She intended.

Oh, shite.

“Farah—” That came out gruff.

“Your mother told me that a Dellish husband and wife give gifts to each other on their wedding day. She told me, without a doubt, you would adhere to this custom. And I am not surprised, as she would not be surprised, that you did. This is not my custom, so she helped me. And she…and she…” her voice broke as she lifted her hand, opened her fingers, and in her palm was a golden band set all around with emeralds, “gave me this to give to you.”

The contradictory mixture of immense joy and colossal sorrow was such, True closed his eyes and dropped his head, doing so wondering how he managed to keep his feet.

But he had no problem wrapping his arms around his wife when she burrowed into them and he heard at the same time he felt her deep sob.

“I-I-I l-love that you will wear it and th-think of her at the same time you think of me,” she blubbered. “Your queens.”

His queens.

True took one arm from about her to set her marital chain aside then lifted his left hand between them, fingers extended.

“Put it on,” he said hoarsely.

She did not delay in sliding it to the base of his ring finger.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, her hand wrapping around the side of his palm.

It was.

Outside his wife, it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“I’ll never take it off,” he vowed.

He felt her eyes on his face, so he took his gaze from the ring and looked to her.

Her long lashes were spiky with wet, her cheeks drenched in it.

He cupped her beautiful face and slid his thumb through the evidence of the depth of her emotion. Emotion he loved just as much as, in that instance, for part of the reason she was feeling it, he hated.

“I am most happy to be your wife, True,” she said softly.

“And I am most happy to be your husband, Farah,” he replied in the same tone.

“Can I kiss you now?” she asked.

“Hell yes,” he answered.

She got up on her toes.

True met his wife halfway.

88

The Test

Queen Ha-Lah

Guest Bedchambers, Southwest Turret, Birchlire Castle, Notting Thicket

WODELL

I wandered to my king after leaving him abed so that I could clean up after making love.

I saw in the lantern light that he seemed what he did not while his hands and mouth were on me, his shaft moving inside me.

Distracted.

As my husband had become wont to do, the instant he gave me his attention, he cleared his expression as if naught was pressing on his mind, and he gave me a lazy smile.

“My husband,” I murmured, sliding in beside him only to be quickly claimed and pulled under him even as he shifted the covers up to his shoulders to keep us both warm. “You do not hide from me.”