Chapter 23 Maggie #2
We sat at a candle-lit table with the bustle of a warm, vibrant crowd around us.
Food appeared before us without ordering.
The hum of patrons created a white noise that left us in our own little world.
Face to face, I realized we were more alike than I thought when he was just my target for vengeance.
I would have killed to visit here in real life.
Not only for the delicious food set before us, but for the joy of living all around us, the pleasure on Noth’s face.
We were both irrepressible in the best and worst way, our emotions hot as our ambitions for this life.
Was that why we were fated to come together as Mates?
I didn’t seem like nearly enough for eternity and somehow all we needed.
“Are we allowed to dance?”
“We’re allowed to do whatever we want here. And I’m trying to seduce you back to my side, so I will make this anything I want.”
“You mean anything I want?”
He shrugged. “Potato, potato.”
“That’s not how the saying… nevermind. I didn’t think it was possible to make you more arrogant.”
I took his hand and he swept me onto the dance floor the small space transformed into. The cheers and the elation of the crowd spurred him on. Noth led me into the waltz my heart wanted even if I was expecting a reel. We flowed together because, of course, he danced with elegant grace.
“How are you so good at this?”
He raised his chin, proud of himself. “All part of the title. Trained since birth, as it were.”
I pictured Yaya slapping his calves into position like she had with my fighting stance.
We didn’t speak further, but we didn’t need to. He gazed down into my eyes with a feral possessiveness that I felt through the bond. Our connection fought to grow in time with our steps.
Moving together was always the easiest part for us and I missed it more than I could say.
Fighting, fucking, or apparently dancing was just fun, easy.
I wasn’t worried about my temper or how we looked.
The politics and complications were a million miles away.
It was like we were merging into one person as we moved.
If only this dream would last forever, I would never leave. Noth dipped me with a dramatic flourish, acting like he was going to drop me. I yelped, clutching at him until he whipped me back up.
“Is this my dream, or yours?” I asked.
“Ours, I think. I’ve never had a mate so I’m not sure.”
If this was my dream, then I would have a bit of fun and finally win our little game when I couldn’t really hurt him.
I called a dagger into my hand and plunged it into his chest. The scream he let out wavered the restaurant around us.
I sucked in a shocked breath. Scrabbling my hands against the knife, I pulled it out to take it back.
I shrieked just as loudly as Noth clutched his chest, blood pumping out of the wound.
“You finally did it, Pumpkin. You killed me.” Falling to the floor, he writhed around in agony.
“Seven hells, Noth! You can’t die. I was just joking around.” On my knees, I ripped open his shirt, doing everything I could to staunch the flow, panic and terror crawling up my throat. “I can kill you in our dreams?”
“Nah.” Noth smiled up at me, all the blood suddenly gone. “That would be dumb. My dreams would be no fun. I deserved a little payback for all your failed assassination attempts.”
I smacked him right over where the wound had gaped across his chest. “You dragon dick! I can’t believe you did that.”
Noth laughed and pulled me down on top of him, rolling us over and over until we settled on the floor of his fully restored greenhouse.
Sparkling windows and thriving plants winked in a surreal bath of sunlight.
The change in location made my head swim.
Luckily I was still lying down, albeit in a bed of flowers.
“I understand what you have been doing here is important, Pumpkin. You were right. We needed time away. But I’m here to beg you to come back. I don’t… I don’t know if I’m going to make it without you.”
What was he talking about? His open shirt revealed his sculpted chest, but also, I counted his Goddsforsaken ribs!
“Noth. What have you been doing that you look like this?”
“A little planning. A little mayhem. I rooted out all of Brad's supporters. I built a new school for those still searching for their powers. I imprisoned one of the Councilors.”
My eyebrows met my hairline. “The mouthy one?”
“One and the same. I rebuilt the greenhouse. It looks like this now.”
I realized as he continued to list all of his improvements that although they would indeed benefit his people, they were really for me.
The Councilor insulted me. I would never be safe until the last of Brad’s lackeys were dead.
I could have used a school like that in my childhood.
My embarrassing breakdown over the greenhouse was now fixed.
“Did you rip your world apart for me?”
Noth did this cute little blushing thing that somehow managed to make him look innocent. Words tumbled out of his mouth.
“There’s a new planetarium so you can create your charts. Yaya promised to bake Melwyyn for every holiday. I have these diamonds. Well, not these dream diamonds, real ones, I can give you when we wake up.”
He pulled out a string of stones that sparkled in the afternoon light slanting through the greenhouse.
He remembered that from one passing comment?
I didn't know my heart could turn to mush. I had my own diamonds, but I wouldn’t say no to more.
To his. They would make a stunning choker and set of earrings to go with my crown.
“They’re beautiful,” I said.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to realize there was a problem. I got what I wanted but it needed to be better. What am I King for if I can’t remake my territory?”
“I hope you know I didn’t leave because you needed to change. I accept the reality of your life is a hard one. It doesn’t scare me.” I traced the scar from Brad up and over his chin.
“I’ve taken it as far as I can on my own. Nothing else will change without you.”
“Pretty words.” I smiled to take the sting out of them, but it was true. I had heard weak declarations my whole life.
He pushed my hair back from my face. “You think only the monster inside me wants a mate, but it’s not true, Pumpkin.
I’m a King in need of my perfect Queen. And if you trust nothing but my ego, it’s completely selfish of me to want you.
I’ll bring you cake, or souls, or heads to lay at your feet.
I’ll burn every inch of the Harrowlands if you need me to. ”
I gasped, my heart shaking, because his voice cracked with his intent, his fingers lengthening to claws.
“Please, Maggie. I recognize I’m asking a lot but I’m begging you to take me.
I want to fight with you every day and make you as happy as I was the day you slipped that dagger between my ribs.
No matter what you choose, there’s no surviving you.
I will never hold you back. Just let me be at your side. ”
I swallowed hard. Okay, no one had ever offered to hand me a severed head, or more importantly–cake. Somehow Noth had stripped away a layer of hard shell around my soul that allowed me to reunite with Evie and accept his words now.
“I needed to deserve that, Noth.”
“Do you?” he asked.
“I’m getting there.”
His eyes started to glow a hellish red. The dreamscape made them smoke and burn. “Well, that will have to be close enough. I can’t be apart from you anymore. I will run the territory from Ward’s outhouse if I have to.”
“Bite me.”
His Nightmare was on me in a blink. A wolf with dragon scales and a few extra limbs caged me to the ground.
“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, Maggie,” he rumbled.
“I do mean it. I will never stop learning how to be better but I know enough not to get us killed. Maybe enough not to break your heart by just being me. I don’t want a wedding. So bite me.”
“Oh, I will, my little assassin. But if you will indulge me, I can promise it will be worth it.”
Excitement bubbled up into my kiss as his Elven face emerged. I wanted to start again with Noth. His choice. My choice. With no Fate or power-ups or territories or mates between us. Two psychos against the Harrowlands.
“You’ll have to make it worth it.”
“And you’ll have to trust me, Maggie.”
“I do, Noth.”
I did.