I chuckled. “Is it everything you thought it might be?” I teased gently, capturing her fingers when she traced my lips. I nipped at them with my teeth.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered, all seriousness even though her eyes twinkled in the golden light of our dwelling. “No complaints at all.”

I grunted.

“Do you wish I was more experienced?” came her unexpected question.

“What?” I asked, frowning, rolling onto my side more so I could see her better.

“I’m not bad at sex, am I?”

I scoffed. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” she said, her tone earnest. “You’re my first lover, Sarkin.”

“And last,” I growled, a delicious possessiveness curling low in my belly.

She smiled. “You’re my first husband too.”

“And last.”

It looked like she wanted to say something else. Perched on the edge of her tongue, her smile dying as a shy expression overtook her teasing amusement. My heart picked up pace in my chest.

Come on, aralye, what are you going to say? I wondered, though I thought I knew.

You’re my first love too was what went unspoken, a silent thing between us.

And last, I would inform her.

Klara swallowed the words, and I stroked my fingers over her exposed shoulder, feeling the softness of her skin, still warm from our bath.

“Because I’m inexperienced with these things,” she said instead, going back to where the conversation had deviated. “I’m only acting on instinct.”

“Then I will tell you, wife,” I rasped, my lips replacing my touch, trailing them up her neck to her ear. A full body shiver racked her, a little gasping breath shuddering from her. “That you have only the most perfect of instincts.”

And it’s madness…wanting you this much, I thought, capturing her lips for a gentle, lazy kiss.

For the first time in my time as Karath to the Sarrothian, I wanted to lock myself away with her. Just for a little while. I didn’t want to burden myself with Elthika migration or Elysom politics or the heartstones in Dothik or the preparations for the journey back to Sarroth.

Selfishly, I just wanted to stay in this bed with Klara. I wanted to fall asleep beside her and wake up to her, with no pressing obligation of needing to be anywhere else.

When had I ever felt like this before?

“I brought you gifts,” I told her, pulling away from our bed of furs to snag the satchel from the ground near the doorway.

She rose onto her elbow, her full breasts on display. “Gifts?” she asked, hesitant but hopeful. Curiosity rose in her luminous and inquisitive gray eyes. “Really?”

“From Elysom,” I said. “One day, you will see our capital city yourself. It is quite a beautiful place. But until then…”

I crouched down and dug into the bag.

Klara gasped when I pulled out a beautiful floor-length dress, made of silver hatchling scales with shimmering jewels sewed into the bodice.

“Sarkin, it’s so lovely,” Klara murmured, reaching out to touch the material. “I’ve never seen anything so fine.”

“I thought you might want to wear this on Akymor. It’s a special day in Sarroth—it marks the end of the Elthika’s mating season, before they begin to nest with their eggs. I hold a celebration at the citadel for my kya’rassa, and there are small parties in each of the villages. I try to visit them all through the night.”

She was staring at me, that shy expression on her features again. She looked down at the dress when her cheeks flushed, rubbing the material between her fingertips. “I would like that.”

Satisfaction burned in my chest.

I pulled out my next gift. Her eyes alighted on the pair of them, jeweled hair clips, crafted of the purest of silvers.

“So you never have to hide your scar,” I told her, thinking of what she’d just told me. “Especially not from me.”

She sucked in a quiet breath, meeting my eyes. I thought hers went a little glassy before she blinked swiftly.

“Thank you. I…I don’t know what to say. You spoil me with these pretty things,” she said, touching the clips when I placed them in her palms, running her fingertips over the etched metal.

But pretty things didn’t make her truly happy, did they?

I thought my last gift might though.

“One more,” I said.

“More?” She laughed.

“I saved the best for last.”

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her skull when I pulled an Elthika scale–bound book from the bottom of the bag.

“Sarkin,” she breathed. “That’s a…that’s a…”

“A book?”

“Yes!”

I chuckled, knowing I made the right decision. Books weren’t usually for sale in Elysom’s collections, but I’d offered a price to a private collector, one he hadn’t been able to turn down.

She reached for it eagerly, and I grinned, shaking my head when I saw her hands were trembling.

“Don’t worry—I didn’t get my filthy hands all over the pages,” I informed her, thinking back to when I’d first bumped into her at the marketplace in Dothik.

“Oh, Sarkin,” she breathed. Now she was actually blinking back happy tears as she carefully flipped open the cover, thumbing through the first few pages. “And it’s in the universal language!”

“It’s in both,” I informed her. “It’s translated from Karag—you can see the original text in the last half of the book. When we return to Sarroth, there is a scholar there who can help you learn to read it. Most of our books are written in our language or a blend of Karag and the universal tongue. It will expand your available reading material at the very least, learning Karag.”

“Of course,” she said, her shoulders rising with a deep, determined breath, as if she was ready to begin her tutoring now. “I’ll learn it.”

“It’s a history of Elthika,” I told her. “I thought it would be useful to you.”

I grunted when she launched herself at me. I caught her around the waist, the book pressed between us.

She kissed me. “Thank you. Kakkira vor. I love it. I…”

Again she stopped herself, whatever she’d been about to say next, though we both heard it. Then she beamed at me.

“You shouldn’t have shown this to me because now I don’t want to sleep,” she said, sighing, running her fingertips over the cover, the scales making a sound as her nails stroked over them.

I smiled. “How about I read you a few pages in the Karag language?”

“Would you?” she asked, brightening.

Her passion for learning, for knowledge, for books—so pure and loving—only made my affection for her grow all the more.

“Of course,” I told her, taking the book from her grip gently. We lay back in the bed—I was getting used to sleeping closer to the ground, in a nest of furs. Klara’s eyes ran over the foreign letters on the page, her head pressed into my shoulder.

Anything to get her to relax for tomorrow, I thought.

I began to read…because dawn would come much too soon.

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Chapter 36KLARA

“Remember,” Sarkin murmured, his voice soft and hushed, even though we were alone on a ledge on the Tharken cliffs, “you don’t have to do this, Klara.”

“Don’t tell me that,” I said, my voice even. I went cold, even stoic, when I was nervous. From an outsider’s perspective, it might’ve even seemed like I was bored. “I can do this.”

He looked at me steadily. “I never thought you couldn’t.”

“Then stop giving me an out,” I told him, deliberately trying to soften my words. “My brother always did that. He always tried to protect me. I loved him for it…but sometimes I wished he would let me stand on my own. When it came to my family. When it came to the Dothikkar’s hungry court. Because they never respected me.”

Sarkin inclined his head. There was understanding in his eyes.