She wraps her legs around my waist when there is nothing between us but fast breathing, the cold making our desperation visible in wisps of fog.
This is not the quick and heated cheat before our wedding, a swift romp in the bed, no, this is our vows made true in the flesh. Even with all the frustrations, mistrusts, and misdeeds between us, we push and pull, kiss and tug, and make sure the other knows that it is merely a truce struck because we cannot seem to be apart from one another.
Not in the physical way, at least.
“I cannot always protect you, but I promise to lick your wounds,” I murmur as I kiss her bruise on her breast, and Liana hisses, cat eyes narrowed. “And I will…”
She pays me back from deep inside and I stifle a moan. “You will what, Noble?”
“Forget… I forget…” And I do forget everything but this woman in my arms.
“Liana,” I say, as a swear word, in worship, in desperation. “Forgive me. Forget with me.”
Beyond her is the forest, the moon, and the wolves are there---all of my priorities in that order.
Her eyes close. “Yes, my king,” she whispers taken by the same flood that rises in my ears. “Yes…Noble.”
Whatever sounds we make…they are echoed in the woods by the howling of wolves.
Chapter 28
Noble
I work at my cravat on purpose until she fixes it for me. I kiss her fingers and her eyes meet mine but then they move away.
The sun has risen, and though we are sweet, it is with a careful---careful wariness that proves the past cannot be completely forgotten, but perhaps, forgiven…for now.
“Noble, you said that I am not a prisoner.”
Waiting until she meets my gaze, I touch her cheek. “You are not. Soon, there will be a coronation. One big enough that even lions will envy it.”
Liana steps out of my embrace and I frown.
“That’s not what I meant,” she says. “Either I am free to leave or not.”
The tension has returned. The threat of the day is stealing too swiftly what was easy at night: Trust. I find myself frantically trying to grab it even as frustration floods into a space where only fondness had been moments before.
“Of course, you can leave,” I say, buttoning my jacket with jerky, angry movements. “If that is what you wish.” I don’t want to be cold, I want to stay warm, in bed, with her, but my mouth gives away the heart of fear drumming beneath my ribs, and I add, “No one is keeping you here, Liana.”
With long, furious strides, I head for the door. When I reach it, I throw over my shoulder, “I’d prefer you tell me such things before I spend the night in your bed again.”
I stiffen when she reaches my side. When she tries to touch my hand, I snap, “Get dressed.”
I can’t think with a naked Liana moving about the room.
Indignant now, she grabs her robe, her frustrated movements make everything shake with an unseemly flow of flesh.
“Have you no real clothes?” I practically shout.
“What’s wrong with this? Does it bother you?” she taunts. “I thought I’d take a walk in it later, it’s refreshingly light compared to the winter clothing.”
The robe is open from neck to belly almost.
I’m slowly coming unhinged at the thought of her leaving this room half undressed. It has me so angry, I’m seeing red. I breathe through my nose. “We were speaking of you leaving.”
Liana sighs. “I only meant. Well, it’s Crede.”
I bite down on my back teeth half poised to flee from this sudden turn of discussion, half ready to grab her by her arm and throw her back into bed. And more than half willing to keep her locked up like the prisoner she feels that she is.
Liana continues, unaware of the caged animal she’s married to. “He’s being made king in ceremony as well. Since we were---are friends, I think it would be good for the kingdom to see us there. Don’t you? For solidarity. If we mean to heal the rift between our realms.”
I’m trying to see it for what it is. A political move, a diplomatic gesture, and one a great queen thinks about before breakfast, while I, the King, have been merely sated in a haze of lust and forgetfulness.
But the jealous part of me is yelling through my every cell that my queen---mine, will never see that lion again. That he’d have been her husband instead of me, if it was his choice, and that’s all I’ll ever see whenever I look at his handsome golden face. A man waiting to steal what is mine.
“Noble,” Liana says, frowning, her eyes steeling, her body straightening, ready for a fight. “Husband. You said I wasn’t a prisoner. I don’t have to ask permission if that is the case.”
“Fine,” I grind out as if there are rocks in my throat. “As you wish, Liana. Wife. We shall return to the Summer realm for his crowning together.”
With that, I stalk out of the room.
Chapter 29
Liana
Turning points. Crossroads.
Obvious yet unavoidable.
They’re there, all of them, deterring us from what we really want. What our hearts and souls sing for. They draw closer and closer so that it’s impossible to ignore them. They hold us up, slow us down, when we should wing straight through them. Slice across the deviation and hold fast to what we truly desire.
I know this. I think Noble knows this, too. Still, we stumble left, when we should sprint right. Because dignity somehow means more than our vows. Our promises to protect each other withers and turns to ash every time we choose ourselves over the other. We’re husband and wife, mates chosen by the stars themselves.
Strangers with small moments of intimacy, little glimpses of what our love could become should we let it flourish.
My body yearns for my beautiful wolf. My heart cries for my husband. All while my brain remains wary of my new king.
Emotions warring against emotions litter my bloodstream, obscuring my senses so I doubt every attempt Noble or I make so that our union may work. He harbors his own suspicions about me and I feel his mistrust grow when we arrive at Summer for Crede’s coronation. Without his mother, only his faithful lapdog, Oren, has come with us, but he changed into wolf form before we made it to Summer, so he could slink away from the lions he despises without being noticed.
I, on the other hand, become more at ease as the sun kisses warmth back into my cold bones. With eager fingers, I unfasten my coat and let it fall to the ground in a rumpled mess by my feet. Feeling freer in only my light summer dress, I turn my face skyward. I drink in the sun, let the heat splatter and spread against my skin.
While I notice the absence of my pride welcoming us to Summer, I don’t let it steal the calm that returning to Summer brings me. It’s mine to cherish, to hold onto when the cold seeps back into my body when we return to Winter.