Page 249 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“I’ll follow you to hell itself—”
“Oh,Goddess! Yourgrand-dataught you this?”
His laughter vibrated through my core, and I shuddered as he finished with, “I’ll follow youanywhere, and I won’t leave your side until you ask it of me.”
Pleasure thickened my giggles. “Fat chance of that afterthis.”
Stilling, Pete grinned against me. “Even so, I mean it, Shorty.” Sincerity sparkled in the gaze angled up at me. “All that I am is yours until you don’t want me.”
My heart expanded near to bursting. Here he was, this hardened fighter, being so vulnerable with me, just as he’d been in the deepest throes of our communing. His inner monologue now echoed through my mind:for I would forever be suspended in those moments when all that I was, was hers.
Where was a bluebird to sing to when a princess needed one? “Oh, Pete,” I breathed at his silken sentiments, his silken lips. “I’ll never not want you.”
At that, he set me on the edge of the mattress, my thighs snugging his kneeling warmth. “Do you accept my pledge?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
My eyes fluttered closed upon a vision of Pete’s hot gaze staring up at me, his tongue parting the seam between my legs. It looked as sinful as it felt.
Then I lay back, a quivering mess, as he sealed his oath with an utterlyperfectkiss. No magic in the world could’ve ever enchanted me more.
“Whyareyousocertain our relationship will eventually end?” I asked Pete later. I lay in the crook of his arm, playing with his chest hair, the sea breeze caressing our entwined bodies. “We’re so good together—and we have an affinity bond. Is it just because you’re human, and I’m Danann?”
Eyelids drooping, Pete angled to meet my gaze. “Aye, but not in the manner you mean. I ken well enough what the tossers at court will say of me being human, and their insults won’t bother me a fecking lick.” He snorted, kissing my forehead. “You ken, I’ve likely been called worse. Christ, it’ll take more than a little degradation to turn my head, Shorty.”
“Then why is race such an insurmountable obstacle?”
“You recall our talk that night we supped with my harbinger kin?”
“What about it?”
“Do you recall why so many Danann beyns paid for the use of my body?”
I cringed, hating every single one of those beyns. Pete wasn’t a freaking vibrator. “Yeah, you said it was because they didn’t have to worry—” My throat closed.
“That they could become pregnant?” Pete finished my thought. “Aye, Shorty, because humans and faecannotconceive.”
I stared, blindsided.
“I’ll never be able to give you babies. Or faelets. Or anything in between. And I find it difficult to believe that someone with a heart such as yours has never harbored dreams of motherhood.”
I bit my lip, consternated. I did harbor those dreams. But my dreams of him were much more vivid.
“One day you’re going to get that itch I can’t scratch, and then—” He lifted a hand in the poignant sentiment:what will be will be.“Then the pain will fall in torrents. Upon us both. In the end, you’ll realize you must move on and find someone else—someone who can give you the family you deserve.”
He still must not have grasped how stubborn a chick I could be. I’d spent my whole life fighting for things I was told I couldn’t have.
“And you’re certain that we can never—?” I wiggled my fingers.
“As certain as hundreds of years of illicit behavior can make a man.”
I grunted, thought just one more minute, then sighed, cuddling into him. “You know, Pete, I don’t see this issue bothering me in the future as much as you think it will.”
He kissed my forehead again. “Spoken like the 20-year-old nitwit you are.”
“Hey.” I pinched his nipple—an action that made him yelp like a Saint Bernard puppy.
When Pete settled, he bundled me against him and murmured, “You’ll see.”
