“Indeed, for one year ago, if you told me my heart would be taken by a petite, raven-haired beauty with skin as pale as pearls and eyes of mercury, who was smart enough to observe before speaking, think before doing, except when it came to chasing through the forest after traitors, I would call you mad. Indeed, but a week ago, if you told me my wife would go chasing through the forest after traitors, I might have been moved to find some way to intern you so you would not harm yourself. But now…now…”

The banking flames burst anew in his eyes as he dipped his face closer to mine.

“Now, my Silence, you must answer me. Do you matter?”

I felt my throat close as I stared up into his flames.

“Tell me, my love, do you?” he pushed.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“You did before,” he stated. “I am just glad now you see the strength of it as I have always seen, and yet it grows more day to day, from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

“I very, very much love you, my darling husband,” I told him with no small amount of fervor. “And you must know, you are treasured by me too.”

“This is good, for I very, very much love you, my beautiful, brave wife.”

Beautiful and brave.

I smiled up at my king right before he kissed me.

But he was Mars. As much as we both enjoyed the kiss, I had my back to the damp leaves, and being Mars, he had a mind to that.

Thus, he finished the kiss all too swiftly, pulled us both to our feet, and murmured there were decisions that needed to be made so we must join the others.

However, as he walked us to where they were huddling, I noticed something I’d never quite noticed before.

It had been there, it just had not dawned on me.

As my husband moved with me tucked close to his side, he did this with a pride of bearing that had a great deal to do with who he was, what he was, and how he was.

But he also did it because he had me on his arm.

He was proud of what I did that day.

But truly, he had been proud of me since our beginning.

Because there was something of which to be proud.

And this something was…

I was me.

127

The Women

Tedrey

Abandoned Stable, Twenty Miles West of the Ancient Ritual Grounds

WODELL

Tedrey stood next to Moira, one of the young women who had been rounded up by Fenn and Thom to sacrifice in order to surface the Beast. She had been the one who had first helped him release the other girls.