The Most Powerful Of Kings - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,67

those feelings I’d been denying. I couldn’t shut them off. Then someone I know pulled me aside and told me what a fool I was.’ He glanced over to where Xerxes stood and smiled. ‘He told me where to find the strength I needed to step away from my father’s lessons. To overcome my fear.’ Adonis glanced back at her, the fierce love of the man shining in the king’s eyes. ‘It was you, little nun. You’re my strength. You showed me how to love without fear, how to love with passion and bravery. You would never fail anyone. And so I don’t want to fail you. I want you to teach me new lessons, better lessons. I want you to bring happiness into my life and I want so much to bring it into yours too.’

Anna couldn’t stop her tears and she could barely speak, her throat was so tight. ‘I want that,’ she forced out, her voice husky and raw. ‘That’s all I ever wanted.’

His smile was like the dawn after a long, dark, lonely night. ‘Then marry me, Anna. I should have come for you myself, but I wanted this to be a surprise for you. And I wanted to give you a choice too.’

Anna took a shuddering breath. ‘My choice will always be you, Adonis.’

His gaze was bluer than the sea behind him. ‘I always chose my crown before. But not today, little nun. Today, I choose happiness. Today, I choose you.’

And so they were married on the beach, with no fanfare, only family and a priest.

Not a nun and a king.

Just a man and a woman.

And after the ceremony Adonis took her into his arms and kissed her passionately and for a long time, much to Ione’s disgust.

Then much, much later, after celebrations with their family and after Xerxes, Calista and the priest had got into the helicopter and gone, Adonis and Anna let their little girl put Anna’s bouquet into the sea as an offering for Ione’s mother.

‘Will she get it?’ Ione asked her father as it floated in the waves.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘She will.’

Then, as Ione scampered down to the water’s edge to play, Anna leaned back in her husband’s arms, his body tall and powerful against her back, a mountain protecting her, sheltering her. Loving her.

‘You haven’t said it, you know,’ Anna murmured, watching the moonlight on the waves, and listening to Ione’s laughter.

‘Said what?’ Adonis’s breath was warm against her neck.

He was teasing her, of course he was. ‘Xerxes told me to come with him so I could hear it from you myself.’

‘You’re mine.’ His lips brushed against her skin, making her shiver. ‘Is that enough?’

Anna turned in his arms and looked up into his strong face, meeting blue eyes gone dark as midnight. ‘And are you mine, Lion of Axios?’

He smiled just for her, lighting up her heart. ‘Of course, Anna Nikolaides. Who else’s would I be?’

Her new name made her happiness overflow inside her. ‘Say it.’

His expression intensified, blazing into hers. ‘I love you, little nun. I love you, my wife, my lioness, my strength. I love you, Anna.’

‘And I love you, my husband,’ she whispered back.

He kissed her under the moonlight, there on the beach, with Ione’s laughter in their ears. He was a king and a lion. A mountain and a man.

But most importantly of all, he was her love. He was her heart.

He was her home.

He was hers.

EPILOGUE

XERXES LOOKED INTO the crib and pulled a face. ‘Twins? Really, Adonis? You always have to go one better, don’t you?’

Adonis, feeling very smug indeed as he looked down at his two sons, laughed. ‘What did you expect? I am a king.’

Ione stood on the other side of the crib, looking as smug as he felt. ‘Achilles and Hector,’ she pronounced. ‘Those are their names, Papa. And they’re my Defenders of the Throne, aren’t they?’

‘They are,’ Adonis agreed. ‘Both of them.’

‘God help them,’ Xerxes muttered. ‘She’s been reading too many myths.’

But Adonis wasn’t listening. He was already turning back to the bed where his beautiful wife lay, resting on the mound of pillows he’d arranged behind her head.dpg!

He sat down and snuggled her into his arms, every muscle in his body relaxing as she turned her radiant smile on him. ‘We should keep those names,’ she said.

‘Really? You like them?’

‘Yes.’ Her smile deepened. ‘They’re heroes. Just like their father.’

‘Next time, I want heroines,’ he said and kissed her. ‘Just like their mother.’

Anna gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘There won’t be a next time. Not after that.’

But there was. And another. And then again.

Because, though the Lion of Axios was a stern and regal king, Adonis Nikolaides was a man who turned out to have an unlimited appetite for laughter and joy and happiness. For his wife.

And for love.

Always love.

Coming next month

CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED

Caitlin Crews

“Your Majesty. Really.” Calista moistened her lip and he found himself drawn to that, too. What was the matter with him? “You can’t possibly think that we would suit for anything more than a temporary arrangement to appease my father’s worst impulses.”

“I need to marry, Lady Calista. I need to produce heirs, and quickly, to prove to my people the kingdom is at last in safe hands. There will be no divorce.” Orion smiled more than he should have, perhaps, when she looked stricken. “We are stuck. In each other’s pockets, it seems.”

She blanched at that, but he had no pity for her. Or nothing so simple as pity, anyway.

He moved toward her, taking stock of the way she lifted her head too quickly—very much as if she was beating back the urge to leap backward. To scramble away from him, as if he was some kind of predator.

The truth was, something in him roared its approval at that notion. He, who had always prided himself on how civilized he was, did not dislike the idea that here, with her, he was as much a man as any other.

Surely that had to be a good sign for their marriage.

Whether it was or wasn’t, he stopped when he reached her. Then he stood before her and took her hand in his. loz!

And the contact, skin on skin, floored him.

It was so…tactile.

It made him remember the images that had been dancing in his head ever since he’d brought up sex in her presence. It made him imagine it all in intricate detail.

It made him hard and needy, but better yet, it made her tremble.

Very solemnly, he took the ring—the glorious ring that in many ways was Idylla’s standard to wave proudly before the world—and slid it onto one of her slender fingers.

And because he was a gentleman and a king, did not point out that she was shaking while he did it.

“And now,” he said, in a low voice that should have been smooth, or less harshly possessive, but wasn’t, “you are truly my betrothed. The woman who will be my bride. My queen. Your name will be bound to mine for eternity.”

CHRISTMAS IN THE KING’S BED

Caitlin Crews

Available next month

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

http://www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Canada

Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower