The world has gone crazy, and me along with it.

It’s dark outside as we descend, and few city lights illuminate the streets. The airfield, by contrast, is lit up.

When I exit the plane, it’s to a crowd of the king’s medics and his security team. They try to shuffle me off to look at my wounds. I elbow past them and head for the cargo bay. Behind me, I can hear their protests.

I make it to the back of the plane just as the flight crew opens the cargo hold. I’m the first one inside, despite the commotion behind me. I jog up to the Sleeper and scan the readout.

I blink back tears as I clench and unclench my jaw. Medics and security personnel move in behind me. Some grab my arms and gently guide me out. I let them.

The undying king beat death yet again.

The King

I WAKE WITH a start.

Reflexively, my body tenses. The gold leaf molding overhead is distinctly different from the exposed cross beams of the Spanish villa we’ve been staying in.

I feel skin beneath my hand. I trace the flesh with my fingers. It’s soft, but the muscle beneath it is unyielding. My hand travels higher, rounding a delicate shoulder. Then the hollow above a collarbone. I feel soft hair slide under my touch.

I glance down at Serenity, who’s nestled against my side.

My stomach tightens pleasantly at the sight. Savage woman. She hasn’t left me, despite now knowing she’s pregnant.

This pleases me immensely.

My last memories involved gunfire and explosions. Somehow I survived it, in no small part thanks to the woman in my arms. Not so long ago she told me she wanted to kill me. But she didn’t take her chance when it was offered to her.

My hand delves into her hair and strokes its way down the golden locks. There is no name for what I feel right now. Not awe, not love, not gratitude. None of those are large enough to encompass this emotion that’s not quite pleasure and not quite pain.

“Mmm.” She moves against my side and opens her eyes. “You’re awake.”

I expect her to try to move out of my arms—not that I’ll let her. When she doesn’t, that feeling burrowed beneath my sternum expands.

Her fingers touch my side, where I’d been shot. “Did you know you died?” she says, her voice toneless.

My hand pauses its ministrations.

So my wife not only spared my life, she saved it.

“I don’t want to outlive you, Montes,” she says.

I squeeze her close and whisper against her temple, “Are you admitting you can’t live without me?”

She’s quiet for so long I assume she’s not going to respond.

“Maybe,” she finally whispers.

I’m not big enough to hold what I feel.

I touch the scar on her face and follow the line of it down her cheekbone. “Do you still hate me?”

“Sometimes,” she says honestly.

I smile to myself. “Good. I like you feral.”

She shakes her head against my chest. “You’re twisted.”

We fall silent for several minutes.

“I’m going to be a terrible mother,” she finally whispers.

I pause. Serenity’s scared. The woman who’s killed legions of men is actually afraid. Of herself.

It’s almost unfathomable.

I pull her in closer and kiss the crown of her head. I’m holding my family in my arms; I have literally everything I could ever want.

“You’ll be the best mother,” I whisper against her temple. She will be because she’ll second guess everything and work to get it right. For all of my wife’s ruthlessness, she has a wealth of compassion.

“You’re not a great judge of character,” she says.

I laugh. “When it comes to you, I am.”

Serenity

THE DOOR TO our room opens.

“Good morning, Your Majesty.”

“Oh, I love the view from this room.”

“Look at that flaxen hair of hers. I’ve tried to dye mine the same color, but I can’t quite mimic it.”

The female voices fill the bedroom, and I can hear them moving towards the bathroom.

I squeeze my pillow tighter. The cool metal of my father’s gun brushes against my hands. I’m not going to look up; that’ll make it all real, and I have at least another hour of sleep in me.

The bed dips and I feel a hand on the small of my back. A moment later, the king’s lips press against my temple. “Serenity, you need to get ready.”

I groan and bury my face deeper into the linen. If the king has it his way, then I am not going to get myself ready at all—a bunch of strangers are.

“Make them go away,” I mumble.

One of Montes’s hands delves under the pillows and finds me gripping my gun tightly.

“Don’t you agree one massacre is enough per week?” he says conversationally.

I turn my head to face him so that I can glare. All that earns me is a kiss on the nose.

He gets up to leave, and I release my gun to snatch his wrist. I’m more awake now, more aware that the only time the king actually calls in a team to get me prettied up is when something important occurs. “What’s going on?”

He stares down at me, and those conniving eyes of his hold such fondness in them. It both moves me and disturbs me that the king looks at me this way; I’ll never get used to it. “Politics,” he says evasively.

I squeeze his wrist tighter. “Give me more than that.”

He raises an eyebrow. “And what will you give me in return?”