“It’s up to you,” Rhys said. “We can go back to Velaris and have the bond verified by a priestess—no one like Ianthe, I promise—and be declared officially Mated. We could have a small party to celebrate—dinner with our … cohorts. Unless you’d rather have a large party, though I think you and I are in agreement about our aversion for them.” His strong hands kneaded muscles that were tight and aching in my back, and I groaned. “We could also go before a priestess and be declared husband and wife as well as mates, if you want a more human thing to call me.”

“What will you call me?”

“Mate,” he said. “Though also calling you my wife sounds mighty appealing, too.” His thumbs massaged the column of my spine. “Or if you want to wait, we can do none of those things. We’re mated, whether it’s shouted across the world or not. There’s no rush to decide.”

I turned. “I was asking about Jurian, the king, the queens, and the Cauldron, but I’m glad to know I have so many options where our relationship stands. And that you’ll do whatever I want. I must have you wrapped completely around my finger.”

His eyes danced with feline amusement. “Cruel, beautiful thing.”

I snorted. The idea that he found me beautiful at all—

“You are,” he said. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I thought that from the first moment I saw you on Calanmai.”

And it was stupid, stupid for beauty to mean anything at all, but … My eyes burned.

“Which is good,” he added, “because you thought I was the most beautiful male you’d ever seen. So it makes us even.”

I scowled, and he laughed, hands sliding to grip my waist and tug me to him. He sat down on the built-in bench of the tub, and I straddled him, idly stroking his muscled arms.

“Tomorrow,” Rhys said, features becoming grave. “We’re leaving tomorrow for your family’s estate. The queens sent word. They return in three days.”

I started. “You’re telling me this now?”

“I got sidetracked,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

And the light in those eyes, the quiet joy … They knocked the breath from me. A future—we would have a future together. I would have a future. A life.

His smile faded into something awed, something … reverent, and I reached out to cup his face in my hands—

To find my skin glowing.

Faintly, as if some inner light shone beneath my skin, leaking out into the world. Warm and white light, like the sun—like a star. Those wonder-filled eyes met mine, and Rhys ran a finger down my arm. “Well, at least now I can gloat that I literally make my mate glow with happiness.”

I laughed, and the glow flared a little brighter. He leaned in, kissing me softly, and I melted for him, wrapping my arms around his neck. He was rock-hard against me, pushing against where I sat poised right above him. All it would take would be one smooth motion and he’d be inside me—

But Rhys stood from the water, both of us dripping wet, and I hooked my legs around him as he walked us back into the bedroom. The sheets had been changed by the domestic magic of the house, and they were warm and smooth against my naked body as he set me down and stared at me. Shining—I was shining bright and pure as a star. “Day Court?” I asked.

“I don’t care,” he said roughly, and removed the glamour from himself.

It was a small magic, he’d once told me, to keep the damper on who he was, what his power looked like.

As the full majesty of him was unleashed, he filled the room, the world, my soul, with glittering ebony power. Stars and wind and shadows; peace and dreams and the honed edge of nightmares. Darkness rippled from him like tendrils of steam as he reached out a hand and laid it flat against the glowing skin of my stomach.

That hand of night splayed, the light leaking through the wafting shadows, and I hoisted myself up on my elbows to kiss him.

Smoke and mist and dew.

I moaned at the taste of him, and he opened his mouth for me, letting me brush my tongue against his, scrape it against his teeth. Everything he was had been laid before me—one final question.

I wanted it all.

I gripped his shoulders, guiding him onto the bed. And when he lay flat on his back, I saw the flash of protest at the pinned wings. But I crooned, “Illyrian baby,” and ran my hands down his muscled abdomen—farther. He stopped objecting.

He was enormous in my hand—so hard, yet so silken that I just ran a finger down him in wonder. He hissed, cock twitching as I brushed my thumb over the tip. I smirked as I did it again.

He reached for me, but I froze him with a look. “My turn,” I told him.

Rhys gave me a lazy, male smile before he settled back, tucking a hand behind his head. Waiting.

Cocky bastard.

So I leaned down and put my mouth on him.

He jerked at the contact with a barked, “Shit,” and I laughed around him, even as I took him deeper into my mouth.

His hands were now fisted in the sheets, white-knuckled as I slid my tongue over him, grazing slightly with my teeth. His groan was fire to my blood.

Honestly, I was surprised he waited the full minute before interrupting me.

Pouncing was a better word for what Rhys did.

One second, he was in my mouth, my tongue flicking over the broad head of him; the next, his hands were on my waist and I was being flipped onto my front. He nudged my legs apart with his knees, spreading me as he gripped my hips, tugging them up, up before he sheathed himself deep in me with a single stroke.

I moaned into the pillow at every glorious inch of him, rising onto my forearms as my fingers grappled into the sheets.

Rhys pulled out and plunged back in, eternity exploding around me in that instant, and I thought I might break apart from not being able to get enough of him.

“Look at you,” he murmured as he moved in me, and kissed the length of my spine.

I managed to rise up enough to see where we were joined—to see the sunlight shimmer off me against the rippling night of him, merging and blending, enriching. And the sight of it wrecked me so thoroughly that I climaxed with his name on my lips.

Rhys hauled me up against him, one hand cupping my breast as the other rolled and stroked that bundle of nerves between my legs, and I couldn’t tell where one climax ended and the second began as he thrust in again, and again, his lips on my neck, on my ear.

I could die from this, I decided. From wanting him, from the pleasure of being with him.

He twisted us, pulling out only long enough to lie on his back and haul me over him.

There was a glimmer in the darkness—a flash of lingering pain, a scar. And I understood why he wanted me like this, wanted to end it like this, with me astride him.

It broke my heart. I leaned forward to kiss him, softly, tenderly.

As our mouths met, I slid onto him, the fit so much deeper, and he murmured my name into my mouth. I kissed him again and again, and rode him gently. Later—there would be other times to go hard and fast. But right now … I wouldn’t think of why this position was one he wanted to end in, to have me banish the stained dark with the light.

But I would glow—for him, I’d glow. For my own future, I’d glow.

So I sat up, hands braced on his broad chest, and unleashed that light in me, letting it drive out the darkness of what had been done to him, my mate, my friend.