Page 83 of Enslaved

Yes. Of course.

It was true the moment he whispered his secret name in my ear.

There is no need for a gown, a chapel, a ceremony. No need even for vows. He has already given himself to me. I’d not realized it then. But I do now. I understand too what it meant when I spoke that name for the first time. When I accepted and laid claim to the promise it bore.

He is mine; I am his. We belong to one another. No matter what may come.

Forever.

“Husband,” I breathe.

He smiles, his very soul suffused in joy. Then he buries his face in my shoulder. His lips spark against my neck, my jaw, before finally finding and claiming my mouth in a beautiful, bruising kiss. All the while he pulses harder, harder. I grimace, gasp, but then . . . at last! I feel his release an instant before he cries out. I grip him hard, our bodies quaking together, and breathe out a sigh at the pure glory of our joining.

And I know in that moment—possibly for the first time in my life—I am where I truly belong.

I shift in his arms, knocking yet another stack of papers from the desk. They slip and slide to the floor in a gentle susurrus, followed by thethunkof the last remaining inkpot.

“Perhaps,” I say, my voice muffled against his shoulder, “it would have been easier if we’d, I don’t know . . .walkedthe ten paces to the bedroom?”

The Prince—Castien—snorts. “Taking you across my desk has been a long-time fantasy. Taking you across my mother’s bed? No. Definitely not.”

I flush and flick the end of his long nose. He answers by rolling over and kissing me again, quite thoroughly. I know we need to stop with this indulgence, to face reality and the situation we find ourselves in. But reality is just too big and too terrible, and his kisses are so sweet and warm. So I let myself be lost for a little while.

When at last I pull away, rather than question him about the impending fight, I say quietly, almost shyly, “Am I really your wife?”

He looks down at me, drinking me in. Like he’s lived his whole life parched only to stumble upon the Water of Life itself. “Yes,” he answers with a sigh of complete satisfaction. “You are my wife. I am your husband.” He chuckles then and arches a brow. “For better or for worse.”

I touch his cheek gently. “You knew what would happen. When you gave me your name.”

To my surprise, he shakes his head. “I hoped. It was a risk to be sure. The magic of the true name is great indeed. I knew if the bond between us were true then you would respond to it, and it should have the power to bring me to you before . . . well, before any unpleasantness took place. But if you did not feel the bond—if you did not love me as I love you—you would not have been able to speak it as you did. I would not have heard you. I would not have come.”

A shadow passes over my soul. I rest my head against him once more, listening to the beat of his heart. Then, after a moment, I frown. “I heard you were destined to be Fatebound.”

“Oh, yes?” There’s a smile in his voice. “I’d suspected that little rumor was going about. People do so like to talk about business not their own.”

“But are you?” I lift my head, peering up at him. “Is that what this is? Fate?”

“Yes.” He pushes up onto his elbow so that he can level a look at me. “The truth is, Darling, the very moment I set eyes on your face, I knew. I knew I had met the one the gods intended to be mine. But the circumstances . . .”

He doesn’t finish that thought. For which I am grateful. It would be agony to bring the death of his mother into this moment with us.

“Humans,” he goes on after a moment, “have rather more leeway than the fae when it comes to the Fatebond. They generally don’t turn rabid and fanatical, obsessive. And they don’t fade away and die if the bond goes uncompleted. For the fae, the experience is far morechallenging, shall we say.

“As anibrildianhalf-breed,I hoped I might have some say in the matter. So I allowed Estrilde to take you on as her Obligate, despite knowing your powers were wasted in her service. And for five years, I thought of you. Every day. Thought of your face as I saw it first when I stormed into your father’s house with murder in my heart. Those eyes—so soft, so gentle, so full of terror. Yet how they sparked with defiance as you placed yourself between me and your brother! You would defend him against any foe, no matter how terrible. You would fight me, though in every way outmatched, though I could strike you down with but a wave of my hand!

“That moment . . . that courage . . . that grim, stubborn defiance . . . it stayed with me. Haunted me. And I hated you for it! Hated you because you had pierced my heart. A wound from which I would never recover.

“Still,” he sighs, “I might have let your years of Obligation slip away were it not for the death of Soran Silveri and the desperate need of a new librarian at Vespre. I cursed the gods then for placing me in that situation, railed at them. I declared that, while I might make use of your power, I would never succumb to their little games.”

“So . . .” I pinch my lips together before continuing. “So you do believe this is all just the work of the gods? That you’ve been forced and manipulated into what you feel?”

He chuckles warmly and tips my chin, forcing me to look at him. “While it may have been the gods who forced my hand, it was you who showed me who you really are. That heart of yours, which cannot help defending the defenseless. Your courage and cleverness. The way you see the world so differently from anyone I’ve ever met. I plucked you from all the comforts of Aurelis and threw you into a veritable pit of darkness, only for you rise to meet the challenge head-on. Not one complaint. Only more of that willful determination to best me and survive. More than survive. I watched you take in those children, rejected by my people, betrayed by their own, and create a home for them out of nothing. From there you built a bridge between the palace and the low city where I never believed such a thing was possible, risking your own life in the process. You’ve worked miracles before my very eyes!”

My face roars with heat. I feel more naked now than I did when he undressed me. It’s almost painful to hear such praise on his lips, knowing how unworthy I am. After everything I’ve put him through these last few days, how could I ever hope to deserve his love? How could I ever hope to deserve him?

“I fear perhaps the Fatebond has warped your perspective,” I whisper.

You’re not seeing rightly . . .

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