Page 53 of Songs of Retribution

He smirked. “Did you send Shaan to intervene or was that his idea?”

“It was his Atalla you dragged away to interrogate.”

He cupped his hand behind my neck, his calluses scraping over the delicate skin there. He kissed me then worked his mouth along my jaw, stopping to whisper at my ear. “I told you, I didn’t interrogate him.” Then he continued a line of kisses down to my shoulder.

My eyes closed, and I longed to get lost in his touch, but it was time for bravery. “Sai, wait.”

He pulled back, brushing a strand of hair back from my eye. “Are you okay?”

His beard gleamed in the lights I’d sung, his muscles rippling. My hands itched to trace over them, to tuck into the safety and comfort of him. “There’s something I need to speak with you about.”

He nodded and slid his thumb over the mangalsutra he’d given me before dropping his hand. “Have you had your own revelations about what we should do with this war in the hour I’ve been gone?” He said it lightly but there was almost a pinch of hope in his voice.

“I wish, but no.” He smiled, but it faded quickly. “Actually, I have had one idea. If my father uses humans as a shield like he did before, I could use my elemental magic to drop them into the earth. It might hurt some, but hopefully spare more than if our soldiers used magic to kill them, and it would get rid of that distraction so we could focus on the actual fight.”

“Yes, that’s a good plan,” Sai said, his gaze far off. “Was that what you wished to discuss?”

“No. I want to talk about us.”

Sai’s presence seemed to fully arrive in our tent. Whatever thoughts he’d clung to since speaking with Lennox appeared to leave with the breath that rushed out of him. “Us?”

I grabbed his hand into my shaking one. “That came out wrong. It’s about me.”

“Is something wrong? You haven’t compelled in some time. Perhaps—” My mouth met his, and he stopped speaking to kiss me back, then he pulled away. “What’s wrong, Lira? I’m sorry I’ve been distracted. With everything happening to the soldiers…” He came to a stop, the heaviness returning.

“No,” I said. “You’re focusing on the right thing, but there’s something I keep thinking about. I’m afraid to tell you because I don’t want to hurt you or add to your burdens, but I think I need to say it. In fact, I kind of made a pact with Ishir to tell you.”

Sai’s serious expression broke. “Ishir?”

I batted my hand as if to brush that away and refocus. “It’s about after this war.” My voice grew small. “If we survive.”

Sai bowed his head, his lips pinching down. Him not arguing that we would get through sank into me. We might be stars shooting through the sky, here for this moment and gone tomorrow. But I had to hope for more, had to believe we’d live past all this. What I’d say was important if so. “I don’t want to get remarried.”

Sai’s face snapped up, color draining away as he dropped my hand. “You don’t wish to marry me?”

Sai Arnav, I tapped into the magic, and he hesitantly opened up to me. I let my bone-deep, jump-off-a-cliff, risk-everything love for him flood through the connection until he opened fully. His eyebrows drew together. He didn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to get remarried if I felt that way about him.

I leaned forward to clutch his hand and curled mine against the dips and grooves of his palm, the gritty calluses and length of his fingers. “My entire life,” I said, “someone else has dictated everything for me. I’ve never had the freedom to decide. Mother told me I’d have to take the siren group’s magic and that was that.” He brushed his thumb over my knuckle. “Now I have this damnable Seelie mark.” Our gazes both darted to the black swirl of lines on my arm. “I’ve received and given and had magic taken and drained and abused so much in the last year. If I can unbind the sirens’ powers and hand the Seelie magic and throne to Lennox, I don’t want to add more powers. For once in my life, I want to have just my magic and get to know it for a while.”

“I understand.” Sai’s dark eyes sparkled, like he’d called on magic though none came. He flooded his feelings back through our connection I hadn’t closed. It was I’d-fall-from-the-cliff-again and I’ll-always-protect-you. A pinch of hurt that he tried desperately to quell bobbed about the tumultuous waves of his emotions.

“You misunderstand me.” I clasped his hand over my chest, atop the mangalsutra. “I meant what I said when we divorced. In my mind, we are married forever. When this war ends, we will be a prince and princess. Our lives will belong to our kingdoms. But our relationship, that’s too precious to me. I want it to stay as it is—ours, belonging to no one else.”

“That is something I understand all too well.”

“Would it be okay if we keep this—us—for ourselves? If we remain married but without formalities of a ceremony or anything else others can claim?”

He nodded, his expression distant like he was thinking through what I’d said. His emotions shifted, as if my request made our relationship more precious. A secret we could both keep no matter what happened in the rest of the world. Sai’s hand rose with the rise and fall of my chest and he leaned forward to kiss me, his hands following the outlines of my body. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled at the fabric that kept his body from touching mine. He kicked his pants off an ankle, wincing as the motion must have pulled his side too much. I slid my hand over the scar and drew him to me.

His mouth was warm, his body around mine a shelter against the typhoon we prepared to face. He hadn’t pulled back from the magic, so I left my mind open to him. The depth of my love was there, but also desire as his hard body glided over my curves. When he slid us together, our emotions were so intertwined I couldn’t differentiate my gasp of pleasure from his.

For a few minutes, there was no camp, or war, or threat from my father.

We were not prince or princess.

We were nothing more than Sai and Lira.

Atallas.

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