“I’m the king, Sweetheart. I can do anything I want.” His teeth caught my earlobe, tugging lightly on the single piercing there before he released it.

“How?”

He dragged his tongue slowly over the line of hoops that made up the crown on my ear. “I heard someone bring up the possibility of me helping repopulate as a joke one afternoon. After a little thinking, I realized I had an opportunity to change my fate. I brought up what I’d heard to the most vocal traditionalist, knowing he would spread it wildly while speaking cruelties against the turned humans. It went to a vote less than two days later, and the warriors voted against the traditionalists, just like I expected.”

“Wow. You are totally a politician.”

He chuckled. “In this situation, I suppose the label applies.”

“Why did you want a mate so badly?”

“I was entirely alone. Books were the one thing that kept me sane. When the possibility of having a partner arose for the first time in my life, I wasn’t going to let it pass by.” He kissed my forehead again, and I started to doze off. “This life may not be what you expected, but I will do everything I possibly can to make you happier than you’ve ever dreamed. That is a vow.”

I fell asleep feeling something I hadn’t in a long time.

Wanted.

fourteen

TRITON

For the first time since I brought my mate back from her world, I slept soundly. The few occasions I woke, it was because she’d smacked into me in her sleep. The woman never stopped moving when she was unconscious, and it made me grin every time.

When I eventually woke, she was still sleeping, so I retrieved a book with a small strip of water.

With her lying on my chest, I focused on an ancient story about the endless war between the lion and wolf shifters. No one knew exactly how it started, but both parties had grown extremely violent in the millennium since it began. I knew both leaders well, and their ruthlessness certainly hadn’t faded.

Aria’s hand slid over my abdomen as she woke, and my cock throbbed.

It would take weeks of frequent sex to convince my body that I wasn’t about to starve it of physical contact again. Maybe months. I looked forward to the day that I wasn’t always erect around my mate. Mostly because it was easier to think when I wasn’t hard.

“We’re naked, huh?” Aria mumbled.

“Yes.” I didn’t lower a hand to her spine and trace it slowly like I’d been itching to do all morning.

“I think I was supposed to be putting distance between us so we can learn things about each other.

“We can learn without clothes on.”

“Guess so.”