Page 71 of Vow of the Shadow King

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FARAINE

I lie in a golden haze, Vor’s name still hovering on my lips. Even now, long after cresting the last heights, I feel like I’m floating on a cloud far above this world under stone. Never have I felt so alive, so complete. As though some missing part of me has finally been found, reclaimed, and restored.

Vor. Vor is the missing part. My soul knew it from the moment I first heard his voice in my ear. It was as though I recognized him from some existence beyond time and space where we have always been inextricably linked. I am his just as he is mine.

He kisses my stomach, then plants another kiss between my breasts before settling beside me on the narrow bed. We scarcely fit together, but I angle my body to create more room and gaze up into his face. Into that smile of his, which seems as though it could go on forever. He gently smooths hair off my sweat-beaded forehead then cups my cheek. I want to speak, want to say something. But my emotions are all a tangled blur which has nothing to do with my gods-gift.

“I . . . I didn’t know . . .” is all I can manage at last.

Alyndra had explained in detail the pain and degradation awaiting me on my wedding night. She’d spoken of men’s animalistic desires, of instincts and rough satisfaction. She’d spoken as well of the secret power a woman may wield over her oppressor if she learns to lever his desires against him.

Nothing she’d said had any place in this experience. This was no dance of instinct and pain, but one of tenderness. A dance of passion, awakening my body and my soul to possibilities I’d never dreamed. Possibilities that could only be made reality in a space of absolute trust.

I’ve always had to be so guarded. It’s the only way I’ve survived against the storms that assail my senses every hour of every day. I’d never known it was possible to let my defenses down so completely, to give myself over to someone else like this. Who knew surrender could be so exquisite?

“I gathered,” Vor says and smiles. His fingers trail down my neck to my collarbone, finally coming to rest over my heart. “I’m delighted to be the one to introduce you to that particular pleasure.”

I flush and drop my gaze, suddenly shy. “Oh, don’t do that!” he says.

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t look away. I want to look into those strange, beautiful eyes of yours.”

I raise my gaze to his. There are no barriers between us. His heart is open to me now, and in that openness, his soul shines with such beauty. I could drown in his gaze and die happy.

My hands slip up, wrap around the back of his head. I pull him to me, press his lips to mine. He answers my desire, opens his mouth to receive my eager tongue. His hand slides down to press against my back, then lower still, pulling me against him. I’d thought I was spent a moment before. Now I find I’m hungrier than ever. Absolutely ravenous for him.

I wrap my leg around him, hook him behind the knee, draw him close. His hand grips my thigh, and I feel the swell of him pressed up against me. I know what it means. In this, at least, Alyndra’s instruction doesn’t fail me. Hand trembling, I slip my fingers down to the front of his trousers, fumbling with the laces.

Vor moans and draws back. His long hair falls in his face. “Faraine.” His voice is husky, rough. “We can’t.”

Like the slam of a dropping portcullis, his barriers fall between us. It’s so sudden, I’m left reeling. Sparks explode inside my head. I stare up at him, shocked and uncertain. He’s still here, physically. I feel his warm blood, feel the tight swell of his need. But his soul retreats from me. That bond, that closeness, which mere moments ago I’d thought could never be broken is . . . gone.

I start to shiver. Not with cold, but with a terrible soul-freeze. Maybe I did not hear him correctly. Maybe my gods-gift is overwrought and needs to settle once more. Gritting my teeth, I reach down to touch him again. He gasps, closes his eyes.

Then, grimacing, he shakes his head and slips off the bed. “No!” he growls. He turns away from me, chest heaving, and hastily refastens the front of his trousers.

I sit up in the bed. The shivering is worse now. A dull throb begins to beat in my temples. “Vor,” I breathe, his name no longer the ecstatic song on my lips. “Vor, please. Come back to me.”

He shoots me a look over his shoulder. His expression is alarming. “I told you, Faraine. We cannot do this. Not now. Maybe not ever.”

“But . . . we are married. Truly married.” I blink at him, struggling to comprehend this coldness, this wall of ice. “Are we not?”

“Not by the laws of my people. Not until the marriage is consummated.”

A knot tightens in my gut. With one hand, I grip the tumbled blanket, pull it up and over my bare body. “So that was . . . We are not . . .” I don’t know how to form the words, how to shape the question I’m trying to ask.

His brow is hard and forbidding. “Consummation, according to the law, involves one specific act. An act we have not committed.”

I cannot think straight. I watch him cross the room to pick up his discarded shirt, shake it out. The throb in my temples increases with each breath I drag into my lungs.“Do you trust me?”he’d asked. And I had. In that moment, I’d chosen to trust him. Completely. Through the surging emotions and sensations, all so new and delicious and terrifying. I’d trusted him, cast myself wholly into his hands.

“You won’t give this to me?” I whisper. “You won’t give me this one thing I need?”

His eyes flash to meet mine. I’m struck again by a blast of ice. He yanks his shirt back into place. “I cannot.” His voice is hard, almost angry. He tempers his tone, however, when he adds, “You must understand that.”

I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all. Is he still intending to send me home? After this? After what we had together? Did I mistake his intentions so completely? I thought we were choosing together to risk it all, to be with each other. I thought . . . I thought . . .

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