Chapter 57
Fifty-Seven
Sorselan
Months later . . .
“She could not be any cuter,” Kosmina said from her spot on the floor. Hearts in her eyes, she rolled a ball across the carpet.
“Or more mischievous,” Adham said fondly from his spot beside his mate. “She pincered another pair of my boots.”
“Naughty, stingerling,” Kosmina cooed to their baby scorpion as it fetched the ball. Mirceo, as a token of goodwill, had apologized about Sequara and sourced this one for them. “Our wittle Sequaret must need more toys.”
Adham raised his brows. Scorpion toys already covered an entire floor of their new home.
Unlike his former stronghold, he’d built his mate a vampiric castle in the style of Dacia’s, with flying buttresses, arches, and Gothic turrets. Diamond windows filtered the sunlight during the day, and a blood fountain bubbled in her spacious salon.
He’d situated the structure on the banks of his oasis amid all the fruit trees and dunes, using sand to move blocks. Constructed in record time, it was the most spectacular thing he’d ever built.
Sequaret tired of chasing her toy and trundled over to her bed, all but purring. As the creature nodded off, Kosmina sighed, her gaze besotted. Though she’d begun to dream snippets of his memories, her irises remained blue. “I never liked arachnids before her.”
“They grow on you.”
As the sun set, the evening breezes roused to stir the castle’s many windchimes. Recalling today’s blistering sun, he rubbed his palm over the back of his neck. At some level, it must unnerve her to be here. “You know, we won’t always be exiled. We will fight the Gaolers.” Those phantasms had placed another bounty on Adham and also on Kosmina, which meant he would soon discover how to annihilate them.
With her by his side, he was strong. Still, he’d always be on his guard against power theft and their foes.
Aside from his sentries of sand and their growing guard-scorpion, he’d implemented more traps. And with the help of Mirceo and Caspion, they’d teleported the drunken scyllas here to inhabit the grounds around the castle. The fraught drying-out period for the creatures had proved eye-opening, but lessons had been learned, and everyone had grown from the experience.
“We will fight them. Yes,” Kosmina said. “But I don’t consider this exile.” She rose and took his hand, leading him out onto their large observation deck to watch the rising moon. She lifted her face to the gentle kiss of wind, seeming enamored with the breezes here. Little wonder. When Mina had traced him to Dacia to pack her things, not even a wisp of air had disturbed the ever-present mist.
At the railing, they admired the scene before them. Palm fronds rustled and waves lapped the clear water. The globe of a full yellow moon peeked over shifting dunes. “This is home.” She’d just said the words when a purple tentacle curled around a baluster. Then came another tentacle of a slightly deeper color. Used to this nightly ritual, she pulled jerky from her pockets and treated their scyllas.
With sounds of beastly delight, they took their prizes to the base of the castle. When more tentacles reemerged, she emptied her pockets with a chuckle. “Greedy scyllas.” Kosmina truly did love it here amid all the sand and sun and monsters.
Marveling at his mate, he had to say, “Still . . . do you not miss being the heart of Dacia?”
She turned her face to him, her pale skin bathed in the moonlight. “Mirceo and Caspion are the heart now,” she said easily. “Did I tell you they’re coming for dinner tomorrow night?”
“Must they?” Adham asked, though he didn’t mind. He felt only gratitude toward them, often wondered what would have become of him had a young Dacian prince not swiped a random reward poster.
Kosmina’s brother and brother-by-fate made her happy, which made him happy. Plus, the pair weren’t nearly as bad as he’d thought they’d be.
In fact, all the members of her family continued to trace over, forever debating the best defensive measures to keep their beloved Mina out of the Gaolers’ reach.
The Dacians were indeed a contingent of talented warriors. With that much skill and might united, Adham and the Dacians could take on the Gaolers in a preemptive strike. He intended to broach his new plan for war during their next gathering.
He wouldn’t rest until he’d neutralized that threat and plucked Kosmina’s heirloom sword back from their grasp. Not for revenge. Simply because his mate wanted it.
“They must,” Kosmina answered with a grin. But it faded as she said, “We’re going to plot how to get Furie’s location out of Lothaire.” She’d explained to her uncle that she herself had drowned and couldn’t bear the idea of Kristoff’s mate suffering like that again and again. She’d beseeched him to help. Maybe with Queen Ellie’s assistance, they could make inroads with the Enemy of Old.
Whenever Adham replayed Kosmina’s drowning, he didn’t understand how Kristoff was still sane, considering his mate’s plight. Whenever Adham replayed his own burial, he understood why Lothaire wasn’t .
“My uncle must reveal that information sooner or later. As my mate likes to say, it’s as good as done.” She leaned against Adham, sighing when he looped an arm around her shoulders, and relaxation stole over them.
They still didn’t know if N?x had targeted Kosmina—the soothsayer’s intervention with Lothaire and Kristoff leading them to Nightside indicated so—but if this life of theirs was the result of the Valkyrie’s meddling, then he was a fan.
“When you were out checking the traps earlier, I had some company,” Kosmina said. “Queen Ellie traced Balery over.”
“If only this place had more visitors,” he said wryly, dropping a kiss against her hair.
“It is a little like a teleportation station, isn’t it?” She chuckled. “But this was a business visit as well. Balery wanted to test my blood again just to be sure all my markers were holding steady.”
He tensed beside Kosmina, turning her to face him. “And?” he barked, all relaxation vanished.
When worry filled Adham’s expression, Mina quickly said, “No illness remains.” Though Balery had pointed out that drinking from a sorcerer like Adham had given her potent levels of magic.
Mina spied traces of it everywhere, shimmering like the gold dust over the dunes of their lands. She could even see him radiating magic whenever he gazed at her.
“Good. Good.” He exhaled, tension leaving his body. “Good,” he repeated, as if he recited a spell to ward off ill-humors.
“I’m fine. I’m safe.” She leaned up to press a kiss to his lips that swiftly grew heated. When she drew back, his expression promised wicked lovemaking, and she could hardly wait to experience the divine again. Her bite mark on his neck from earlier had healed, and he’d be eager for her to renew it in various places all over his body.
Afterward, they might explore more of the desert or frolic in the spring. And at moonset, as the windchimes and wavelets soothed her like a lullaby, she would drift off in his arms.
Each day as she slept, she experienced his memories—vague sensations of sun on her face, foods she’d never eaten, wines she’d never drunk. The woozy swim of opium. Her favorite was his recollection of tracking a deer across hoof-marked dunes toward what would eventually become their home. . . .
Yet now he frowned down at her. “Had you been worried about this, love?”
“Not really, since I’m able to return at will past Dacia’s boundary. But I wanted to make sure about my health before I talked to you about this.” She tapped his cuff. “You won’t always have to wear it if you don’t want to.”
His tension returned. “You want children?”
“I’ve always dreamed of a family, but I had no specific urge before I met you. Yet now . . . yes. I want our children.”
His brows drew together. “My first thought is that we’re fugitives, so we can’t plan for our future. But fuck that. We live on our terms together.”
Her lips curled. “I thought you’d say that, my optimistic, hardworking sorcerer.”
“You really would start a family”—he cleared his throat into a fist—“with me?”
“Adham, you’re him . And they’ll be them .”
Nodding, eyes a little wild, he yanked off the cuff and tossed it away.
As he took her lips, she surrendered to his magic. She’d once hoped for molten gold with this man, but she now knew the hottest fires between them would never cool. Those flames thrummed and glowed, their bond alive with heat. They enjoyed nothing less . . .
. . . than heaven.