He breathed. “I forgive you.” She moved to get off his lap, but he caught her and held her against him. It wasn’t an emotion, it was a decision. He forgave her, even of the things that weren’t her fault. This was too precious to let the past destroy it.

“Jeni,” he said as he had said the night of their wedding. “Jeni, will you kiss me?”

She smiled and laughed and almost cried—and kissed him, still laughing. She pulled away and beat her fists on his chest.

“What?” Logan asked, alarmed.

“You can’t do this to me. I can’t feel all this at once!”

He grinned, and felt that he was himself once again. The idealistic, noble Logan and the wry, carefree Logan and the fierce, primal Logan were being reunited, reintroduced to each other—and Logan would need all of them to be the man and husband and king that he wanted to be. “Then just feel this,” he said.

He kissed her again softly, slowly drawing her in, and in the pleasant blur of minutes that followed, they rebuilt their passion.

The thoughts came again like buzzing flies, but Logan ignored them. No, you won’t have this. This is precious. This is ours.

As their kisses became more heated, those thoughts—and all thoughts—dimmed into the background and disappeared altogether beneath the scents of lavender and faint sweat and her breath, and the feel of her weight on his lap and her hands on his body and her skin beneath his lips and—finally!—his hands won through all the layers of skirts and he felt slim, stockinged calves and his fingers traced that silk up to silkier skin. Jeni moved her hips against him.

Logan jumped to his feet and set Jenine on hers. Eyes wide, he cleared his throat, “The royal apartments can’t be far,” he said. “If you can wait five minutes—”

Jenine grabbed him. They didn’t wait.

When Kylar opened his eyes, he was lying in a soft bed. High overhead, the ceiling was covered with an elaborate mosaic of a warrior hanging onto a Titan’s neck, a huge black sword drawn back in his hand for a killing blow. It was Kylar, but the mosaic was centuries old. Kylar turned.

At first, he didn’t recognize Vi. For the first time he’d ever seen, she wore her luxurious, wavy red hair unbound. A single streak of it was stark white. She was seated beside his bed, holding his hand, her green eyes closed in sleep. There were red tulips on the bedside table.

Epilogue