was done, lifting her head to find him slumped back against the edge of the bath and trying to breathe again, to see again.
But always he would see Lizzan’s smile. She straddled his thighs, wound her arms around his neck, and brought her face so close to his.
“Your seed did not become water, but I believe Vela just purified your prick,” she said, and as his spent lungs huffed out a laugh, she caught his mouth in a kiss.
This, the goddess must have purified, too—for never had Aerax known anything so sweet or so fine as Lizzan’s smiling lips upon his. The kiss ended too quickly, her hands framing his face as she drew back.
“This is not what I intended to do when I next saw you,” she said on a sigh. “Being near you makes me forget all else.”
An affliction he suffered, too. “I am not sorry.”
“Nor am I.” Her fingers twined into the hair at his nape. “You are fair good at seduction.”
“I forgot that began this,” he admitted, and watched her smile return. “And I’m fortunate you are easily pleased. I couldn’t have seduced you in full.”
New light touched Lizzan’s face. “You still haven’t had your moon night?”
“I am pledged to you.” He frowned. “Do you think I would ever touch another?”
Her shrug seemed careless, but the searching depths of her gaze were not. “I was exiled and my name struck from the books.”
And she had pledged herself to Aerax while his name was still unwritten. No difference at all did it make to him. Had she thought it would?
“What of it?”
“Nothing at all.” Blithely she walked two fingers from his chest to his throat. “Except that I bedded hundreds of men and women after leaving Koth.”
His eyes narrowed. “All at once?”
She snorted out a laugh, but a rare vulnerability he saw in her prevented him from teasing more. Not for a moment did Aerax believe it. She was still as virgin as he. But Aerax had not left Koth with her at the same moment she’d been rejected by her people. If she needed him to think that hundreds of lovers had desired her . . . in truth, that was easy for Aerax to believe. Harder to believe was that she’d allowed someone close enough to warm her bed.
In Koth, taking casual lovers was often frowned upon, for legend said the god Varrin had not. There was always a pledge of love first, followed by marriage that bound them together, and so they remained until death.
Aerax knew that the story of the devoted god was as false as Koth itself. Yet in that aspect alone, he was truly of the realm.
There was only Lizzan. There would only ever be Lizzan.
After a moment, she sighed and glanced up at him. “I thought it might be the purpose that only someone of Varrin’s bloodline could do—to fill the palace again with snow-haired babies.”
“My uncle has done that well enough with his new wives.”
Again her shoulders rose in that not-truly-careless shrug.
He caught her stubborn chin and made her look at him. “Even if we were not pledged, do you think I’d touch a woman who would never have spoken my name before a scrawl of ink gave me worth? Who would never have even seen me?”
“I thought it might be a prince’s duty.”
“They’ve tried to tell me so.” But he shook his head. “My only duty to Koth is to make certain it does not sink while people still live there. Never would I allow a child of mine to be born on that island. If I could, Lizzan, I would exile everyone I love from it. I am glad you are not there—and if your brothers and mother were not so stubbornly devoted to preserving all that Koth pretends that it is, I would have sent them away to find you.”
Her chin quivered against his thumb. “You are glad I am exiled?”
“I am not,” he said, his throat thick because his heart could not bear the gleam of tears he saw. “I miss you fiercely. I hate that you bear a shame you should not. But I am glad you are away from Koth.”
“And I would rather be nameless there instead of cursed and shunned here.” Blinking rapidly, she tilted her head back, drew a shuddering breath. “Why did you not tell me the true reason you remained silent? Did you think I wouldn’t understand that you wanted to save my life? Do you think I wouldn’t