had a hole inside me. It’s permanent and it aches.”
“What of all the butterflies in the world? What of all the other lovers you could have?”
The answer was breathtakingly easy. “They won’t be you.” He’d been approached more than once in the time since they’d been apart, both by warriors and by civilians, all with a smile and with affection.
He’d had no desire to dance with any of them.
The hole in his heart was in a very particular shape and it could be filled by only one person. “I find myself turning to tell you clever thoughts, but you aren’t there. I wake wishing to kiss you, and sometimes, I even wake wanting to hear you flaying me to shreds with your tongue.”
No laughter, and none of the biting wit with which she’d so successfully destroyed Aegaeon. A champagne gaze that gave nothing away. “Do you ask me to be your lover for more than the now?”
Shaking his head, Titus dropped his hand from her cheek to go down on one knee among the grasses. His heart pounded, his mouth ran dry, and his sense of being exactly where he wished to be was so resonant that it felt as if he was bound to the universe itself.
“No, Shari,” he said. “Though I’ll be your lover any day you wish, what I ask is for you to be my consort.” He opened out his hand, in which lay a fine golden chain, at the end of which hung a pendant made of amber in the shape of a hummingbird soaring in flight.
* * *
* * *
. . . be my consort.
Sharine’s mind emptied of all thought, Titus the center of her universe. He was extraordinary, her Titus, strong and loyal and with a heart so huge it encompassed his entire territory.
He was also honest to a fault.
And he’d just asked her to be his consort.
She sank into the grass in front of him. “Titus.” Cupping his face, she kissed him with all the passion—and yes, love—in her heart. She’d fallen for this brash, blunt hammer of an archangel despite all her plans to the contrary, and she wouldn’t lie to herself about that, either.
Wrapping her in his arms, he crushed her close, devouring her mouth. Breathless in the aftermath, she nevertheless shook her head when he beamed a smile that engulfed her in its love, and went to put the necklace around her neck.
“Shari, you can’t kiss a man so, then reject him.” Open anguish.
“It’s no rejection.” She touched her hand to his jaw, unable to bear to wound the huge heart that loved her. “I’ll wear your amber so the world knows my heart is taken.”
The vise around Titus’s chest began to ease its grip at last. “Do you love me? Tell me, then.”
A glow in eyes that shouldn’t glow, their beauty incandescent. “I love you, Titus, Archangel of Africa.” In her voice were tones he’d never before heard, layers of love that wrapped around him with primal sensual intimacy.
“Don’t ever use that voice with anyone else,” he grumbled, “or you’ll break my heart, and I’ll break them.”
Laughter, as sensual and as addicting. “I’ll always protect your heart, for it’s mine now.” A slender hand pressed to that very organ, her voice unbending on her next words. “You, too, will wear my amber—a single piece, embedded into your breastplate.”
Titus puffed out his chest, his hands on her hips, and a smile curving his lips. “You can embed within it as many pieces of amber as you like.” He’d never budge in his devotion to her.
Running the back of her hand over his jaw, she said, “I’m not ready to be your consort.” A finger pressed to his lips. “Consorts must be aware of politics, must undertake certain duties. I can’t, not only because I watch over Lumia, but because I’ve barely awakened. I can’t be your consort before I’m complete in myself as Sharine.”
“Shari, if you grow any more radiant, I shall burn up in your light.” He pressed his forehead to her own. “But if you need a millennium or three to be ready to stand officially at my side, so be it.”
As long as she wore his amber.
As long as she made him wear hers.
“I’m telling you now, so you can’t accuse me of falsehoods later,” he said, because he’d never lie to her, “but I’ll treat you as I would my consort, and though you don’t take the title, the world will know who you are