Page 126 of Obsidian Throne

ROWAN

For several silent minutes, I let Evander’s words sink in, pulling them close around me and using them to soothe the battered parts of myself.

His gaze never left mine. We lay inches from each other, our shallow, waiting breaths the only sound in the hushed room.

There was no doubt that he meant what he said. In the past, when I had tried to elicit this promise from him, he had always hedged or staunchly insisted that he was in the right.

But now, he was willing to make this change, for me. Forus.

And that was more than enough.

I melted into him, letting his warmth envelope me. “Can we go back to our room now?”

His entire body eased as he leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Pulling me out of bed with an almost laughable speed, he only dropped my hand long enough for us to both put our shoes on. Then he quickly encompassed it with his own again. A slow smile spread across my face as we made our way down the several hallways that led to our rooms.

When we stepped into the open, airy space, I took my first deep breath in weeks. He shut the door, and I turned to him, burying my face in his chest and inhaling the scent of everything that he was.

Mine.

He pressed soft kisses against my hair, then my forehead in slow, gentle motions that were almost reverent. Heat spread through me, and I tilted my face upward to meet his, stepping back against the door.

He covered my mouth in a deep, exploratory kiss, like he was cherishing the way I felt, memorizing it. I slid my tongue between his lips, entwining it with his and savoring his familiar taste, letting it consume me.

Slowly, he dragged our linked hands up until they were over my head, pinning them against the door behind us. My heart raced a wild, unrestrained beat that echoed in my ears.

Stars,I had missed him.

His mouth skated down to my neck, then he paused.

“Lemmikki, did you take your herbs?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. I hadn’t been ready to give up on us yet, hadn’t been convinced I wouldn’t need them. And no matter how I felt about the potential pregnancy, I didn’t want to bring a child into this world with Evander by accident.

I wanted it to be a choice we made.

He resumed his almost worshipful kissing of my neck, but it was slower this time. One more time, he stopped, pulling back to look at me.

“Do you think that when this war is over, you might want to...abstain from taking them?” His face was carefully neutral, but I remembered what he had said earlier.

I want that more than anything.

“Yes,” I breathed, nodding.

A rare genuine smile broke out on his face, with none of the sardonic lilt it usually had.

Then his mouth was on mine again, hot and urgent and fitted perfectly against me. He kissed me like I was the other half of his soul in truth, like I might disappear if he stopped. Shivers ran through me, my breath coming shallower in my chest.

My hands went to the buttons of his uniform. It took every bit of patience I had to undo them one by one instead of ripping the entire thing off.

I wanted to feel his skin against mine again, to feel like we were both here and alive andtogether.

It was a mark of how much he wanted the same thing that he didn’t even die when I shoved his jacket off his shoulders and let it fall in a heap on the floor.

Instead, he removed my clothes in deft, hurried movements before he picked me up and carried me to our bed, our bed that I had missed nearly as much as the man in it.

It smelled like him, like us.