Page 117 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
For now.
I took Sepher’s hand. At once, his hold was sure, and I let my thighs loosen from Eric’s chest. As I swung across the gap, Sepher lifted me with ease, and I ended up in his arms.
His shoulders sank as he breathed a sigh of relief. “Zita.”
I clung to him, inhaling his musk and fresh air scent, even as I watched Eric right himself and run away into the theatre’s shadows.
“It’s only temporary,” Sepher growled, as though he could feel how Eric’s escape grated on my bones. “We know who it was now. He only got away with it for so long because no one knew.” He cupped my cheek. “You cursed him with justice. He can’t escape that.”
“I hope you’re right.” But even as I said that, the heat of him burned through me, and I knew I’d made the right decision. I was alive, and I’d be able to bask in that heat for a long while. There’d still be time for revenge—I didn’t need to let it consume me.
He answered with a slow smirk. “I know I am.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you do.”
He nuzzled me, sniffing over and over like he could inhale not just my scent, but me. “At the end of your performance, I could smell another human. I thought it was just the lingering scent of the Gilded Suns on your equipment.” A low growl laced his sigh. “I should’ve known.”
That moment when he’d sniffed the air. It made sense now.
“You couldn’t have known.” I touched my nose to his, enjoying the simple pleasure of his proximity. “Did you mean all that just now, or was it just to get me to take your hand?”
“Every word. No lies. No twisting of the truth. I love every part of you, Zita, good and bad… especially the bad.” He flashed a wicked grin, one hand fisting in my hair. “I’d get down on my knees now if this walkway wasn’t so damn small. But…” Grunting, he shrugged and tightened his hold around my waist.
With no more warning than that, he leapt. I jerked, not at the sensation of falling, but the fact that stopping it was in someone else’s control. Yet I wasn’t as afraid as I should’ve been.
He caught the rail from another catwalk, which shuddered and groaned under the weight of his beastly form. Then he swung us to another, and another, until he leapt the final distance to the stage. Above, the old walkways screeched and pinged from their fixings.
But before me, my prince kneeled.
As scaffolding crashed to the stage, he held my hips and my gaze with complete intensity, as though he knew the falling debris wouldn’t dare strike us. “Zita, Marigold, my wicked witch, my little bird of prey, my queen. Will you let me be your husband?”
I lifted my chin, like I really was a queen. “Ask me with your claws.”
He unsheathed them just enough to prick through my clothes, and I relished the vitality of their points threatening to pierce my skin. He murmured, “Will you, love?”
Instead of answering, I lowered to my knees and cupped his beastly face. “When I told you I hated you, I didn’t mean that—not entirely. And when I told you my name… I meant more than that.”
“I know. You were saying you loved me, too.”
I scoffed that he’d known what I couldn’t say. “I do. I love you.” I kissed him, briefly but deeply. “And if you knew that, then you also know my answer.”
His smile was lopsided, foolish, his eyes hooded, like my kiss had left him in a daze. But his hand snaked into my hair and gripped it, tilting my head back. “Say it.”
“I will be the curse you cannot shake, Sepher. I will marry you and only leave you once our bones are dust and the world has ceased to care who we were.”
He stayed still for a long, long time, like he was trying to sear the moment into his mind like a brand. At last he exhaled, eyes sinking shut. “So perfect. I knew I’d break you in the end.” He grinned, nuzzling his nose to mine. “I just didn’t realise that you would break me, too.”
I laughed as I squeezed him closer, loving the solid reality of his huge body.
I was alive and ready to start truly living.
51
Frustratingly, one of my first tasks in “living” involved waving Sepher off the next morning. He needed to travel to Luminis and pave the way for an official visit where we’d enter the city as an engaged couple.
When I’d accepted his proposal, his royalty was still an abstract idea. However, as I crunched across the gravel drive, arm-in-arm with Celestine, thinking about the need for a parade, it struck me like a very solid brick.
She grinned, delicate canines flashing. “So, should I start calling you ‘princess’ now, or should I wait until you’re actually married?”
