Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
And now one of them was bickering with her man three feet from me and the other one was babbling at me.
I thought this should be good.
But they were so odd, I worried it was bad.
“I am also witch,” I shared.
She smiled largely. “Awesome!”
“If you want to row, row, for heaven’s sake!” Finnie cried, got up, cast a longsuffering glance at Maddie, then stomped down the beach to their boat.
“We’ll be back,” Frey murmured, rising and following her much more slowly.
“Do you have any more of this mango juice?” Maddie asked. “It’s delicious!”
I had a servant bring her more juice. I then asked another to change the sheets and tidy Aramus and my tent for Finnie and Frey and see to it that Maddie and Apollo had appropriate accommodation. Last, I had another bounden pack a small bag with things for myself and my husband that we could take to The Finnie.
Frey and Finnie came back and Aramus loaded up the bag and rowed us to The Finnie.
And now we were there.
In the captain’s cabin.
After nearly a year of marriage.
Ready to consummate it.
I had the desire to rush back up the steps onto the deck and jump into the sea.
I quelled this by staring out of the paned window at the back of the cabin. Aramus had one like that on the Siren’s Scream, including the bench under it covered in pillows and cushions for lounging.
“Princess Seoafin and Lady Madeleine are lovely, aren’t they?” I asked.
“Ha-Lah.”
“Though odd. I can’t put my finger on it—”
“Ha-Lah.”
“But they’re charming. Just… peculiar. Though not in a bad way.”
“They’re from a parallel universe.”
My head swiveled around to my husband.
“Pardon?”
“They are not of this world. They’re of another one. A world that has all the same people as here, but different. Twins. All of the witches who defeated Minerva are from that other world. I did not know this, but while you were seeing to our tent, Apollo shared he’d noted our reactions and he told me.”
“They…they’re from another world?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he confirmed impatiently.
“By the seas,” I breathed.
“I have promised Apollo, thus we cannot speak a word of it to anyone. Particularly about Finnie. She is not strictly of royal blood. It would put the whole House of Wilde, which is the ruling House of Lunwyn, in disarray, and her son, who is to assume rule very shortly, in peril.”
“Those Lunwynian Houses don’t seem to get along very well,” I muttered, for I had heard some stories and not many of them were fairytales.
“I do not care about Lunwynian Houses. I care that my wife has situated herself all the way across the cabin and gives every appearance of wishing to avoid me while alone in a room with me, this along with being terrified of me.”
I realized then that I had done just that.
Far from him.
And far from the cozy, cocoon of a bed that was situated against the side wall.
A bed my husband was standing in front of.
I drew in breath and found his gaze.
Then I drew in courage.
When I had it, I said quietly, “I am not terrified of you, Aramus. I’m terrified that I will not please you.”
His powerful body gave a sudden jerk.
And then his face grew gentle.
So gentle, the very air in the cabin felt a velvet.
“I fear I must break our pact, my Ha-Lah, even though we have not had it for long,” he said in a voice as gentle as his face. “Thus, I must ask, how much is your ‘not much?’”
“Very much not much, my husband,” I whispered.
And at that, his face grew downright tender.
“Come here, my queen.”
On slow feet, I walked to him.
When I came near, with careful arms, like he was gathering a wounded kitten close, he pulled me to him and held me there.
“I very much wish to end what has felt like years of wanting you and not having you, and do it swiftly,” he said softly. “But instead, first, and I will warn you, it might take all night, I will endeavor to enumerate the many, many ways you please me, my queen.”
“Aramus,” I breathed, his words causing me to melt into his big, strong, solid, warm frame.
And thus, he began.
“Your beauty. I could gaze on you for hours, days, years, millennia, until this planet falls from the sky, and I would not tire of it.”
By Medusa.
“Husband.”
“Your wit. The way you tease me. It makes me smile and entices me, all at once.”
I slid my arms around his waist and whispered, “Darling.”
“You have the voice of a siren.”
He thought that?
“I could lose my sight, and just be able to listen to you and be a very happy man.”
He thought that.
But he was wrong.
This would not take all night.
For already, I could not take more.
“Please, you must—” I tried.
“Your power,” he continued “Knowing you, I should have known it would be naught but the magnificence it is. And it is, my queen. It’s magnificent.”