Page 123 of The Half King
He winked at her. “I will permit it.”
“All right. Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere.”
“Everywhere?”
“Everywhere,” he repeated. “I might actually be dying.”
She bit her lip against a grin. He truly had no tolerance for pain. She placed her palms on Kian’s chest and closed her eyes, imagining her energy traveling through his body and mending him, much like she had done for Blue. When she finished, she sat back and watched his reaction.
Kian groaned in relief as he stretched his muscles and tested his limbs. He thanked her again and placed a kiss on the back of her hand, and then he gave her a smile so warm and genuine that the rest of the world fell away, and for one suspended heartbeat, there was only the two of them. “If the act of love strengthens your gift,” he said with a teasing gleam in his eyes, “then I’m ready to do my part in helping you become the most powerful wielder of magic who ever lived.”
She chuckled. “That’s quite generous of you.”
“As always, I’m yours to command, my lady.”
“Then you had better rest up,” she said, examining the dark circles beneath his eyes. “You look tired.”
“I am tired,” he admitted. “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to need sleep.” He grinned as if he had just realized something. “And to dream. I haven’t had a proper one of those in ages.”
Cerise hadn’t considered that. Now that his body had been restored, other things would change, too. He would spend his nights in a real bed instead of in the underworld, and at sunrise, he would awake in that same bed instead of materializing by her side. The two of them would no longer spend their dreaming hours together—at least she didn’t think so. She assumed her gift of dream walking had ended with the curse.
She sighed. “I’ve gotten used to you appearing next to me each morning. I’m going to miss our sunrises together.”
“Miss them?” Kian asked. “Nonsense. All of my sunrises belong to you. Will you stay with me tonight?”
She pretended to think it over. “Is Blue invited?”
“Will he bite me again?”
“Quite possibly.”
“For you, I’ll risk it.”
“Then yes,” she told him. “I’ll stay with you tonight.”
“And all the nights after that?”
There was a serious undertone beneath his teasing, a question she wasn’t prepared to answer because she’d never allowed herself to consider it. She had always known their time together would end. Much had changed in their lives, but he was still a king in need of legitimate heirs, and high priestess or not, she was a second-born given in service to the temple.
Her life belonged to the goddess.
Kian’s throat shifted as he swallowed. Her silence seemed to unnerve him. “Do you still love me?”
She drew a sharp breath and took his face between her hands. “Always,” she told him, mortified that he had felt the need to ask. She moved her gaze over the planes of his face, drinking in the storm-cloud eyes that had never failed to see the heart of her. Now more than ever, she loved him. She would die loving him, and in the afterlife, her spirit would love him still. “Always,” she told him again.
He looked to her with urgency. “Then be my queen.”
“But ladies of the temple aren’t—”
“The old ways are gone,” he interrupted. “Don’t you think the old rules should go with them?”
Her lips parted. She hadn’t thought of it like that.
“I’m the king,” he said. “You’re the high priestess of Shiera. If anyone deserves to write their own rules, it’s us. Let’s decide for ourselves which path to take.”
A warmth appeared inside her chest—a gentle glow, like an embrace from within. She recognized the sensation because she’d felt it a hundred times before, in quiet temple corners or on jagged mountain summits, where she had knelt in prayer.
