Evil Twin

Everything she’d wanted that first night, she now had.

And she was happy. She could always be happy with just this. A kingdom to rule and Bane in her bed.

Did she want to risk that happiness while grasping for more?

She did. Probably because it was in her nature to always grasp for more. And didn’t Bane deserve something better than the least she could offer him?

If she could offer it to him. If that was in her nature, too.

Trembling, she held him tighter, her face tucked against his throat—hidden away from his disconcertingly perceptive gaze. “What if I don’t have more to give? What if I don’t have it in me to love?”

His voice was a reassuring rumble. “I have no fear of that.”

Then she would try not to, either. “You should continue courting me. Because it might be working.”

His massive chest sank on a long and ragged exhalation. As if he’d been holding his breath and finally released it out of sheer relief. “I will make you love me,” he growled.

Not a demand. A hope. Still, she could not give in so easily. “You won’t win.”

“I will. Now tell me to kiss you.”

“Will you truly risk it?”

Of course he would.

And she hadn’t known how different kisses could be. The first night, Bane had kissed her and the sensations upon her lips had been accompanied by the dangerous thrill of her scheme and the surprise of her arousal. But now. His mouth on hers was just as hot, just as searching, but the feelings that accompanied it were so much deeper and some were entirely new. Sweet. Tender. And filled with the promise of a life that Echo wanted even more than she wanted him inside her, even more than she wanted a kingdom.

It was all still there. The thrill. The arousal. But there was already so much more. Which was terrifying.

Because now there was so much more to lose.

8

Bane

Courtship was the sweetest agony.

If Bane had not already known what he felt for Echo—deep down and on the surface—the venom would have told him. He burned for her. He needed her.

And he needed Echo to need him.

So he fought himself, the venom raging in his blood. Desperate to make her love him. To make her trust him. To claim and be claimed. But knowing if he demanded her love and her trust, if he tried to force them…he would lose her.

So courtship it was. And only courtship.

Because in Echo’s struggle to even hope for more, it had been clear that the bed—fucking in it—could be a safe retreat for her. A place to hide away her heart and be content with mere pleasure.

Bane wanted her to feel safe. But he also wanted her to realize that she would always be safe with him. Whether her heart was open or not.

And he could have used the bed to his benefit—and kept her in such an orgasmic haze, she wouldn’t fight so hard against loving and trusting him.

But that sounded much like what her parents had done when she was difficult—to shove her away into a chamber and to keep her complacent, to keep her from struggling. It wasn’t exactly the same; Echo would have come to his bed of her own volition. Yet the effect would be no different.

And her fear of opening herself to love and trust was part of who she was. Bane adored all of her; not only her easy parts. So he would not try to cheat his way past her fear. And when she genuinely overcame that fear, the giving of her heart would be all the more precious.

No matter how long it took.

Though Bane didn’t know if he would have survived the agonizing fire in his blood without the courtship. If he couldn’t always be close to her. Because his blood burned when she was near—but painlessly. So her lips were always swollen from his kisses. And he spent most of the day and night with her, sharing a fuckless bed and riding his fuckless warhorse.

On this day, they passed through yet another quiet village. As eager as they both were to assume rule over Crolum and bring life to this kingdom again, the trek had not become any easier as they’d neared the royal city. He knew the quiet and the bones had struck her hard when she leaned back against his chest with a heavy sigh.

“How do we do this respectfully? So it is not…”

They’d already spoken of how they would soon task a company of warriors to collect the human bones in the villages so they could be burned on a pyre. So Bane did not think she meant that.

“So that taking over a kingdom is not…corpse-robbing?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“You know it is not the same.”

“I know. Their deaths were not our fault. Yet we are coming in and taking over their lives, their homes—the work of generations.”