Chapter 23: Wedding Night

I read the letter alone, on the edge of the bed, before Lysander came in.

The paper was thin, and the writing wandered.

"Ellie. You won't remember me, but I was the girl in the next cot."

"They said everyone in the shed died. I lived."

"I never told anyone, because I was afraid of the man who would come to collect me."

"I kept your hair ribbon. I heard that you are a queen now. Come when you are ready. I am still here."

I folded it twice and put it under my pillow.

My hands were shaking, and I did not know if it was grief or joy.

Then the door opened, and Lysander came in with the gold thread still glowing faintly between his shoulder and mine, and the shaking stopped.

"Tell me," he said.

"Later." I stood. "Tonight is ours."

He crossed the room.

He kissed me hard, and I pulled his jacket off his shoulders and let it fall.

The mating bite on my shoulder throbbed in time with the one on his.

I could feel him.

I felt his hunger as my own, and under it something deeper, a fierce, helpless tenderness that made my knees go.

"You feel that," he said against my throat.

"I feel everything."

"Then you know what I want."

"Say it anyway."

"I want to spend all night finding out what makes you scream my name."

I laughed, breathless, and dragged his shirt over his head.

He lifted me by the thighs and carried me to the tall window.

He set me on the sill with the moon on my back.

My dress rucked up around my hips.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Sold Me Into Slavery, I Returned as Queen from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.