I laughed. “Well, I want them as pets.” Imagining it out loud, I said, “I want them roaming around, leaving eggs for me to collect…” I reached up to brush my fingers over his furrowed brow. “You’d cook them, of course.”

He huffed, his features easing. “Of course.” Taking my hand, he kissed it. “What else?”

“Perhaps a vegetable garden.”

He rubbed my knuckles over his lips. “Already have one of those.”

“I believe it’s in no giving state.”

“I’ll fix it.”

My chest squeezed. I rolled to my stomach, half sprawled over him. “Would you?”

Scythe traced the bridge of my nose with his finger. “Yes.” A singular word that meant more than a hundred.

Attempting to quell the rise of threatening emotions, I closed my eyes momentarily, then opened them and asked, “What of you? Does your ideal normal include hunting and murdering for your king for the rest of your days?”

Perhaps it was unfair of me to flatten all he’d brought to the surface within me by reminding myself of what he was—of what he did and would continue to do—but I needed to try.

Scythe licked his teeth and stroked my cheek, undeterred. “I know you do not approve, but even if I had another option, I would still lead and protect. I’m a wolf. It’s in my blood.”

I took his hand and kissed his battle-roughened skin. “It is not the leading and protecting that I do not approve of.” I turned his hand to kiss his palm. “But fine, you would still serve your king in your ideal world.”

“It’s not ideal, Aster.”

I frowned up at him. “But—”

I was pulled over top of him. “Not until I know you’ll always be the first thing I see when I wake each day.”

Tears pooled in my eyes.

If he noticed, he said nothing. He kissed me, and I let him. I greedily took everything he gave, for I would need it all to replace the pieces of me he’d robbed without mercy.

The commander was summoned to his king before dawn.

He didn’t return until deep into the following evening, damp and in a clean tunic and britches. As though he’d thought to shield me from any evidence of battle or other forms of violence.

Sweet, I thought with a smirk, though it still clung to him like a copper smoke. “Think I’d run screaming from you, wolf?”

“I’d hunt you down.” His tone might have been light, but it held an unshakable warning within.

I fought back a shiver, thinking it wise to move away from the subject. At least a little. “Your boots are still covered in mud and someone’s innards.”

He cursed, kicking them off. “We had to—”