Page 16 of A Pact of Blood

Right now, she’s only mine.

Aurelia comes with a quake of her body and a nip of my neck that electrifies me. It only takes a couple more thrusts before I’m spilling myself inside her with a groan I can’t contain.

I hold her there against the wall, my head tipped next to hers, my arms fitting her tight against my broad frame. She rests her forehead against my shoulder.

Then a sigh slips out of her that sounds unnervingly close to a sob.

I jerk back with a wobble of my nerves, cupping her face. A trail of dampness streaks down her cheek.

She’s crying. Gods smite me. This is the opposite of the response I meant to provoke.

“Aurelia?” I ask, my voice barely a croak. My thumb wipes another tear away.

She pulls me back to her, looping her arms behind my neck. “I’m not upset. Just overwhelmed, in a good way. You knoweverything… and you’re still here. You still want me.”

A startled guffaw tumbles out of me. “I want youmorebecause of everything you are. Everything you’ve proven you’re capable of.”

“I wanted to go with you all, you know. During that last trial. It sounded like the best of dreams. But there’s so much else?—"

“I know,” I say before she has to justify the only decision I can imagine this woman making. “You had bigger dreams. You made the dream we once had a reality. Nothing could be better than that.”

There’s so much else I want to say to her, my throat aches with the words. All my practice is with passion and seduction, not gentler emotions.

I don’t want to screw up this reconciliation.

I let her lower her feet to the ground and sling my arms around her waist. “You’re not in this alone. Anything you need that I can offer, all you have to do is get word to me. And Bastien and Lorenzo too, once they get their heads on straight.”

“Thank you.” She trails her fingers down the side of my face. “You know… I don’t think we can dothisagain. I probably shouldn’t have let it happen at all. If I’m going to bring about that dream of a better empire, I need to stay totally focused on Marclinus, earning whatever trust and good will I can… It’ll be that much harder the more I’m looking forward to illicit meetings with other men.”

She sounds a bit choked up again. As much as I hate the thought of this being the last time I have this kind of intimacy with her, I can’t say I don’t understand. I have to be grateful I got this one moment at all.

Who knows what the future might bring?

I nuzzle her temple. “All right. After tonight, I’ll stick to worshipping you at a distance. But don’t you ever forget that you can count on me, no matter what mess you end up tangled in.”

Chapter Six

Aurelia

At the end of our lunch, Marclinus leans toward me from his spot at the head of the table. “I have something to show you.”

As I smile, apprehension prickles over me. As much as our interlude last night was delusion, it’s seemed to have tempered my husband’s lustful inclinations for the time being. He’d left my chambers by the time I woke up this morning, presumably unaware of the much more pleasurable interlude I slipped off to while he slept, and he hasn’t done more than briefly touch my arm since we met up afterward.

His current statement sounds ominously vague, though. Is he already planning to resume our intimate relations in some unexpected way?

Resisting the urge to glance toward Raul, I get up from my seat. My heart skips a beat remembering the prince’s embrace last night, but I meant it when I told him that Ihave to focus on Marclinus rather than him—for both of our sakes. I can’t see what he could do for me right now anyway.

At least I had time to replenish the hallucinatory potion in my ring before my maids arrived to dress me.

Marclinus acts the perfect gentleman, ushering me into the hall with his hand on my back rather than my ass and then extending his elbow for me to take it. I have trouble deciding if that should make me less worried or more.

He leads me down a few halls, up a flight of stairs, and into the third-floor wing opposite the private imperial apartments. I’m not familiar with most of the rooms up here, as the court activities have been mainly restricted to the second floor and the gardens. I glance at the doors we pass, but none of them offer any hint of the contents other than what I might speculate from the etchings of historic events on their surfaces.

We stop at a door holding an image of Sabrelle in full battle armor. The godlen of war stands atop a pile of helms, her spear raised in a triumphant pose.

All right, I’m going to assume my husband isn’t leading me into a seduction. I’m not sure I’ll like his actual purpose any more.

Marclinus pushes the door wide and strides in so quickly I lose my grasp on his arm, leaving me to trot after him. As at my bed chambers, the guards who trailed behind us remain outside.

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