“No ... wait ...” With great reluctance, I gently pushed him up. He complied immediately, still hovering over me but halting in his advances. A regretful look came over his face.

“Too soon,” he guessed.

“Eh, well, not exactly ... I mean I have no problem doing it,” I said. “I just don’t know where we stand with ... other stuff.”

He considered this. “I assume we stand in a much better place than before.”

I almost laughed. “Well, yes, but there are things we need to figure out.”

Dorian stared at me and brushed hair from my face. “Not me. I already know everything I need to know.”

I fell into that gaze and felt something start to open in my heart. I began to reach toward him, wanting to kiss him again when—

“Your Majesty!”

The perfect, golden moment shattered as I heard voices and running feet. Well, it shattered for me, at least. From the way I had to get out from under him, it was clear that Dorian could have continued kissing through a war zone. I sat up in the grass, dazzled by the sun and my pounding heart and the myriad feelings churning within me. I fixed my shirt and hoped I didn’t look too disheveled. It took my soldiers a moment to find me, since I no longer traveled with a bodyguard at all times. They looked relieved to see me.

“Your Majesty,” exclaimed the leader, giving me a quick bow. “You have a visitor. Roland Storm Slayer is—”

“Roland!”

He was walking out across the green toward us, in no haste to keep up with the guards who had heralded his arrival. I ran to him with my arms outstretched and heard Dorian say ruefully, “A man can never compete with a woman’s father.”

Roland lifted me up and spun me around as he returned the hug. His eyes shone, and I actually think he looked more relieved to see me now than he had in Alabama.

“Eugenie, you’re alive,” he said, once he’d set me down. He still kept his arms around me. “When so much time went by without any news, I thought ... well, I thought the worst.” He glanced around at the verdant landscape. “I take it you fixed the problem.”

“We did,” I said happily. “We’ve still got a lot of recovery to do, but things are on the mend. That’s why I haven’t been able to get back to you. Plus, Volusian’s gone—banished—so I couldn’t send a message.”

That earned me raised eyebrows. “I wondered why I hadn’t heard from him. Though I can’t say I’m disappointed he’s gone.”

Dorian reached us then and gave Roland a nod of greeting. “I agree with you on that,” Dorian said. “Though, as much as I hate acknowledging it, Volusian was the reason we were able to destroy the blight in the end.”