“You give the oddest compliments,” he says, his eyes pinching happily.

He’s happy. I’m making him happy. And, for that matter, I’m happy.

Oh God.

Of all ironies to exist, we are the worst one.

I grab the bourbon bottle then, fumbling with the cap.

Montes takes it from me and pours a minuscule amount of alcohol into my cup. Really just a sip.

“I see you’re still a control freak,” I say. And now I’m just recovering from the fact that this is happening all over again. I’m getting sucked under, lost in his dark eyes and black heart. It takes so little.

Montes laughs, oblivious to the fact that while he maintains control, I’m losing it. “It just so happens that I actually care about how you’re going to feel tomorrow. Shocking, I know.”

Out of all the thing’s he’s said, I don’t know why that one slips through my defenses.

But it does.

I cover the king’s hand with my own, my fingers skimming across his skin. I’ve wanted to do that little action for a while now. It feels just as good as I knew it would.

Montes stares at the hand touching his.

Slowly, his eyes rise to mine. I see lifetimes and lifetimes of desires in those eyes. They all begin and end with me.

He never stopped loving me. That much is obvious from his expression.

And yet, the same man who stares at me in apparent adoration also shut me away in some desolate corner of this palace for decades and decades.

“When did you forget your feelings for me?” I ask.

His brows pinch, and his eyes grow distant. “When you live without someone for as long I have, love becomes this abstract concept, something you attach to a memory. And when memories are that old, they feel like dreams, and you wonder if any of it was real, or if your mind created it all.”

It hurts to hear what he has to say, and yet, I understand, and that’s the worst of all.

“Why didn’t you just let me die?” He hadn’t woken me, after all.

“I am over a hundred and fifty years old, and in all that time only a single woman has been able to move me.” He looks over at me then. “You are mine. I would never let you die.”

I should be horrified by the statement. Instead I feel the tempest of this man’s love for me. It survived a century apart, it survived Montes himself, a man who shouldn’t even be capable of something like love.

The king lifts himself up from where he lays and he leans over me, forcing me to swivel to face him until I’ve rolled onto my back.

And then he’s there, his presence enveloping me.

I can see his intent in every line of his body, the firelight dancing along his skin.

It’s happening all over again. This. Us.

It feels old and new all at once. Montes’s intensity will always make me feel like intimacy is something I’m experiencing for the first time, and yet my body now knows his, as does my heart.

He dips his head, his hair trickling my cheeks. The moment those lips touch mine will be the moment of no return.

If I do this, I have to accept that my heart’s going to get broken all over again. Because I can’t become the king’s lover once more without handing him my heart. And this time when Montes shatters my trust, I will be the fool who let it happen.

I’m making peace with that. The world is bigger than me and my heart, it’s bigger than my life and the king’s. It always has been.

“I’m going to trust you,” I say softly, his mouth a hairsbreadth away from mine. “Even though you don’t deserve it.”

His intense face stares down at me. He presses a hand to my cheek. And then he kisses me.

Ash and fire, blood and death—it’s all wrapped up into a single stroke of his lips. Both of us are burning, burning. This is heaven and hell.

His body lowers until it’s pressed flush against my own. All the while, his mouth moves against mine. He savors everything about me, every scar, every wicked deed, everything remotely good. And I do the same.

He’s not wholly evil. I’ve always known this about him, and yet it’s a sweet lullaby to believe that he is.

My breathing picks up as he begins to run his hands up and down my sides.

Montes begins to move against me. My fingers find the edges of his shirt, and I’m yanking it up even as we continue to kiss.

He helps me out of it, and then it’s his turn. His hand moves between us, unbuttoning the top of my fatigues.

Our movements become rushed at that point, our old, tormented souls desperate for each other.

Once we are both free of clothing, Montes settles himself between my legs. He bends his head down and kisses the skin between my breasts.

All those years ago, had I ever imagined people could be this way? That men were good for more than just friendship and fighting?

Montes’s fingers slide into my hair, and he tilts my head to gaze down at me.

My broken, broken monster. I run my fingers down his cheek. He’s just as beautiful as ever, but beneath his skin are the horrors of a century and a half of life. And not just any life, a tyrant king’s life.

He turns his head to kiss my palm.

I know all about broken things. I came from a broken house, and a broken land full of broken people. I have a broken soul and a broken heart. This man doesn’t know it, but all his cracks align with mine.

Montes shifts his hips, and I angle mine to meet his, and then he’s entering me.

Bliss. I begin to close my eyes at the sensation of it.