Page 245 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
“But I do know that the way that I love you... It makes me stronger, not weaker.”
My chest tightened, my lips parting to make way for words I couldn’t form. When they still wouldn’t come, I leaned forward to press my lips against her forehead.
I love you with every last broken piece of my soul, too, Lemmikki.
“And I heard what you did in the battle here.” She cut into the silence. “I wasn’t the only one doing remarkable things.”
It was hard to look back on the sheer volume of losses and think about the wordremarkable, but I did know that—as twisted as the thought was—my father’s lessons on strategy were the only reason we had survived long enough for Rowan to even reach us.
So I told her about those long, dark days.
Told her about the first wave of casualties when Elk brought in the trebuchets. How Pavel had snuck behind enemy lines to sabotage them to buy us more time, and how they had sent him back to us.
How we had to resort to tactics my father had used against her grandparents to stay alive as long as we had. How I had even used some of her uncle’s methods for chaotic battle to change tactics when we could.
She offered a small smile at that, running her nails up and down my arm as I recounted every gory detail of my time without her.
“And then you came,” I said at last, remembering the explosion of light and the cloud cover on the ground when there hadn’t been any sign of a storm before she arrived. I scrutinizedher for a moment before asking, “Are you going to tell me about the storm?”
Something flashed in her eyes, whether it was excitement or disbelief that she had been capable of such a feat at all, I couldn’t quite tell.
“The armor Rayan gave me,” she began, and I knew immediately she was referring to that ominous black box he’d gifted her for our wedding. Had he done something to them to make it easier for her to interact with the weather around her? Was there more to it than that, and she had only just begun to tap into the potential of what she could do?
“Along with the swords—” she continued, but I held up a hand to stop her.
The image of my feral little wife striding across the battlefield, clad in onyx armor with vengeance in her eyes was one I would never forget. And it was quite literally the sexiest thing I had ever seen.
I told her so, with one small caveat, of course.
“I mean, until you slapped me in the face,” I said, giving her a small grin. “Which, by the way, no one has ever actually done before.”
No one else would have been able to get close enough, let alone survived the experience. As it was, I only found amusement in the act since she clearly wasn’t forming a habit of it. But the tensions had been high, and she had just marched in to save our arses, so even the lords hadn’t given me any hell about this one.
“Then you were clearly overdue,” she said flatly, infusing her shrug with the same casual air she treated everything.
Another laugh rumbled out of me. I pulled her into my lap, pressing my lips to hers once again. Our humor faded as I deepened the kiss, my body craving hers with a renewed urgency.
We wouldn’t have days like this forever, at least not until this war was over. I was determined to make the most of it.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN
“Why hasn’t he made a move yet?” Rowan asked on our way to the war room.
I knew she was thinking about Iiro. Things had been far too quiet on that front, but I was taking that as a positive for the time being.
“I can’t say for sure, but I’d be willing to bet he lost a lot of support when they lost the last time.” I grinned down at her, lacing my fingers through hers as we walked. I was struck all over again by the way she’d been able to call the weather to do her bidding, to decimate our enemy enough to turn the tide of the battle. “You did that, Lemmikki.”
“Wedid that,” she said, squeezing my hand. “I knew the men I brought wouldn’t be enough to turn the tides, but I also knew that if I distracted the enemy soldiers, if you were...still alive...”
She stumbled over the words, her jaw set, her eyes pinched briefly before she regained control of her expression.
“I knew if you were still the one commanding, you would take advantage of that,” she continued. “And you did. If you had reacted any less quickly, it wouldn’t have mattered what I did.”
My footsteps nearly faltered. “You had that much faith in me, even then?”
“In your brilliant mind? Yes,” she said, arching a mischievous eyebrow before going on. “In your ability to not be a massiveaalio? No, I had rather lost that.”
A quiet laugh escaped me. That was…fair enough, I supposed.