Rhys stilled, and I braced myself as he said casually, “I couldn’t very well let you do all the work to undermine our enemies, could I?”
I didn’t smile. “Where. Were. You.”
“With Az only recently back on his feet, I took it upon myself to do some of his work.”
I clenched my jaw. “Such as?”
He leaned down, nuzzling my throat. “Don’t you want to comfort your mate, who has missed you terribly these weeks?”
I planted a hand on his face and pushed him back, scowling. “I want my mate to tell me where the hell he was. Then he can get his comfort.”
Rhys nipped at my fingers, teeth snapping playfully. “Cruel, beautiful female.”
I watched him beneath lowered brows.
Rhys rolled his eyes, sighing. “I was on the continent. At the human queens’ palace.”
I choked. “You were where?”
“Technically, I was flying above it, but—”
“You went alone?”
He gaped at me. “Despite what our mistakes in Hybern might have suggested, I am capable of—”
“You went to the human world, to our enemies’ compound, alone?”
“I’d rather it be me than any of the others.”
That had been his problem from the start. Always him, always sacrificing—
“Why,” I demanded. “Why risk it? Is something happening?”
Rhys peered toward the window, as if he could see all the way to the mortal lands. His mouth tightened. “It’s the quiet on their side of the sea that bothers me. No whisper of armies gathered, no other human allies summoned. Since Hybern, we’ve heard nothing. So I thought to see for myself why that is.” He flicked my nose, tugging me closer again. “I’d just neared the edge of their territory when I felt the bond awaken again. I knew the others were closer, so I sent them.”
“You don’t need to explain.”
Rhys rested his chin atop my head. “I wanted to be there—to get you. Find you. Bring you home.”
“You do certainly enjoy a dramatic entrance.”
He chuckled, his breath warming my hair as I listened to the sound rumble through his body.
Of course he would have been working against Hybern while I was away. Had I expected them all to be sitting on their asses for over a month? And Rhys, constantly plotting, always a step ahead … He would have used this time to his advantage. I debated asking about it, but right now, breathing him in, feeling his warmth … Let it wait.
Rhys pressed a kiss to my hair. “You’re home.”
A shuddering, small sound came out of me as I nodded, squeezing him tighter. Home. Not just Velaris, but wherever he was, our family was.
Ebony claws stroked along the barrier in my mind—in affection and request.
I lowered my shields for him, just as his own dropped. His mind curled around mine, as surely as his body now held me.
“I missed you every moment,” Rhys said, leaning down to kiss the corner of my mouth. “Your smile.” His lips grazed over the shell of my ear and my back arched slightly. “Your laugh.” He pressed a kiss to my neck, right beneath my ear, and I tilted my head to give him access, biting down the urge to beg him to take more, to take faster as he murmured, “Your scent.”
My eyes fluttered closed, and his hands coasted around my hips to cup my rear, squeezing as he bent to kiss the center of my throat. “The sounds you make when I’m inside you.”
His tongue flicked over the spot where he’d kissed, and one of those sounds indeed escaped me. Rhys kissed the hollow of my collarbone, and my core went utterly molten. “My brave, bold, brilliant mate.”
He lifted his head, and it was an effort to open my eyes. To meet his stare as his hands roved in lazy lines down my back, over my rear, then up again. “I love you,” he said. And if I hadn’t already believed him, felt it in my very bones, the light in his face as he said the words …
Tears burned my eyes again, slipping free before I could control myself.
Rhys leaned in to lick them away. One after another. As he’d once done Under the Mountain.
“You have a choice,” he murmured against my cheekbone. “Either I lick every inch of you clean …” His hand grazed the tip of my breast, circling lazily. As if we had days and days to do this. “Or you can get into the bath that should be ready by now.”
I pulled away, lifting a brow. “Are you suggesting that I smell?”
Rhys smirked, and I could have sworn my core pounded in answer. “Never. But …” His eyes darkened, the desire and amusement fading as he took in my clothes. “There is blood on you. Yours, and others’. I thought I’d be a good mate and offer you a bath before I ravish you wholly.”
I huffed a laugh and brushed back his hair, savoring the silken, sable strands between my fingers. “So considerate. Though I can’t believe you kicked everyone out of the house so you could take me to bed.”
“One of the many benefits to being High Lord.”
“What a terrible abuse of power.”
That half smile danced on his mouth. “Well?”
“As much as I’d like to see you attempt to lick off a week’s worth of dirt, sweat, and blood …” His eyes gleamed with the challenge, and I laughed again. “Normal bath, please.”
He had the nerve to look vaguely disappointed. I poked him in the chest as I pushed away, aiming for the large bathing room attached to the bedroom. The massive porcelain tub was already filled with steaming water, and—
“Bubbles?”
“Do you have a moral objection to them?”
I grinned, unbuttoning my jacket. My fingers were near-black with dirt and caked blood. I cringed. “I might need more than one bath to get clean.”
He snapped his fingers, and my skin was instantly pristine again. I blinked. “If you can do that, then what’s the point of the bath?” He’d done it Under the Mountain for me a few times—that magical cleaning. I’d somehow never asked.
He leaned against the doorway, watching me peel off my torn and stained jacket. As if it were the most important task he’d ever been given. “The essence of the dirt remains.” His voice roughened as he tracked each movement of my fingers while I unlaced my boots. “Like a layer of oil.”
Indeed, my skin, while it looked clean, felt … unwashed. I kicked off the boots, letting them land on my filthy jacket. “So it’s more for aesthetic purposes.”
“You’re taking too long,” he said, jerking his chin toward the bath.
My breasts tightened at the slight growl lacing his words. He watched that, too.
And I smiled to myself, arching my back a bit more than necessary as I removed my shirt and tossed it to the marble floor. Sunlight streamed in through the steam rising from the tub, casting the space between us in gold and white. Rhys made a low noise that sounded vaguely like a whimper as he took in my bare torso. As he took in my breasts, now heavy and aching, badly enough that I had to swallow my plea to forget this bath entirely.
But I pretended not to notice as I unbuttoned my pants and let them fall to the floor. Along with my undergarments.