House of Royale (Secret Keepers #4)(70)

“You look like you have heavy thoughts, baby,” Xander said, cradling me closer.

I spun myself around, wrapping my legs around him and hugging him close. My hair, silvery and tangle-free again, spun out around us like a translucent cloud. “You came back,” I said, burying my face in his neck.

Xander’s hands, which had been running up and down my back, slowed. “You didn’t think I would? You let me go knowing that I might not return to you?”

I pulled my head back so I could see him. “I know you meant what you said, but Lettie is a determined woman. I was preparing myself.”

He chuckled, jerking me closer so the center of my body was pressed intimately to the hardness of his. “Why do you think it took me so long? I told her I would walk away. That if she made me choose, I would choose you every single time without hesitation. I think for the first time in my life, she knew that this was not something she could order me to do. So she agreed.”

“She agreed?” I gasped. “She’s not going to fight you? Or … like kick you out of Royale?”

Xander laughed, brushing his thumb across my cheek. “She tried, but father stepped in. He gave his blessing. He forced my mother to think about her actions, and … she’s still not happy, but she is going to break the mate alliance.”

I kissed him like a starving person, openmouthed, tongue tangling against him, body straining to move even closer. Our clothes were gone in seconds. I wasn’t even sure how that happened, but I didn’t care. Xander was inside me so fast that my head spun, and I cried out as all the pleasure he could bring thrummed through my body.

Having him like this, in the legreto from our home world, was a dream.

My body, which had already been primed, started to unravel. I knew I was not going to be able to hold out any longer, even though I desperately wanted to feel this sort of pleasure forever. I must have said something to that tune, because Xander growled, his speed increasing. “You’ll feel it forever. I can promise you that. This is just the beginning.”

For the first time since meeting him, I let myself truly believe that I might have this forever.

Home.





24





All I saw was white. For a moment I wondered what had happened, then a warm arm slid across me and dragged me closer, and I remembered everything.

I was with Xander. In his bed—our bed, as he told me last night. We were still in the house in Daelight Crescent, on the second floor in the master suite. It was massive, taking up ten times the space of my last shared apartment.

“Good morning,” I said, burying my face into his chest. We were both naked. We had not gotten much sleep through the night. The morning got here way too quickly in my opinion. When we weren’t making love, we were discussing everything that had happened yesterday. The council still wasn’t sure how Laous had managed to invoke the Fires of Ether through Callie, but they had assured us that he was definitely dead now. Daniel confirmed this, because his soul was in Imperial, awaiting judgment.

“What if Laous chooses to be born again?” I asked, needing to know he’d be punished for what he did. For Rao and Marsil.

“Reborn souls are pure,” Xander told me, running his hand along my side. “If Laous chooses to be reborn, his soul will have another chance at a good life.”

Still didn’t seem fair, but I guess a new soul shouldn’t be punished for its previous life’s actions.

“How are you feeling?” Xander asked, changing the subject. His tone was serious enough that I lifted my head to see him clearly. Ocean blue eyes framed by thick dark lashes met my gaze.

“I feel….” I hesitated, trying to determine what I really felt. “I’m not really sure, to be honest. Overwhelmed. Shocked. Happy.”

All of that was true. While a small part of me was waiting for the bad thing to crash into us again, I was happy.

“I’ve never been this happy,” Xander said, still serious. Then he smiled, and my breath caught, just for a moment. “I can’t actually believe you’re here with me.”

I swallowed roughly, reaching out to caress his face. He wore light stubble across his chin and cheeks now, and I was digging it. “I can’t really believe it either,” I confessed, my hands pausing to cup his cheeks.

I kissed him then, because I could. Because in this moment, he was mine.

“I can feel you in my chest,” he said against my lips. “Our bond, it’s growing stronger.”

He’d told me that might happen, that after we were bonded sex and emotions would tie us closer to together. “I feel it too,” I said, snuggling against him.

His hands were just starting to move across my skin, around to cup my ass, when his phone buzzed on the bedside table.

Xander let out a low curse, followed by a deep breath before he rolled over and grabbed it. I noticed that he wasn’t one to let his phone go without checking it, just in case it was an emergency back home. Being on Earth made network contact harder, so their phones were always on.

The white sheets pooled around him, making his skin look an even darker bronze than usual. This was enough of a distraction that it took me a few moments to realize that he was still reading his phone quite seriously.

“Is everything okay back in Overworld?” I asked, drawing his attention to me.