“Farah, please rest assured, and I wish you to take this in and know it completely, I am quite all right with you meeting us in our bedchamber, your beauty openly exposed for me, every night for the rest of our lives.”

She stared up at him.

Then she dissolved in laughter.

True again grinned down at her.

“Though next time,” he said through her amusement, “know you have my permission to actually throw yourself at me, rather than waiting for me to come to you.”

She kept laughing and did it harder.

True kept smiling at her.

She got hold of herself (mostly) and then moved her other hand so she could frame his face in both.

When she had a hold on him, she declared, “We are husband and wife.”

They were.

Thank the gods.

He felt his body settle further into hers.

“Yes, darling,” he agreed.

“I am truly yours,” she said.

His voice was thick at knowing what this meant to him, hearing what it meant to her, when he replied, “Yes.”

“And you are mine.”

“Yes, Farah.”

The tears sprang to her eyes.

“None of that,” he whispered, shifting his own hand to her face in order to rub the pad of his thumb along her cheek.

“They are happy tears.”

“All right. Then I’ll allow it,” he muttered.

She gave him a watery smile.

And then she gave him the new meaning to his life.

“It will all be much. Too much. Who you are. What you must give to your people. Overwhelming. Onerous. Sometimes monotonous. Also, frustrating. I know there will be victories. Successes. Advancements. Celebrations. But I practically grew up in Catrame Palace. I know what the duty you face is. I saw Ares assume that mantle every day, and he was a great king, but he was also human. I could not miss sometimes he did it with reservations, or fatigue. But here, True…”

She explained “here” by again wrapping her arms about him, her legs tensing where they were still curled around his thighs.

“Here, for both of us, is sanctuary,” she finished.

Sanctuary.

Gods, just the word from her lips in their bed, her body beneath his, made him feel he was there.

Thus, yes.

She was right.

This was sanctuary.

“I will listen,” she said. “If you wish it, I will give my advice. If you must rail, I will keep quiet and be your sounding board, allowing you to release it. If you must fume, I will give you nothing but patience and my ear. But this,” she squeezed him again, “is where you come, and know you are understood. You know you have unwavering support. You know it is yours, it is ours. And that is all. The world does not enter here. It is just you and me. It is us.”

He felt his throat close and he feared his eyes, too, were growing wet.

He loved her.

He could not do this without her. Not navigating the loss of his mother. Not the taking of the throne. Not dealing with Alfie. Not living the rest of the days of his life.