“Hey,” he said. I crouched beside him and took his head in my hands, lifting his face towards me so I could see him.
“It’s over,” I said softly, when he refused to meet my eyes. I gently placed a kiss on his lips. “You’re free. It’s all going to be okay.”
I kissed him again, trying to tease a response from him.
“You’re free,” I whispered between kisses. “You’re alive.”
He pushed me away and I sat back with a bump, off balance from crouching on my toes.
His dark eyes were turbulent.
“At what cost?” he snarled, suddenly alive again.
“Cost?” I shook my head. What was he talking about?
“We didn’t want the world to know you were alive yet. That was all very public; the whole island will hear about it.What if the poisoner comes for you again?”
Ah, it was his usual trigger that we had somehow endangered my safety. “Stop it. Stop whatever crazy self-flagellating nonsense is going on in that head of yours. The main thing is that you are not going to be executed. You think your death would have kept me safe from whoever poisoned you? They no doubt already knew who I am. And they might not even have meant the poison for me. You believe that because you think the world revolves around me. It doesn’t, you know.” I glared at him. Did his life mean so little to him?
“It does for me,” he growled back.
My eyes widened at his words and I couldn’t help it. My mouth trembled as I tried to suppress it. He was in deadly earnest. A giggle popped out. Was this snarl the declaration of love I had waited so long for?
He was on me in seconds, his fury giving him momentum until he loomed over me, his dark eyes sparking down at me. As if by sheer force of will, he was going to make me see that revealing myself to the court to save his life had been the wrong move.
It was ridiculous, and the ridiculousness bubbled out of me as the relief and joy and sheer happiness at his reprieve washed through me.
“I love you too,” I laughed up at him.
He snarled down at me. An actual snarl – and then it was gone as he took me in. I was there in his arms and he was going to live. I could feel the series of realisations hit him.
He swooped down on me and kissed me hard and fast and completely. The flames whooshed over us as we ignited. His mouth swept mine and our breaths entangled. My fingers looped in those dark curls as I crushed him to me. It was all I could do to remember to breathe, and I wasn’t sure I even did that anymore.
His hands pulled at the intricate lacings of my Celtic dress, releasing me more skilfully than I managed to every night, his early stubble sweeping across my bare shoulder. Sensation tingled my skin as I came to life beneath his touch. My neck arched away from him as he curled into it, his mouth tracing its way across the tender skin there.
I pulled in a deep breath as his lips moved further down my body.
He backed away and looked down at me as my eyes struggled to focus on the mischievous curl of those talented lips.
“Not laughing now, are you?” He nipped my lower lip with his sharp teeth, the sensation twanging through the haze his earlier onslaught had created and ratcheting up the heat that was building inside me.
I groaned as I clung to him. No more thoughts, only sensation, touch, heat.
I scrabbled to release his shirt, yanking it over his head, in a hurry to lay my hands on his warm, velvety skin. Removing his shirt revealed black ink and raw skin over his heart.
I paused at the sight of the tattoo and the inflamed skin around it. Devyn looked down at the pattern that had caught my attention. It was a Celtic swirl, of course, but still it was recognisably the emblem worn by the Mercians: red roses and lakes. I had been forced to look at it every day of the trial as it sat front and centre of the jury’s table. Since the prosecuting lord and highest ranking individual was lord of Mercia, the Mercian arms had dominated the table. This was a similar design but woven into a Celtic knot.
“Why?” I asked, tracing the air above it.
He sat up, pulling me with him. His eyes darkened as he pulled my dress up over my shoulders once more.
“When I left, I was too young to bear ink. I was glad of it when I got to Londinium as a tattoo would have all too easily revealed my origins. But tattoos are what we on this island use to proclaim our history, our affinities, our loyalties, our lives. My skin was unmarked. I did not want to enter the afterlife with no story.” His eyes locked with mine. “I have a story.”
I traced the roses and the lakes etched over his heart, careful not to touch the tender-looking skin. He said nothing as I contemplated what he had chosen to represent himself in what had so nearly been his final days. My brother’s coat of arms.
His vow to Mercia was how he had defined himself.
“Oh.” I felt a little jealous. He had chosen my brother over me.
His brow furrowed as he took in the disappointment I was helpless to conceal.
“The form is a dara knot, signifying my oath to Mercia… to him. And for us…” He took my fingers in his and lightly carried them across a swirl that branded his arm, the curves winding up and down through the tattoo in a vaguely recognisable pattern before ending in a Celtic symbol.
“The Tamesis,” I smiled. He had included the river, the one which had separated us and on whose shores we had found each other again. “The river flows
