Page 143 of Swordheart
Still.
He had only just stopped himself from covering her shoulders in love bites. She might have enjoyed them at the time, but she’d have had a lot to say about it once she caught sight of herself in the polished steel mirror.
He had refrained. He wasn’t a youngster, so insecure that he had to mark his territory on his lover’s flesh.
What in the great god’s earth has come over me?
He had thought that slaking his lust would be enough. He had not expected it to make things worse.
I know better than to get too attached to any wielder. I’ll outlive them all by a thousand years.He had learned that lesson early on. All their battles and wars and causes, no matter how noble, could not stop them from aging and dying while Sarkis lived on in immortal steel.
Halla sighed in her sleep. Sarkis stretched his arm out over her, pulling her close, and she burrowed against him and mumbled something he couldn’t make out. It might have been his name.
The thought warmed him more than he wanted to admit.
Oh, this is foolishness. Even if it was your name, it was probably leading to a question about feet or owls or something else. Can’t you just be glad that you’ve got a solid armful of widow in your bed? Take your pleasure and give her hers and leave it at that.
He did not want to leave it at that.
Even if you were in the Weeping Lands and could take her before a priest of your own god, you would have neither land nor wealth nor even a name to offer her. You do not even have a horse that she could ride to the wedding. Assuming she’d have you, which she likely wouldn’t. Marriage brought her nothing but grief.
Marriage to you would bring her nothing but more of the same.You are a dead man in live steel. You cannot even promise to grow old with her.
You haven’t even told her the truth about the sword.
Some of the pleasure he felt ebbed away. He had always meant to tell her before… before anything like this. But she had kissed him and then he had been so determined to unravel her fears and then…
“Then” nothing. Then you were as randy as a buck goat.
He couldn’t even blame that on being out of the sword too long. They had sheathed it a dozen times on the road, as part of Zale’s tests, and it hadn’t made a damn bit of difference.
He certainly couldn’t blame the sword for the fact that he was lying here thinking of marriage, which was complete foolishness. How could any woman live with an immortal? He would stay exactly as he was and she would fade and fail and pass away. Surely she could not help but hate him, in her old age.
The thought nagged at him that Halla wouldn’t. That Halla might even be grateful to know that she would no longer be the last one standing, that someone else would pick up the pieces at the end.
Great god’s teeth. Did I always get this morbid after sex, or is this new?
Maybe you should just stop thinking,he told himself. He leaned his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes and tried to believe that this moment, at least, would not end for a very long time.
CHAPTER 46
Halla woke in bed, feeling very warm.
That was the first thing she noticed.
Sarkis was curled around her, his chest against her back. One of his knees was between hers, and his hand rested on her breast.
That was the second thing she noticed.
She wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.
That was the third thing she noticed.
She hadn’t slept naked since she was a child. Respectable people didn’t. She had a strong urge to pull the sheet up over herself to hide, which was ridiculous. Sarkis had seen every part of her last night.
More than seen. A lot more.
Good heavens.
