"Thank you, but as annoying as it is, I get it, We're tethered." I shrug.

He kisses me quiet, hard, and quick. "For the rest of our lives."

Lacing his fingers through mine he pulls our hands into his lap and stares out as the sun heads lower toward the mountains, and the light of the day begins to turn into an amber-hued yellow.

I can still feel the swirl of emotion coming from his mind into mine. It's tamped down, dulled by his shields, but they aren't up strongly enough for me to not break through them. Another swell of longing to care for him bubbles up in my chest and an idea coalesces in my mind.

"Tairn?"

The chances aren't great, I know that. With him and Sgayel fighting and holding their riders at a mental arm's length, his voice makes me jump a little despite the fact that I just asked for him.

"Silver One?" It's tight and clipped and I know I've interrupted, but he's there.

"Do you…do you know the spot where Xaden says he grounds? He told me - mentioned that it was his favorite hillside just outside of what was left of Aretia." Gods, he told me that what seems like a million years ago, and I can still feel the relief of the snowflakes melting on my exposed flushed skin as his hands cupped my face in the courtyard a year ago.

I feel Tairn's reluctant sigh, "I shall ask."

The times I put that dragon between a rock and a hard place makes me flinch, and Xaden squeezes my hand bringing my attention back so I can realize he's staring expectantly at me.

"Shit, I'm sorry. What did you say? Tairn, he-" I point to my head before giving him all of my attention.

Xaden chuckled, though the smile didn't reach his dulled, tired eyes. "I was wondering why you flinched."

The laugh I let out matches his own and he looks back out over the city and I can almost see the weight of everyone below sitting on his shoulders.

"Sgayel has shown me but demands to know why you've asked."

I boldly set both of my feet onto the marble floors in my mind and maneuver through my archives in search of the faint blue light shining beneath a small back room door, connecting to Sgayel directly in order to make my request. "He needs someone to take care of him, despite the fact he's bad at asking for it. If that's his favorite place, the place that grounds him, that's where I want to take him."

"You dare to insinuate that I don't care for him?" It feels like a door has been slammed in my face, and while I want to flinch, I hold it in.

"I know you care for him. Will you do this? Without telling him?"

The silence of the moment stretches toward the horizon and I find that my breath is holding in my chest while I wait for an answer. The sharp anger I felt before being kicked away from that magical door makes me wonder if she shielded me out and even heard my plea.

"We're on our way - around one minute." Tairn sounds as relieved as I feel.

It's good to know that they weren't far, even though they were fighting, but them wanting to stay close in case anything were to happen reinforces Sgayel's need to protect her rider. It's probably one of the only things that the fierce, navy blue daggertail and I have in common - we'll shred anything that dares hurt Xaden. I know it's why she said she approved of me before all of this chaos started and I know it's why she's entertaining my request right now. Tairn bonded me for my intelligence, after all.

I set my head to his shoulder, his temple tilting to rest against the wrapped hair at the top of my head, and we watch as the amber shifts to more of an orange and the shadows of the buildings begin to stretch and elongate below. He only tenses when he hears wingbeats, and I squeeze his hand with mine through the ball of fingers still twined on his leg to calm his sudden concern.

"I want to take you somewhere."

Xaden spots our two massive dragons heading this way before meeting my eyes in surprise. "You…where?"

I can't stop from brushing the lock of his hair from his forehead where it flopped over his scarred brow as he turned his head, and my finger takes a heartbeat to trace the old wound with the edge of my fingernail to the top of his brow.

"Trust me?" I ask.

"Always."

Sgayel swoops in first and hovers, extending a foreclaw for Xaden to grab, and he uses the rippling muscles I know to be beneath those leathers to clamber up her arm to find his seat.

"Close your eyes," I ask into his mind and I feel his reluctance as the daggertail maintains her hover but moves to allow Tairn to close his claws around me and lift, and I hop from the flat edge of his scaled finger to the saddle and move to strap in.

"Trust me." It's not a question this time.

I can only assume he follows the order, Tairn falling into formation behind and above Sgayel as she turns to the east and flies. From our vantage point, I see Xaden sit tall in his seat before extending his arms into the wind while tilting his head to face the low rays of sun. Despite the fact that I can't see the sudden relaxation and enviable calmness take over his face or the fact that his eyes are closed, I know it's there and I that know they are.

I also feel Tairn begin to relax both physically and mentally. His nervous and angry energy that was pulsing against the archive door in my mind retreats into the powerful background hum to which I'm more accustomed. This trip will be good for all of us, apparently.

Once outside of the city we begin to descend, and I peek down as best as I can to see a unique hilltop nearly encircled by sheer rock - a rugged granite of wind-battered mountain peaks. The grass below us is still green, though I know the first snowfall will bury it for the next few months, but the final gasp of late-blooming wildflowers brings a smile to my face as Tairn settles down.

His shoulder droops and I unbuckle before sliding down, and without another word he launches, the gust of wind making everything alive around us bend and sway. I fight the grin as for the first time I've ever seen, Sgayel makes the same maneuver allowing Xaden to slide gently down her foreleg until his feet hit the ground, his eyes still firmly closed as he dismounts.

In another first for me, he's wobbly and unsure for a moment on his feet as he presses a hand against her shimmering azure scales. Only when he's fully gained his feet does she step to the side and launch to follow Tairn. I know without being told that we can call them back at any time and walk toward Xaden where he stands, arms loose at his sides, eyes closed but facing me no doubt using our bond to know exactly where I'm standing.

"You can open," I say quietly, though the sight of his beauty sucks the air from my throat and threatens to burst my heart in my chest as I realize this man, this beautiful man, is mine.

He blinks two, then three, then four times, realization dawning as he takes in his surroundings quickly with the eyes of a warrior on the battlefield. I note each moment of recognition as his gold-flecked eyes take in the shapes of the peaks towering to the east before he stalks to the downward, gentle sloping edge of the hill to the west. I move forward but let him have his moment as he overlooks Aretia far below us.

"It's," he whispers, my voice only catching it because of the wind carrying the word back to my ears. "I…haven't stood here since my father left."

"It seemed like you needed to refind your center and…I thought it would help."

The look he levels at me is accompanied by a dozen emotions he apparently can't help but leak across our bond, and the sheen of tears that make those onyx eyes shimmer tugs at my heart. I may have fucked up here. Just because he said it was his favorite hillside a year ago doesn't mean that he still thinks of this as a place of happiness, and I'm only now making that realization.

"Did I fuck up?"

My panic washes away when he shakes his head in quick little movements, and as a tear lands at the top of the chiseled top of his cheekbone. He's quick to turn away from me and toward Aretia, though I see and feel the deep shuddering breath he sucks into his lungs. He crosses his arms over his chest I assume in an effort to keep everything tucked inside, an attempt to maintain the image he's painstakingly crafted through loneliness and necessity, and I can't stay my hands.

My steps are slow and deliberate, as are my arms that I wrap around his waist, my hands splaying over his torso where I can reach as I set my cheek against his back. I send every ounce of love I feel across our bond as he sets the palm of his left hand over mine just under his heart, his other arm hanging at his side.

"I don't deserve you."

I smile. "I will remind you of this moment the next time you're calling me a pain in the ass."

His laugh bounces my head, and only when he pulls at my hand to get me to come around do I let go. I can't hold back the dropped jaw and small gasp as I look over Aretia and the surrounding valleys, trees dropping the last of their foliage glowing in the day's last light with bursts of fire red, orange, and yellow.

"I see why it's where you ground," I whisper and feel him tug me into him. He presses my hand back over his heart under his, his other spreading warmly against the small of my back. As beautiful as the view below us is, I could die a happy death drowning in his eyes. I drift the back of my knuckles against his stubbled cheek to catch the tear still sitting against his skin before cupping my palm against his neck above his rebellion relic.

'I almost lost him today,' my thoughts filter through the picturesque scene to bombard me with that realization, and I can't help but feel the need to tell him every feeling that rushes through me all at once. I can't keep sitting here demanding his honesty while keeping things that need to be said locked in my heart, now can I?

"I know that things are hard right now. I know we might be…fifty years too late. But, whatever they demand of you," I tilt my head down toward the village, "I don't."

The setting sun makes his skin shimmer, and if it wasn't for the pulsing warmth beneath my fingers you'd think he was a bronze molded statue. The man is definitely gorgeous enough to be worthy of some fucking statues.

"All I want is who you are, Xaden. When all is said and done you are the only one I need. I want you to be the only thing I see. I don't need you to be a King, I just need you to be the last man standing. I love you more than I hate the enemy, and I just…I need you to know that. In case…if - if anything like today happens again."

The hand holding mine over his thumping heart moves to cup the back of my head to drag my mouth up to his, and the heat of his lips descend over mine. A coil of lightning snaps down my spine sparking a fire in every nerve ending, the crackling sudden desire I always have for him that hides just below the surface bursting free the moment I trace his tongue with mine when he meets me just past my parted lips.

I swallow his groan and my hand slides down to hook against the sheathed dagger to the right of his chest, and I'm filled with the taste and scent of mint and leather and Xaden. He nips gently at my lower lip before soothing it with his tongue, splitting reluctantly to set his forehead against mine. Our panting breaths mingle together and despite the imminent chill I know is coming with the setting of the late fall sun, I crave the cool breeze against my skin as I'm suddenly overheated like I've been wielding all day.

"Whatever this place is to you, an old memory or some kind of bittersweet reminder of what used to be, I'm going to fuck you on top of this hill and firmly shove it into the positive." The groan that leaves his chest and brushes across my cheek has his hand tightening at my back to pull me flush against him, and I press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

My hands move to work the snaps of his flight jacket and his head drops to my shoulder, so I place my mouth beside his ear. "I'm selfish, Xaden. I want to be your everything, and that includes both what makes you lose control and what grounds you."

His hands both drop to my hips and I feel the clutch of his fingers so tightly I'm fairly sure I'll have bruises in the morning. It wouldn't be the first time and sure as shit won't be the last - they're some of my favorite bruises to see in the mirror, and I work his jacket open. He shrugs it off to land on the grass at his calves before his hands meet at my waist to undo my leathers while mine quickly rip at the snaps of my jacket until joins his below us.

The insatiable need I always feel for him burns from my heart to settle with a heart-beating throb between my thighs and I know if it was a little cooler outside, steam would be rising from the revealed skin of my arms. My fingers grip the bottom of his shirt behind his back and tug, our bodies separating just long enough for it to go over my head before we come crashing back together, my mouth peppering kisses to the scar over his heart as his burrows back against my neck to suck at the point where it meets my shoulder.

My knees threaten to melt.

As they've always done, his fingers make quick work of the ties at my lower stomach before driving up to undo the laces of my corseted armor. Mine find success at his waistband until he is hard and hot in my palm, and I feel his teeth bite into the juncture of my neck and shoulder with just enough sting that I know there's an impression and a mark I'll get to hide behind my collar tomorrow. And I don't fucking care, I love when he marks me as his.

When every ounce of skin is bare between us he drags me with him, over him, his back hitting the pile of our clothes as a barrier between the stiff grasses and slightly trampled wildflowers beneath and around us.

My knees land on either side of his waist as he props up on his elbows to catch my lips while his fingers stroke circles against the tops of my thighs, all he can reach in this position. The angle presses my sensitive nipples against his chest, the heat between us cleaving me in two when I lift my hips up, my hands cupping his jaw while our lips slowly come back together.

I'm fairly sure we both have one another's mouths memorized, but with each sweep of my tongue against his, the roof of his mouth, his pouted, kissable lips, the flame that demands I relearn everything is rekindled. It's as if I'm studying for a test that I want - no need - to get perfect marks on.

The urgency drops, though the excitement is still there crackling between us, and I center myself over the straining head of him before slowly leaning back and taking him inside inch by delicious inch until our hips are flush. Lips smack apart with our joined groans and only in moments where he's buried this deep do I feel complete.

"Do me a favor," he starts, but I don't have to ask what it is. I just bring my hands up and undo my braid, ruffling the hair until it's loose and tickling around my shoulders. Leaning back in, he's shrouded in a cascade of brown tipped with silver and I hear him breathe the floral scent deep before groaning against my ear.

I set my hands to each side of his neck, my thumb rubbing against the rebellion relic as it swirls in dark lines and ride him so achingly slow that I feel every hard edge of him against my velvet walls. I feel that he wants to buck up against me, his stomach rippling and tensing below me, but he holds back with what I assume is the height of human restraint.

"You're so fucking beautiful and soft," he thinks, a swirl of erotic heat shimmering through our bond to wrap around me from top to bottom. His mouth trails lines down the column of my throat to pay special attention to that sweet little spot that drags his name from my lips every time and his chuckle from beneath me and in my mind is nearly my undoing.

Each swirl of my hips sends a plethora of descriptors from his mind into mine with plenty of 'fucks' and mentions of the Gods. If any of them decide to come for him for blasphemy they'll have to wait their turn - he's mine.

I've started to hear them - the little gasps that part my lips just before the wound cord in my lower stomach snaps sending me into the sky like bowstring sends an arrow, and I feel his smile against my lower lip prompting me to match it with one of my own.

"There's one. Let go for me, Violet," he demands in a gravelly rumble, and I know my fingernails are biting into his skin behind his neck, but I also know he doesn't care. Just like I love when he marks me as his, he's thrilled when I mark him as mine. "Let. Go," his demand is soft and a chuckle drives the sentiment as he bounces his hips just enough to bottom out inside me, the base of him bumping decadently against my clit and sending me toppling off that precipice into the swirling gold-flecked onyx depths of his eyes just before I have to close mine while I shudder over him - around him.

His groan slides against my throat following the path of his tongue, and I feel him move to adjust beneath me.

I'm unable to do anything but cling to him at the moment as I try to regain my breathing from the rush of blood that travels throughout my whole body in seconds after being pushed away from my center like a rushing tidal wave that leaves me dizzy before crashing back down to where my body meets his.

Xaden moves to sit upright, nearly cross-legged while my thighs still straddle his hips with knees pressed into the ground. His hands cup my ass with gentle massaging squeezes, and the last rays of sunlight burst from behind the mountain peaks to the west of Aretia bathing us and everything around in a fiery glow that matches our passion. My lips find his again for a sweet press and soft flick of tongue against the lower curve of his lip.

My hand falls to hold my weight against some piece of cloth, fuck if I can tell which in the mesh of everything we shed lying below us. The moment his grip slides to my hips and my legs coupled with his arms pull him from my body before dragging me back to sheath him completely at my center, I melt again for him with a cry.

His body curls over mine and his mouth sucks the peak of my breast into the overwhelming heat as his tongue swirls my pebbled nipple, and my free hand clutches his neck. His hands pull me over him before relaxing to allow my thighs push me away, and we continue this luxurious, slow fuck on his favorite hilltop that overlooks his home.

My home.

"Our home," he corrects with a silken caress of words that seem to mimic his mouth moving from one peak to the other as he tends to the neglected bud with teeth and tongue and I groan his name, feeling his need beginning to fray at the edges of my mind. He releases my breast before moving up and pressing a kiss over my pounding heart, so I clutch at his neck and pull him forward.

A quick rearrange of legs and I feel the temperature-cooled leather of one of our flight jackets against my superheated back. My thighs ride high against his ribs as I curl to meet his first couple of slow, deep thrusts.

"Every. Single. Time," I gasp as he hits that spot good and deep,"when you ground…it'll be me now, lying here in the flowers on this hill." I play his game, caressing his mind with the sex-roughened sultry voice I know drives him to bed no matter what he had planned.

The moment his mouth slants over mine and he commands the breath from my lungs with the full press of him above me I know he's lost. His palms plant on either side of my chest as he drags his length from my core before slamming to the hilt in a quick but long-stroked, claiming rhythm.

Cool shadows trace the lines of my arms to my fingertips before spreading out and curling around patches of the grass and flowers around us. My own fingers cling to the back of his neck with one hand as the other slips under his arm to grab at the taut muscles of his back as I feel his shields crack to flood me with his unyielding need as his body takes mine over and over again.

"Gods I fucking love you…everything about how warm and wet you are…can't get enough, it'll never be enough. Need. Want. Take. Ground. Home," he groans into my mind, flinging me closer to the teetering release that every single grind of his root against my clit spurs inside me.

Lightning spiderwebs through the sky with a following thunderous rumble as shadows shred the ground cover in a flurry of blades of grass and tattered flower petals when we cry out our passion together into the cooling night, puffs of air from between our lips as my fluttering walls milk his orgasm from him in hot spurts. His forehead hits my collarbone as he slumps every so slightly above me and I press kiss after kiss to his sweaty temple.

A full-body shiver racks him from head to toe and I laugh at the breath showing in the aftermath of the sun's last rays disappearing as the evening chill rushes in. As he lifts himself up on slightly shaky forearms, I cup his jaw and press soft kisses against his panting lips, every second or third reciprocated as he drags the cool crisp mountain air into his starving lungs.

"Gods…you'll be the death of me. How am I supposed to explain getting hard when grounding every time now?"

My laugh is a sultry wonton rush of heat against his throat and I feel him throb inside me where he's still as deep as he can be. "That's a problem for tomorrow Xaden."

"It's going to be a problem for rest of his life Xaden," he groans and pulls fully away to rest on his heels and Gods. The blast of heat I just exploded across the early evening sky is rekindled as my eyes trace every, single, line of his hard body despite the near lack of light.

Much to my chagrin, he rises and conjures a couple of mage lights low to the ground before holding his hand out to me. Goose flesh puckers across my skin now that his body is no longer over mine, and I agree to dress simply because of the growing need to ward off the chill.

Gathering my hair above my head elicits a groan from his lips as they press a soft kiss to the back of my neck while lacing my armor, and I grin knowing full well that tonight isn't one where either of us will be getting much sleep.

My arms are thankful when I pull on the flight jacket as shivers wrack my body. "Shall we call our rides?"

"Oh no," he says quietly and tugs me forward toward the sloped edge that overlooks Aretia. He settles heavy into the grass and I'm not entirely sure how he hasn't buttoned his jacket yet to shut out the cold. His hand pulls me between his legs and then chest, the sides of the flight jacket wrapping around me along with his arms.

"Being up this high means that the light of the sun lingers on the horizon," his voice is soothing both in the softness that ruffles my loose hair and the rumble from his chest against my back. "The moment that light disappears it's like the sky comes to life."

I sigh in contentment, my shivers disappearing as my body soaks in his heat, and when his cheek tilts against my temple my heart melts just as much as when he has me panting on my back.

This is a perfect moment. Aretia at night comes to life as lanterns highlight roads and windows, and while I can't see the people from this far away, I know that my squad would be finishing up on the mat before hitting the showers before making their way through town to the tavern for a couple of drinks and taking turns at singing horribly with whatever musicians show up tonight.

As if on cue, the last vestiges of dim blue hue disappear behind the darkened peaks of the west, and the array of stars that shimmer above the valley makes me cling to him as we sit beneath the cosmic splendor above.

"What you said earlier," Xaden starts, and I hadn't realized how lulled I was by his heartbeat and warm arms.

"Mmhmm?"

I can almost hear how hard he's thinking, but he's hiding it well from my fully dropped shields.

"I said a lot so…you'll have to be more specific."

His chuckle is a breath that ruffles my hair and cools the skin behind my ear.

"When you said you don't demand from me what they do," he starts and for the first time in a long time I feel insecurity that isn't stemming from my own heart. I stay quiet and let him pick through his words. "We can't lose each other if we…"

I stiffen and know he feels it. "Xaden…that's not a reason to accept a crown."

"It could be reason enough for me - that I wouldn't lose you."

"You claiming Tyrrendor's throne doesn't stop the venin from coming for us. It doesn't reset the clock."

My fingers tingle with the need to touch him, so I snake my arm out of the cocoon we've made to cup the side of his cheek pulling him tighter to my temple, and I feel him turn to press a kiss to my palm before he leans into my touch.

"But," I start and it's his turn to stiffen. "If you're asking me to be your queen after all this bullshit ends, I'm in."

I feel his grin as he peppers kisses along the edge of my thumb. "I can see it now," his words are a soft brush in my mind.

"My palace, my throne, my queen."