Epilogue

Epilogue

Gwen

Six years later

My eyes are on the contest in front of me, but I feel a tingle on the side of my face.

I glance left and find my husband studying my profile.

Although he’s been caught staring, he doesn’t bother to look away, and the gravity in his blue-gray eyes causes my breath to stutter. The words I planned to use to tease him over his hopeless infatuation with me die a quick death and now I’m staring back, emotion rising like a tide in my throat. It’s like this between us every day, the poignant ache for each other plain on our faces, never to be hidden again, but our devotion overflows at the Joining every two years. It’s here, in this valley, where we remember the first time we met and it all comes rushing back.

Corbet is no longer a new king, fresh from the battlefield. He is still fierce with a blade and there isn’t a single soldier in our army that can best him, but he’s settled into his role as a wise and capable ruler, though he will tell anyone who asks that his queen is responsible.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask him now, letting my gaze roam over his chiseled lips and beard. Down his broad chest and thighs, taking my time meeting his eyes again.

“Based on your straying eye, woman,” he rumbles, “I’d say we’re thinking exactly the same thing.”

My lips twitch. “We have to observe the competition. After all, it’s your creation.”

“So it is.” He skims a lookover the lively proceedings. “A much needed improvement.”

It’s difficult not to feel a little smug watching warriors run up the hillside carrying full buckets of water on their shoulders while the eligible females judge them, deciding who is worthy to take on as a husband. Especially from the comfort of my throne. But smugness doesn’t become a queen, so I settle for sending Corbet a secret smile that says it all.

“You know,” I muse, reaching over to take his offered hand, my cheeks warming when he brings it to his mouth and bites my knuckles, one by one. “Viola and Sadie will be eligible maidens at the next Joining.”

Corbet’s smile abruptly disappears and I have to swallow a giggle.

He’s become fiercely protective of my sisters in the last six years. In the beginning, he was mostly worried about people stepping on them, so he fastened bells to their shoes to alert everyone when they were coming. When they got older, he devoted time to teaching them swordplay and now they strut around the castle like they own the place, swords attached to their hips. It often brings tears to my eyes, seeing how confident they’ve become, now that they not only have my love, but the love of Corbet and his entire kingdom.

Yes, my husband is many things. A king, a lover, a warrior, an older brother, a friend. He is also incredibly thoughtful. Upon moving us into the castle, he never forgot how much the farm meant to us, so we kept it. My husband hired men to tend the fields and uses the income to pay them handsomely, putting the rest toward my sisters’ dowries, which neither one of us is in a hurry to see bestowed.

“I have an idea,” I say, biting my lip.

“Come over here and tell me.” He tugs on my hand, pulling me out of my throne and onto his lap, inhaling deeply of the crook of my neck. “I like you as close as possible, wife.”

Considering the bulge rising beneath my backside, that’s an understatement. And as usual, there is an answering rush of liquid warmth between my thighs. My body is so attuned to his, I’ve begun to think our hormones communicate through some private language and we have no choice but to obey their commands.

My husband is inside me as soon as the sun comes up in the mornings, his body blocking the encroaching light, his hoarse calls of my name filling my ears. In the evening, we are often late for supper because he has need of me immediately after his day of training is complete, usually tracking me down somewhere in the castle and rucking my skirt up to my hips, back pressed to the wall. The delay in arriving at supper leads to a lot of cocky smiles from Corbet, flushed apologies from me and eye rolls from my sisters.

All of it, everything about this life, makes me dizzyingly happy. From the love among the four of us, to the friends I’ve made at court, to the work I’ve taken on. When we moved to Fallstrom, I wanted to check in on my fair-haired friend, Millie, from the wife auction and found her happily married to a kind knight who also happened to be a widower. We became fast friends and now we’ve formed an aid fund for women in need. It’s fulfilling beyond words, though I do miss my farm work on occasion. And when I do, I simply help Millie tend her crops.

“What is this idea, Gwen?” Corbet asks, his mouth busy on my neck.

My pulse begins to flounder. “I…idea? Oh, yes. Right.” I shift in his lap and savor his frustrated male groan. “Perhaps at the next Joining, we have a sword fighting competition. Only the men who best my sisters can offer for their hand in marriage.”

“But no man can beat them.”

I smile at him over my shoulder. “Precisely.”

His laughter cracks through the valley. “Oh, you’re good.”

“Yes,” I sigh, “But I’m only joking. We have to let them live their lives. Fall in love. Make mistakes and learn from them.”

“Some mistakes can’t be fixed in time,” Corbet rasps, banding his arms around me. So tight I can scarcely draw a breath. “Christ. Every time we come here, I think of almost losing you, Gwen. It brings me right back to the moment on the hill, waiting to see if the love of my life would choose me.”

“And I did.” I turn and kiss him on the mouth, our lips parting on a hot breath, that slow writhe of our tongues turning our breath shallow. “And there was really no choice to begin with. It was always you.”

Before I can kiss him again, Corbet stands with me in his arms, cradled to his chest, his boots eating up the distance to our tent. “Tell me again, wife, while I’m planted inside you. And again while the sweat cools. Every morning and every night of our lives.”

“It was always you,” I breathe into his neck. “It was always, always you.”

“And you are my always,” he says, emotion shaking his voice.

THE END

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Rex has swornto guard the young queen, Britta of Downsriver, at all costs. He has also sworn to love her forever…secretly, of course. A relationship between a hulking, lowly palace guard and the queen is impossible. Still, when he hears Britta crying one night, he can’t help but offer his king-sized embrace as comfort. Rex is shocked when Britta is not repelled by him in the least. Miracle of miracles, she is eager for much more than solace. The penalty for putting his filthy hands on the virgin queen is death, but what a way to go...

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