Shadow Heir

My smile faded, and I suddenly felt confused. My heart leapt in my chest. “Why would you do that for me?”

“What wouldn’t I do for you?”

His voice was husky, and he propped himself up so that he could lean over me. I closed my eyes and felt his lips touch mine. It was a sweet kiss, a kiss as warm and lazy as the sunny day around us. It filled my body with a life and light not unlike what I felt from my kingdoms. There was a rightness to the feel of his body against mine, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, entwining my fingers in his hair and drawing him closer. His kiss picked up in intensity, and I welcomed it, parting my lips to taste more of him.

With as much caution as I’d ever seen Dorian exert in amorous affairs, his hand slid up my shirt and lightly grazed my breast. I gasped and arched my body toward his, giving him more than enough encouragement to grow bolder. He pushed my shirt up altogether and then brought his mouth down to my nipple. I gasped again, my own hands moving toward his pants. After unplanned pregnancy, childbirth, and near-starvation, I hadn’t thought my body would ever feel like this. Now, it was as though none of those things had ever happened. My body was alive again. It wanted him.

The problem was, I wasn’t sure if I did.

“No ... wait ...” With great reluctance, I gently pushed him up. He complied immediately, still hovering over me but halting in his advances. A regretful look came over his face.

“Too soon,” he guessed.

“Eh, well, not exactly ... I mean I have no problem doing it,” I said. “I just don’t know where we stand with ... other stuff.”

He considered this. “I assume we stand in a much better place than before.”

I almost laughed. “Well, yes, but there are things we need to figure out.”

Dorian stared at me and brushed hair from my face. “Not me. I already know everything I need to know.”

I fell into that gaze and felt something start to open in my heart. I began to reach toward him, wanting to kiss him again when—

“Your Majesty!”

The perfect, golden moment shattered as I heard voices and running feet. Well, it shattered for me, at least. From the way I had to get out from under him, it was clear that Dorian could have continued kissing through a war zone. I sat up in the grass, dazzled by the sun and my pounding heart and the myriad feelings churning within me. I fixed my shirt and hoped I didn’t look too disheveled. It took my soldiers a moment to find me, since I no longer traveled with a bodyguard at all times. They looked relieved to see me.

“Your Majesty,” exclaimed the leader, giving me a quick bow. “You have a visitor. Roland Storm Slayer is—”

“Roland!”

He was walking out across the green toward us, in no haste to keep up with the guards who had heralded his arrival. I ran to him with my arms outstretched and heard Dorian say ruefully, “A man can never compete with a woman’s father.”

Roland lifted me up and spun me around as he returned the hug. His eyes shone, and I actually think he looked more relieved to see me now than he had in Alabama.

“Eugenie, you’re alive,” he said, once he’d set me down. He still kept his arms around me. “When so much time went by without any news, I thought ... well, I thought the worst.” He glanced around at the verdant landscape. “I take it you fixed the problem.”

“We did,” I said happily. “We’ve still got a lot of recovery to do, but things are on the mend. That’s why I haven’t been able to get back to you. Plus, Volusian’s gone—banished—so I couldn’t send a message.”

That earned me raised eyebrows. “I wondered why I hadn’t heard from him. Though I can’t say I’m disappointed he’s gone.”

Dorian reached us then and gave Roland a nod of greeting. “I agree with you on that,” Dorian said. “Though, as much as I hate acknowledging it, Volusian was the reason we were able to destroy the blight in the end.”

“Well, then,” said Roland. “I guess something positive came from that fiend. I knew something had happened here when I saw the boy, but I wasn’t exactly sure if it was good or bad.”

Roland’s happy expression had dimmed a little, which I couldn’t understand. I didn’t know what his comment had meant either. “The boy?”

He nodded. “The one I met before. The one who was raiding Tucson and Phoenix.”

I exchanged puzzled glances with Dorian. “You mean Pagiel?” I asked. “What about him?”

“He’s back,” said Roland. “And since I knew you took him with you on your quest, I figured either you’d succeeded and freed him up to come back or else failed and forced him to more of the same.”

For a few moments, I was totally confused. When I was finally able to parse what Roland was saying, I nearly reeled. I was certain I’d misunderstood.

“You don’t mean ... you don’t mean Pagiel’s back in Arizona?”

Roland nodded. “Back with more people. Back for more raids.”

Chapter 24

I immediately turned to Dorian.