Chapter 26
twenty-six
The Midnight King’s bedroom breathed.
I felt it the moment I stepped into the doors that two soldiers had opened for us, and Rune invited me to enter.
It breathed down my neck, and it saw me. Every corner of the walls, every edge of furniture, every reflecting surface—it was looking at me. Just like the Ice Queen’s bedroom had done.
Rune led me toward the large bed, and now that I’d been back home, that the memory of normal beds was fresh in my mind, I realized how utterly ridiculous it was to even make a bed so big.
The sheets here were a dark grey, silk, and the room smelled of shadows, deeper and darker than anything I’d ever smelled before.
The Midnight crest was engraved and embossed everywhere, even the polished marble floors and pillars.
The smooth black walls seemed to absorb the light of the fae lights in the crystals mounted on them.
The room wasn’t crowded with too many things, but everything in it was black.
Even the wood of the bed was painted a glossy black, same as the desk and the tables, and the racks of weapons on opposite walls.
The bookshelf, too. Black wood, and it held rows and rows of black tomes only.
The windows were as tall as the walls, and through them we could see the dark sky of the Midnight Court, which never changed. It was forever dark here. Forever night.
We didn’t talk. Rune stopped behind me, took the cloak off my shoulders and left it somewhere—I didn’t care to see. With his hands on my shoulders, he led me toward the bed, came and sat at the edge of it, wrapped his arms around me and hugged me.
Tears in my eyes again, but they didn’t spill. I was a mess of feelings—heartbroken over time lost and relieved that I was here now and terrified of what the next day, the next hour might bring.
“Talk to me,” Rune whispered softly, his lips pressed the top of my head.
Except, I didn’t want to do that, did I? Words were just that—words. And in times like these, I didn’t want to use them. They weren’t enough.
“I don’t want to talk.” When I blinked, the tears slid down my cheeks, but no new ones came forth. I raised my head a little, and Rune wiped the trail of them with his thumbs, his hands on my face, his eyes so full, so vibrant. “I just need you.”
“You have me,” he said, pressing his forehead to mine in an almost desperate way. “You have all of me, Wildcat. I don’t know how to breathe without you anymore.”
Funny, because that was exactly how I felt, too. Like I hadn’t breathed since the day I was banished, and until this very second. A mystery how I remained alive.
Rune didn’t kiss me, though I thought he might. Instead, he nudged his nose to mine and said, “Stand up.”
I did. His word was my command long before he was king.
Right now, I didn’t see him as one, either.
No matter where we were or how we’d gotten here, I didn’t see him as king or myself as whatever the hell I really was—we were just Rune and Nilah.
A boy and a girl who’d been apart for much longer than they liked, and they were about to show each other just how much it had hurt them.
We were both in pain, bent, but we weren’t broken. We were almost whole again.
I stood in front of him and he remained seated while he slowly undid the zipper of my jeans. Then he pulled my leg up, put my foot over his knee, and took off my sneakers and my socks.
My jeans and underwear followed. I was tempted to be shy for a moment there, but the way he looked at me left me no other choice but to mirror the fascination he felt as he analyzed me.
His hair was a mess. His eyes were wide open, his lips parted as he looked at every little inch of my skin his fingers trailed over. Gently at first.
Pushing my shirt up, he leaned in and planted a kiss right over my belly button, and my eyes closed. A loud sigh escaped my parted lips. My skin rose in goose bumps everywhere at once, and I thought I heard my very soul whispering, finally.
Rune planted small kisses all over my stomach, and he took his time until I was about ready to melt right there between his hands.
But then he stood up, too, took my shirt and my bra off within seconds, then leaned back and looked down at my naked body like it really was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. Like he was in awe.
I loved him more for it, for the way he made me feel, so comfortable in my skin. In those moments, I was invincible. There was nothing I couldn’t do.
Then Rune leaned down and grabbed me, swooping me off my feet.
My arms wrapped around his neck instinctively.
He carried me like I weighed nothing but a feather, and then he walked ahead somewhere, toward the wall on the other side of the room.
I didn’t look away from him and he didn’t look away from me, but I saw when the wall moved, slid to the side to reveal a dark space behind.
The bathroom was roughly the same size as the one in the Ice Palace—a fucking hall set with shiny black tiles, the details silver—the faucets and the basins and the rim of the large round tub in the middle of the room.
It was all incredibly beautiful in an almost gothic kind of way, and Rune set me down on my feet right near the tub.
“Don’t move,” he told me, then leaned over to reach the faucet with one hand and released his shadows into the tub with the other. They faded away into nothing within seconds, and as the water poured, it almost looked like it was chasing them away.
“What are you doing?” I whispered with a smile.
“Taking care of you,” he said. “It’s my favorite thing to do.” His fist rose between us and his fingers opened slowly to reveal a small light as it took shape and all those perfect details. I didn’t dare blink until the little blue bird—my friend—was whole.
It made zero sense that I would feel all warm and fuzzy at the sight of that bird because I knew what it was. I knew it was just magic—but it was my bird. It was everything it meant, that Rune was there, that I was safe, that I was not alone.
The bird moved those little wings as if it really were real and rose in the air, touching its beak to the tip of my nose. I felt the energy, the heat of the magic clearly against my skin, and instead of crying, my smile grew bigger.
The bird flew in the air and the fae lights that had been on around the room dimmed to almost nothing, possibly at Rune’s command. Like that, I could clearly see the bird as it flew near the tall ceiling in circles, silent but cheerful to be there. Or at least it looked like that to me.
Then Rune took my hand and turned me toward the tub that was already filled halfway. “Go on. Get in,” he whispered, and held me by the waist while I stepped into the tub. The water was warm, the perfect temperature, and I was sure it was Rune’s shadows that were keeping it that way.
When I got in, Rune moved fast, took his own shoes and pants off without ever breaking eye contact with me, but kept his shirt on. Like that, he got into the tub behind me, and with his hands on my waist and his lips pressed to my ear, he said, “Sit.”
I didn’t have to be told twice.
I sat in the tub and the faucet was moving, turning itself off, guided by Rune’s shadows that I hadn’t even seen him use. And he sat, too—on the silver edge of the tub, his hands on me the whole time until he settled me right between his legs.
The water covered me up to my nipples. Rune set my head over his thigh gently and began to wet my shoulders and chest and arms little by little.
My eyes closed and my soul finally rested.
With the blue light of my bird behind my lids and the water hugging my body and Rune’s hands all over me—I finally, really rested, and I didn’t move an inch for the longest time.
I let go of the anger and the sadness, and those memories that hung like omens right over my head even now, so powerful because of the fear that fueled them. The fear that I might wake up right now in a different fucking world and start to spiral out of control all over again.
I must have lost track of time—or maybe even fell asleep at some point—but when my eyes opened again, I was still in the tub. The water hadn’t cooled at all and Rune was still pouring it over my shoulders, touching my neck, caressing my hair, never making a single sound.
A look up at his bloodshot eyes, and my stomach ignited as if by the press of a button.
He was staring at my body so intently, at my nipples that just peaked through the water. I pushed myself farther up and touched his cock with my shoulder—he was hard.
That’s all it took for my body to come alive, except when I made to move a little higher up, Rune put his hand over my chest and pushed me down again.
Our eyes locked. His lips were parted and he breathed heavily.
His hand moved down to my breasts and he ran his fingertips over my nipples.
I could have been sitting in a tub full of flames all of the sudden.
“Rune,” I whispered, and even my whisper cracked.
He leaned down until his lip hovered over mine. “I’m going to take care of you, wildling. And you’re going sit there and enjoy it.”
It was a damn order, and I willingly obeyed.
The next second he kissed me, and his tongue was in my mouth, exploring, devouring, like only he knew how.
His hand was on my breasts, massaging, caressing, and the other slid lower, down to my stomach, his touch feather light but so damn intense at the same time.
And the water gave everything a brand-new feel.
Rune took his time and played with me, and though a part of me was desperate, impatient to feel all of him everywhere on me, I sat back and I let him set his own pace.
The more he touched me, the slower he went, the more I realized that I needed this.
I needed to just be. Sit here in his arms and exist only to be pleased.
That was exactly what I did.