Love.

He had been right.

Over breakfast was perfect timing.

“Here,” he whispered. “My study. A meadow. The moon. Anywhere, my love, it is yours, I am yours, and that is all.”

“I would experience it all again, if it brought me to you,” she whispered tremulously.

True reached to her cheek, running his knuckles through the wet, then opening his hand to slide his fingers into the side of her hair.

“I love you, True,” she said.

And he had her love.

“I am blessed,” he told her his truth.

“Not as much as I,” she returned.

“No, Farah, I am far more blessed.”

“You are wrong, True. It is I who is the most blessed. By far.”

He started laughing.

She smiled brightly at him and began laughing too.

She stopped and said, “A meadow. The moon. I am yours and that is all.”

At her words, he used his hand in her hair to pull her to him as he leaned to her.

And their love was sealed with a kiss.

Over the breakfast table.

98

The Transformation

Prince Cassius

Bedchamber of the Prince Regent, Sky Citadel, Sky Bay

AIREN

Cassius woke to an empty bed.

He instantly growled.

He did not like waking to an empty bed, but it seemed every day since they arrived in his home, just this had occurred.

His soon-to-be bride only woke beside him in a bloody tent on bloody campaign.

A campaign, incidentally, during which she was miraculous.

It had not been a difficult battle to win, defeating the besiegers, but she was outstanding with bow and arrow and superb with staff.

But her talents with a sword, he had not, until then, witnessed.

And they were exemplary.

Though she should use a bloody shield.

And even if they had argued, as he had not wished her to come along, but at looks he received from Frey, and Lahn, and to his surprise, Mac, he had allowed it, he was glad in the end.

For victory sex with Princess Elena of the Nadirii was gods-damned magnificent.

But now he was abed, awake, hard, and his woman was gone.

Doing what, he did not know.

But his intended had been busy since they made the Citadel.

It made him anxious.

And in times like this, it made him frustrated.

He threw back the covers, tossed his legs to the side, stood and started to prowl to his dressing room.

But he stopped dead.

He then blinked.

There was a new rug on the floor.

It was not black with charcoal gray edges.

It was cerulean.

And the space beyond it that all his time in this bedchamber held nothing, now, facing the bed, sat a button-backed chesterfield couch covered in azure velvet.

Next to the couch was a low table, the base fashioned out of what looked like thick silver wire, on its top, a stack of books ready at hand should you wish to read.