall, the two that remain standing guard outside the door.

I turn to Ashen as I kick off one shoe and then the next. He gives me a heated look in reply. I can tell he wants to argue about this relationship status thing, but he also doesn’t.

“This is a beautiful throne,” I say, thinking of the sea surrounding my home long ago on Anthemoessa as I run my finger along the polished stone. I turn and slowly lower myself onto the seat, placing my hands onto the curved ends of the armrests. The heat of Ashen’s gaze hasn’t left my skin. “How do I look?”

There’s a beat of quiet, and in the silence fills with the whoosh of blood flooding through Ashen’s heart. “Like a goddess.”

A faint smile passes over my lips. I shift my gaze to one of my hands. “Do you remember the first time you called me that?”

Ashen prowls closer. He places his palms on my wrists and traps them against the chair before he leans in close. “You think I would forget?”

I shake my head as I run a foot up Ashen’s ankle, drawing my pointed toes in a slow procession up his calf and past his knee, my gaze not leaving his. Sparks illuminate his pupils as I hook my leg over the armrest of the throne.

“Vampire,” Ashen rumbles as one of his hands leaves my wrist to flow up my thigh. I drape my other leg over the remaining armrest. My dress dips down, covering my center that’s already wet and throbbing with need.

“Yes, Reaper?”

Ashen leans closer and takes my earlobe between his teeth. “What exactly are you up to?” he whispers when he lets go.

“Seducing you into helping me christen this beautiful throne, of course,” I reply, my voice breathless as Ashen kisses my throat. He pulls the neckline of my dress down, then my bra, taking my breast into his mouth. His tongue slides across my nipple as he palms the other. He sucks more of my breast into his mouth and flicks his tongue across the tight pink nub. When he breaks away to run his tongue all the way up my chest, he leaves a path of gooseflesh in his wake. He stops when he reaches my ear.

“You are my Queen,” Ashen whispers, his palm sliding across my skin to warm my mated mark. He pulls back to watch me for a long moment. “You always have been, my Lu. You know I cannot say no to you.”

Ashen has me trapped in his cognac eyes. My skin ignites with every breath that fans across it. His touch is like a spell as his hand climbs my neck and curves around my jaw. He runs his thumb across the edge of my bottom lip, his gaze still fused to mine. Shallow breaths leave my parted lips.

“I will kneel before you, my Queen. And I will worship you.” Crimson flame flares to life in Ashen’s eyes. His tongue parts my lips as he claims my mouth. His fingers caress my jaw and I grip the back of his neck, drawing him closer, pressing his hot kiss to mine. But he breaks away. I let out a moan of disappointment and desire as he leaves my lips to carve a line of kisses down my neck.

“I will indulge you,” he promises between little nips at my neck that make me squirm with delight. He gives one harder bite in a promise of things to come and then soothes it with a kiss. And then he pulls away, watching my eyes as he raises his wrist to my lips. “I will sustain you.”

I close my eyes with a long breath in. I smell that network of veins, that hot blood as rich as spiced chocolate, as effervescent as champagne. My fangs drip sweet poison onto my tongue.

“Take it, vampire,” Ashen coaxes. His voice is luxurious and warm. It’s a gentle plea as much as a command. I watch the flame in his pupils brighten as my fangs slide into the soft skin of his wrist. I take the first long pull of his blood and Ashen looks as though he can barely contain the sudden swell of need that I feel from him, rippling like a wave beneath my skin. I close my eyes and sigh into his veins as he fills my mouth with his sweetness and heat.

Ashen’s other hand drags up my thigh. His breath is shallow. I can feel the tension in his chest radiate down his arm as he tries to contain this sea of desire that threatens to drown us both. But he keeps it trapped, even though his heart crashes into his bones and his palm grows hot on my skin. He pushes my dress up around my waist as he kneels between my legs.

“I will drink you in,” Ashen says, then places a kiss to my inner thigh. “I will consume you.” Another kiss, this one higher up, and then another, and another. He climbs closer and closer to my center as his grip on my thigh tightens. “I will devour you.” My breath comes in pants with anticipation.

Finally, he reaches my cream lace panties. He runs one finger over the soaked fabric and closes his eyes as he whispers a swear against my skin. When he looks up at me, the crimson flame of his pupils is vibrant with sparks. I take in a long pull of blood, watching as his self-control seems to crumble away beneath the weight of my gaze.

“Ready yourself, my vampire. Because I will ravage you.”

Ashen pulls my panties to the side and descends on me like a starving man. He growls into my pussy before pushing his tongue inside, circling his thumb over my clit.

I tremble as I grip onto his arm. My legs shudder against the golden armrests of my throne. I let my mouth free of his wrist to tilt my head back and pant desperate breaths as he laps up my arousal and presses against my clit.

“No,” he commands, pushing his wrist against my lips as his fingers slip inside me. “Drink.”

A shaky exhalation escapes my parted lips as I take his arm and seal my lips against the wound once more, pulling in blood. I moan and shiver as the tingling heat slides down my throat.

“I want to be inside you in every way,” Ashen says, his voice husky and rough. When he seems sure I won’t let go, he casts his gaze down to the movement of his hand as strokes me with his fingers. It’s as though he’s punishing himself with need, with the hurt of holding back. Every stroke just builds the crackling intensity of anticipation until he can’t hold back anymore.

Ashen descends between my thighs to suck on my clit and swirl his tongue over the swollen bundle of nerves. I keep my grip on his wrist but squirm as the coiling, twisting need builds within me. He scrapes my clit between his teeth and I whimper into his veins. “I love that sound, vampire. Do it again.”

I stay silent as he strokes his fingers within my pussy. The silence stretches on and I take another long drink from Ashen’s wrist. I smile against his skin.

“I said, again,” Ashen orders, and he nips my clit once more, just a little harder this time. A needy moan passes my lips, vibrating through his wrist. I sink my fangs a little deeper into his flesh and draw down a long gulp of blood. “That’s my vampire. I do love it when you fight my demands. But I love it even more when you surrender.”

He dives at me again, pumping his fingers and swirling his tongue, sucking and biting and kissing and humming praise into my flesh when I let go of his wrist long enough to say his name like a prayer. I tremble. I drink. I writhe. And the pleasure rolls and coils through my core. I clench tight around Ashen’s fingers and come apart as he presses his tongue to my swollen bundle of nerves, not letting go until my orgasm has washed through me and left me panting and boneless on the throne.

My heart feels too swollen for my chest as it surges my thick, dark blood through my veins. Ashen’s feral need courses beneath my skin through our bond as he pulls one of my legs down from the armrest and then the other, snaking his arm under my knees. In a swift motion, he flips me over so my forearms land on the cushioned seat of the throne and my ass is facing him. He keeps one of his arms beneath my stomach and I hear his dagger slide from its sheath.

“Can I drink from you, my vampire?”

“I thought you just did,” I tease. Ashen growls and slaps my ass. I giggle and he does it again, harder this time.

“Salacious creature. Answer me.”

“I am your Queen, Ashen of House Urbigu. My Master of War.” I pull the dagger from his hand and turn the blade to my neck, nicking it just deep enough for a steady flow of blood. “And I demand that you drink from me.”

Ashen goes still behind me. I cast him a dark and wicked grin over my shoulder, biting my lip between my fangs, drawing my own blood into my mouth. I love this, this push and pull of power, of demands and disobedience. I submit when I want to. I order him around when I feel like it. And he fucking loves it too. I can see it in the tick of his clenched jaw, in his dark and desperate gaze. Ashen’s chest rises and falls, pulling at his shirt with pumping breaths, his muscles tense with restrained desire.

“Now fuck me, demon.”

There’s a heartbeat of stillness, and then he envelopes me, sealing his lips to my neck as he releases his belt and zipper. He pulls my panties to the side and enters me in one swift stroke as he moans into my skin. My mated mark warms until I feel every line and curve, every point of the crescent moon and star.

Blood taps against the gold wave of the armrest. I smell it fill the channels with crimson drops as Ashen draws his hand up to mine. He slides in and out and he takes my wrist, guiding my hand down my body, pulling away from my neck to kiss the shell of my ear. “Touch yourself,” he whispers, setting off a shiver down my spine.

I do as he demands. I circle my clit with my fingers as Ashen pistons into me with long, steady strokes, caressing the skin that still stings with warmth from his slap. His thumb traces a line down until it’s coated in my arousal, and then flows back up to the rim of my ass.

“I promised that I would ravage you,” he says as he teases the tight opening, pressing at the resistance as he buries his cock into my sex. He slows his pace for a moment and I know he’s watching his slow strokes, the movement of his thumb. And then it slips inside my ass. He picks up long and powerful thrusts as I press my forehead to my arm as I try not to cry out with aching pleasure. “Now come for me.”

I let out a naughty giggle and Ashen slams into me hard. “I already told you, demon. I don’t know how to behave.”

Ashen’s vicious growl vibrates through my back. It’s the sound of fury. Smoke and sparks cascade around us and hiss on the floor as he slides an arm beneath my stomach and lifts me, setting my knees down on the golden cushion without ever breaking our connection. But even as he roughly thrusts into me, even as the smoke of his wings obscures everything but the golden throne, I know I’m safe with him. I know I’m the only being in any realm who is.

Ashen pushes on my fingers that are already working my clit as though imploring them to stay there, and then he plants my other hand onto the edge of the high back of the chair so that I can grip on.

“That’s right. On your throne where you fucking belong. And you will do exactly as I say, my Queen.” His tongue follows the line of blood from the healing wound on my neck and he sucks on it hard, taking what blood he still can. When he lets go, his breath fans across my ear as he whispers his command. “Now come apart into a thousand pretty pieces.”

Ashen rails into me with thrust after thrust, and I cry out, loud and uncaring if anyone might hear. The rest of the realm just doesn’t exist. It’s just my demon and me, and the gift of this moment, of the things I know are real because I can feel them. Like my grip on the edge of my throne, my hand wrapped so tight around the metal that the gold leaves imprints in my palm. Or the sound of Ashen’s skin slapping against mine, or the feel of my panties stretched to the side against my ass, or the smell of sex and ink and tobacco untouched by flame.

The motion of my hand stutters as pleasure rips through me and Ashen places his hand over mine, ratcheting up the intensity of my building orgasm. And then it overflows, like a torrent breaching a barrier. My walls grip around Ashen as though trying to pull him deeper and I feel him thicken and pulse. With a roar he spills into me and I quiver, my muscles losing strength as my sated desire leaves me melted on the throne.

We’re both breathing hard and slick with sweat as Ashen’s strokes slow. His warm palm caresses my ass and lower back, his other hand still stretching my panties to the side. He leans back as he slips out of me.

“Such a perfect sight that is,” Ashen says, his voice rough like gravel. I feel the head of his cock slide to my clit. He circles it there and I let out a breathless, shuddering moan. “My cum dripping out of your throbbing pussy…it’s exquisite.” His finger skirts over my clit in a gentle touch that still elicits quivering aftershocks in my muscles. He sweeps up the drizzle of cum and arousal and pushes it back into my pussy as I bite down on a gasp. “Going to need that, vampire.”

My nerves flare like broken wires. “You are an obscene, filthy creature.”

“And you fucking love it.” Ashen’s cock slides back up toward my slit and dips in before coming out again, this time continuing up to my ass. He pushes against the tight opening, pulsing the pressure that tests the pleated rim, but he doesn’t enter.

“Waiting for a formal invitation?” I ask, pushing back against his cock on the next pulse. He pulls away before he breaches the resistance. “Do you want me to write it on some formal regnal stationery? With a wax seal?”

I press against him again and he moves his cock down, taking up more of the cum and arousal coating my folds.

“What would it say?” he grits out, sliding his silken tip back up to my ass.

“It would start something like this. To the Reaper—”

He slaps my ass and I laugh. “Not very formal for a Queen. You can do better than that.”

“Dear bae—”

Another slap, harder this time. Pleasure and desire burn low in my belly.

“To my person of romantic interest—”

A growl, another slap. And this time a bite to my shoulder.

“That’s more like it,” I whisper, and he slaps my ass again with the same strength. Delicious heat infuses my skin and stifle a moan.

“Insolent creature. Do it like a Queen.”

“Dearest Ashen of House Urbigu. My Master of War.”

“Better,” he whispers, pressing the slickened head of his cock to my clenched rim. His free hand snakes up from my thigh, his fingers circling around my clit. “Continue.”

“Please join me in christening my beautiful throne by fucking me in the ass until we come together in a blinding orgasm. Sincerely, your booty call, Queen Lu.”

Ashen pinches my clit and bites my shoulder and I gasp, arching my back. His teeth release from my skin to nip at my earlobe. “Invitation accepted. Sincerely, your husband, the Master of War.”

With that, he pushes in, his motion so slow and careful, my entrance gripping around his girth like a vice.

“I’m afraid there must be an imposter afoot,” I say. I try to keep my voice airy despite the shudder that courses through my body as I take more and more of his length. “For I am an unwed maiden, living in sin.”

A growl that’s as much as a purr rumbles against my neck. “You are a brazen minx for a Queen of the Shadow Realm.” Ashen’s voice is low and rich in my ear as he buries himself to the hilt of his sex. His finger swirls over my clit. “You choose me as your mate and yet deny me as your husband.”

I chuckle a quiet laugh that turns into a gasp as Ashen slides all the way out and then pushes back in again. “You haven’t asked me to be your wife, so therefore there is nothing to deny. There’s only fact. We’re mates. Not married.”

“Hmm,” he hums next to my ear before leaning back. His fingers that hold my panties to the side caress my skin and I watch him over my shoulder. His gaze is transfixed on the slow rhythm of his erection pumping in and out of my tight opening. When he meets my eyes, they burn with dark flame. “Regardless, you chose me.”

“You’re right, I did,” I say, giving him a dark grin before I turn my gaze ahead to the gleaming gold and deep, wild blue of the throne. “Maybe you haven’t chosen me after all.”

There’s a pause of silence. There’s stillness. I smile.

“What?”

The blood surging in Ashen’s body is the only sound between us aside from the ragged, shallow breaths caught in his chest. I cast him an innocent glance over my shoulder and his eyes burn back at me with fury. I smile when I turn ahead once more, inspecting my nails as though I have all the time in the world. “Blood heading back to your brain, Reaper? It’s okay, I’ll wait.”

Ashen roars with frustration and presses his chest to my back as he pumps into me, bearing down on my clit with an urgency that makes my core clench with pleasure and desire. His hot breath floods across my neck, just below my ear. “I will fuck you into an abyss of pleasure and then we will talk.”

“We’re already talking,” I counter, and he lets go of my panties to slap my ass. I cackle a laugh and he slaps me again. Ashen seals his lips over the nick on my neck and sucks as hard as he can until the flow of blood starts back up. I feel it, our connection like a vibration that ignites sparks beneath my skin, twisting me in a storm of ecstasy. Every thrust of his cock and press of his fingers sucks me under, drowning me in desire until I come apart in a rush of stars, moaning his name.

“Come for me again,” Ashen says close to my ear before leaning back, pumping into my ass as he doesn’t let up with my clit. I’m covered in sweat, my dress damp with it, our arousal dripping down my legs. “Do it, my Queen. Come with me. Come as I fill you.”

Ashen’s fingers press and circle my swollen bundle of nerves as he pistons in and out of me. The pleasure is already rising again. It builds and builds until it feels like I’ve been absorbed by some other dimension, pushed into some other universe. I’m melting into a need that has me nearly mindless, my body shuddering as Ashen thrusts into me, over and over. He repeats his demand until it becomes a plea, until he leans close to my ear once more, his voice low and rich. Dark and tempting. Adorations and praise and encouragement color his words like flowers blooming in the shadows before me. My Queen. My Lu. My beautiful goddess. That’s it. Come for me. One more time. I know you can do it again. That’s it, Lu. Such a perfect Queen. Just a little more. Let me fill you as you come apart.

My orgasm rips me apart and I cry out, a brutal, heart wrenching sound of pleasure. It pulls tears from the corners of my eyes. It crushes the breath in my chest, shatters my heart into a million shimmering fragments of light. Ashen spills into me as my muscles tremble and lose all strength, my hands sliding from the gilt edges of the throne. I collapse into his iron embrace as his thrusts begin to slow.

“I’ve got you,” Ashen whispers. He lifts me from the throne, still pulsing ropes of cum within me as he turns us toward the Council table. I shudder with the last quaking aftershocks of my orgasm as he slips out and sets me down on the table, climbing up to lie beside me, pulling me close as we both gasp for breath.

My eyes are closed. My slick forehead is pressed to my forearm as my heart deafens me. There doesn’t seem to be enough air in the room. I feel too hot and too cold at the same time, my body still trembling. And my thoughts are just…everywhere. And nowhere. Both as clear and still as the mist that gathers over a lake, and as teeming with movement as the life that lives below the surface.

“You utterly destroy me,” Ashen says, his hand stroking my hair and flowing down my back.

I don’t answer.

In fact, other than the breath in my lungs and the heart that rages in my chest and the tremors that quiver in my muscles, I don’t even move.

Because I’m trapped in an epiphany. One that Ashen has banged right into me. Or out of me, I’m not sure. Probably in, all things considered. It makes more sense, doesn’t it, logistically speaking. But either way, it’s freaking me the fuck out. Which I know happens a lot here in the Shadow Realm. And self-realizations cause the worst freak-outs of all.

Specifically, the realization that my joke was no joke at all.

My joke about him choosing me.

Oh, trust me. I know this is probably ridiculous. Possibly insane. I think we’ve firmly established I’m a little unhinged, so I don’t think anyone is too surprised. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s just my crazy acting up, or that it’s just a melodramatic vampirism to be weirded out about the concept of marriage. Or rather, not marriage. But it’s not working. Even though I know we’re mated, and Ashen has done all these incredible things for me that imply he chose me all along, and even though marriage might seem like just a formality…I still want it. Maybe that’s stupid. Maybe it’s unfair to feel annoyed that Ashen persistently calls me his wife. But I do feel that way. Actually, I feel oddly…hurt by it.

And now, in the throes of my freak-out about how much this actually matters to me, and the fears that still burrow into my chest about choice and loneliness, about history and secrets, I remember something foreign, but vitally important.

I can feel him. And he can feel me.

…shit.

“Lu? Oh Christ, Lu…did I hurt you? I will never forgive myself if I hurt you,” Ashen says, panic rising in his throat like a vicious tide. His hands are pressing into my sides as though searching for an injury, though how it would be up there I don’t know. It’s not like he fucked my rib cage. Ugh, what a grotesque thought, fucking a skeleton. I shake my head, as much to clear that weird imagery as to answer him, but if he’s seen it, he seems too panicked to care, judging by the way he keeps repeating his question.

“No,” I whisper. I shake my head again.

“Then what is it? Something is wrong.”

I try to suppress a groan as Ashen rolls me to the side so that I’m facing him. His big, calloused hand sweeps hair from my face and he looks…terrified. Legit terrified.

He blinks at me.

I take a deep breath, looking away to the throne, marveling at how beautiful it is in the dim glow of the forever twilight beyond the windows. I can smell the blood gathered in the armrest. I try to focus on these things. Seeable, smellable, touchable things. Real things.

“Lu?..”

I shift my gaze to Ashen, who looks just as troubled as a moment ago. The brittle smile that fleets across my lips only makes it worse.

“Nothing. Just…I don’t want…you shouldn’t…” Ugh. I shake my head. I give a dismissive wave. I try to smile again, and I think it comes out better this time. Maybe.

Ashen doesn’t look convinced.

I try harder to wrestle my emotions, now that my lungs aren’t raging and my heart isn’t so deafening. I just need to think about other things, like the fucking vat of fangria I’m going to bathe in with a straw as soon as I get out of this goddamn room. You know, since fangria has worked out so well for me in the Shadow Realm before. Maybe I’ll just go right ahead and add a few bottles of Rakomelo in there while I’m at it. Christ.

Ediye’s sage words come back to me as they always do when shit is hitting the fan with this demon.

You are so fucked, vampire.

Ashen rolls me onto my back. He hovers over my body, his weight balanced on his forearms. The scent of ink comes alive with his heat and sweat as he grazes his tattooed knuckles down my cheek. And those cognac eyes, they miss nothing. They burrow beneath my skin. Into my soul. They parse out the pieces of me, dismantling my emotions until the kernels of truth are all that’s left behind.

“You are nervous,” Ashen says as his fingers follow my pulse. I draw his hand away, but gently, and his eyes narrow a little.

“This is the Shadow Realm. I’m always nervous.”

“And hurt.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck off.”

Ashen gives me a fleeting smile. “So stubborn.” The smile evaporates, his scrutiny crystallizing in his eyes. And then his expression clears, like sunlight has burned away the mist. “You were serious.”

I scoff. “About what?”

“Choice. Me. Me choosing you.”

I roll my eyes and level him with a glare. “No.”

“Yes. I hurt you.”

Some kind of brick has lodged itself into my throat. Swallowing does nothing to dislodge it. “No, you didn’t.”

“Liar.”

My nostrils flare with irritation. My eyes brighten with red light, illuminating Ashen’s skin in a crimson glow. “When did you become so annoying? I mean, more than usual.”

“About the same time you became more stubborn than usual.” The amusement in Ashen’s voice is a thin veil for his worry. Disappointment, too. In himself, I think.

I feel like I can’t tell him how hung up I am on this marriage thing, because even though my heart wants it, my brain still screams that it’s trite. But I can work my way closer. I can tell him another honest, vulnerable worry that bears down on me. Its weight is so heavy that it presses tears to the edges of my eyes. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve been alone for a really long time, Ashen. My memory isn’t enough to tell me what I should do. Maybe I never really knew. And everything is a bit ass-backwards. We’re mated but it’s not like we’ve ever even been on a date. Like, going out and doing something fun.”

Ashen gives a reassuring smile that only makes the cracks in my heart split a little deeper. “Killing werewolves was fun.”

I roll my eyes. “I mean getting to know one another when there’s no adrenaline or secrets or battles. Normal people fun stuff.”

Ashen gives me a flat, doubtful look. “You called Scrabble with that human detective fun? He was courting you with board games and a rubber plant.”

“Japanese peace lily.”

“Whatever. My point is, we are not ‘normal people’, we are immortals.”

“Even immortals fumble through living. And I feel out of my depth.”

Ashen looks at me for a long moment, shifting one sweaty strand of hair after another from my skin until all my face is bare of obstructions. “I do too. But I know you. Here,” Ashen says, touching my mark.

“I bet here too,” I reply, touching his forehead. “I bet you looked me up in your haunted library.”

Ashen shakes his head. I give him a skeptical look. “No, really. I did not look you up. Aglaope and Molpe, yes. Not you.”

“I don’t know whether to be envious or bummed. You wouldn’t old-school, unsocial media stalk me, but you stalked my sisters? Jeez.”

I smile and Ashen laughs, pressing a kiss to my cooling forehead. “I didn’t want to know what my realm said about you. I wanted to know from the source.”

I count the golden flecks in Ashen’s eyes. He shifts to the side of me and I shimmy closer, his arm folding across my back as I burrow myself into him until my face is nestled against his chest, his shirt hot and rich with his distinctive scent. I run a fingertip across his collarbones, tracing the ridges and the divot between them.

“You’re kind of great, Ashen of House Urbigu,” I whisper, and he holds me tighter. “You know, for a person of romantic interest.”

Strong fingers prod my ribs and I laugh, trying to squirm away.

“Right, I forgot, a booty call bae.”

He tickles me again, digging his fingers into my sides and nibbling my neck until I’m a writhing mass of giggles. And when the onslaught slows, when the laughter fades, it’s just him, and the love that shines all the brighter through the cracks in our centuries of darkness.

“From the first moment we met, I chose you, my vampire,” Ashen whispers to the golden mark that shines above my heart. “I will always choose you.”