Page 10 of A Queen Of Broken Realms
“A Reaper carpet eater?..”
Ashen pauses. He pulls away and meets my eyes. I can’t help snickering and he bursts out into the most uninhibited laugh I’ve ever heard him make. It resonates in his chest. It vibrates right through my heart, shaking off every clinging worry and fear like they were never more than dust.
“Vampire. I wonder what I would find if I lived in your mind for just a day,” he says as he sets me on my feet, his hand hot on my backside. The essence of his smile is still etched into the corners of his eyes. Those faint lines are an echo, like music clinging to the source.
“It would terrify you, I’m sure.”
“I used to think so.”
I look up at Ashen with a lopsided grin. “Not anymore?”
“No,” he says. “Not anymore, my vampire.” His smile fades, and mine does too. Only desire is left behind in Ashen’s eyes, vibrant in the gold flecks that glow as though panned from the silt of a riverbed.
Ashen takes my hand and leads us to a stone-fronted structure at the end of the path, pushing through an aging door that creaks on rusted hinges. It’s a greenhouse, maybe once an orangery, though the fruit trees have long since disappeared, replaced with lush, wild ferns that line the edges of the room with their feathery tendrils. There’s a patchwork above us of old glass and wood panels where Ashen must have repaired broken panes. A massive four poster bed with a carved mahogany headboard lies angled in the center of the space beneath three undamaged skylights, fog rolling across them in slow, curling eddies.
“Sex sheets!” I squeal, jumping on the balls of my feet with a happy clap. I let out a delighted squeak and bound away from Ashen to flop down on the slick covering of the mattress. “My pretties, I missed you so much.” My hands coast across the surface of the bed like a face-down snow angel. Ashen’s scent is faint in the fibres, mixed with the smell of salt on the wind, of green shoots pushing through moist soil. Tobacco and mint. It’s the best thing I’ve ever smelled. I smile against the silken strands.
I flip over with a deep, satisfied sigh, trailing my hand across the midnight blue silk. I watch as Ashen pulls off his black armor and shirt. He climbs up next to me and I yank him down so his weight settles onto my body, infusing my chest and belly with warmth.
“Do you like this place, vampire?” Ashen asks.
I drag my hands up the bunched muscles of his back. “I love this place, Reaper.”
Ashen leans back and searches my face. There’s something vulnerable about the way the gold flecks in his cognac eyes catch the dim light. “What if it was ours? If we rebuilt it?”
It takes me a moment to answer. It’s been so long since I had a home. Even Anthemoessa didn’t belong to just me. I was the last of the sirens to wash up on the shore. At one point, it was home to all my sisters too, until we gradually dispersed like seeds on the wind. And I was abandoned there, don’t forget. I’m only Leucosia of Anthemoessa because my memory of my homeland was wiped clean from my mind. It’s the place my life started anew. The thought of the Shadow Realm offering me a refuge, a home of my own, is difficult to fathom.
Except it’s not the realm that really matters. It’s what I want. Who I want to be with. Who I want tobe.
I trace my finger down the straight line of Ashen’s nose, over his mouth, down his chin, along the angle of his jaw. “Only if this room is the first one we fix.”
Ashen’s eyes fuse to my lips. His smile grows, a bloom unfurling in the morning light.
“All right.”
“And we don’t get rid of the plants.”
“Okay, vampire.”
“We addmoreplants.”
“If you wish.”
“And a dog bed for Urtur.”
“But he snores—”
“And a dog bed for Urtur.”
“All right, vampire.”
“And we fix every skylight,” I say, reaching up toward the ceiling.
“Any other requests?” Ashen asks, no hint of irritation in his voice, only indulgence. I grasp his face between my palms. My gaze shifts between his beautiful, warm eyes.
The executioner who could have destroyed me. The hunter who could have slain me.
The demon who loves me.
