would be honored to be your wife.”
For a moment, he couldn’t believe it. Then, at her spreading smile and her delight in taking him off guard, light burst over a thousand hills. Somehow, she was in his arms, and they were holding each other and laughing and Elene was crying, and they were good tears, and then he kissed her and his whole body dissolved into that point where their lips met, and her lips were soft, full, warm, inviting, moist, responsive, eager. It was beautiful. It was amazing. It was the best feeling of his whole life, right until he threw up.
67
Their lovemaking was completely one-sided. Again. Jenine had been a virgin only a month ago, so Dorian told himself it was a lack of practice, that her awkwardness was an awkwardness of how. But Jenine was coordinated and Dorian was ravenous, so that justification was getting strained. She averted her gaze as he lay atop her, unable to match the intensity in his eyes. He buried his head in her hair, trying to ignore her body’s lack of arousal. He finished alone.
He held her, inhaling the scent of her, trying not to feel lonely.
She never denied him, even when he came to her a second time in a day or a third, and that made it worse. She didn’t pretend to climax, at least not yet. But even when she did climax, afterwards, the gap still wasn’t bridged. In everything she didn’t say, he saw a woman trying desperately to love him, and give love every chance to grow.
Even now as he held her, she held him. He’d tried everything short of vir to make her love him as he loved her. He had a kingdom to defend and administer, men to train, plots to unravel, reforms to institute, magic to practice, but every day, he carved out hours simply to spend with her, to talk with her, to listen, to dance, to recite poetry, to tend the garden together, to tell stories, to listen to bards, to laugh, and only to make love after all that. The hell of it was that it seemed to be working. Jenine seemed more comfortable with him, more delighted with his presence and humor, more in love—everywhere but in the bedchamber. Was that because she was sixteen and lovemaking was new, or was their love as much a lie as Logan’s death? Or was everything fine except that it was poisoned in his own mind? What if she did love him, and he was simply going mad?
“What are you thinking about?” Jenine asked.
Dorian propped himself on his elbows and kissed her breast to give himself time to think. “How much I love you” would have been a partial truth. “How much I love you and you don’t love me” would be too brutal. But love needed truth to grow. He rubbed his aching head. “I was thinking of how hard you’re trying, and how much I appreciate it.”
She burst into tears, and there was truth in how she clung to him.
Logan sat in his new throne. He had given the artisans three weeks to deliver it, and the men had barely met the deadline. He had wanted it simple, sturdy wood with no ornamentation, but Duchess Kirena had prevailed upon him that the Cenarian throne couldn’t look like a dinner chair, so he had relented. This throne was sandalwood, almost glowing with a high polish, solid, elegantly shaped, and with a few fat rubies in each wing and in the front of the arms. By some magic, it was comfortable for Logan’s enormous frame. He almost pitied the rulers who would succeed him. Sitting in Logan’s throne, they would feel like dwarfs.
He lifted an eyebrow at Lantano Garuwashi, who knelt on a plain woven mat on the floor at Logan’s right hand. It looked uncomfortable, but Garuwashi appeared at ease. He nodded and Logan gestured.
The Lae’knaught in Wirtu, their semi-permanent camp that was functionally their capital city, had sent a new emissary. The man had arrived on time, though not an hour early.
“Greetings, Your Majesty,” the diplomat began. He went on for some time, listing Logan’s titles and then his own, and then those of his master, Overlord Julus Rotans. Logan kept his face impassive. Going to Khalidor without the Lae’knaught would be suicide. By spring, Logan would“€€… have an army of fifteen thousand if he was lucky. Garuwashi’s sa’ceurai added six thousand. Between them, they had less than a thousand