Page 60 of Monster Queen Rising

"Fen. Fen —"

I cannot answer her.

I put my mouth on the back of her neck. The one place on her nobody has ever marked.

I do not bite it.

Not tonight.

She breaks under me a third time and I go with her, all the way down, growling into her neck with my hand still spread on her stomach and hers still around my wrist, and everything I have ever held comes out of me and there is nothing left in me at all.

We come down.

My hands are open. The claws are gone.

There is not a mark on her I did not mean.

I stay inside her through the after. My face in her neck. Both of us breathing like we ran something.

I gave her all of it and I am still here.

Her hand comes over mine.

Both marks are cool.

First time since the seal.

Cool. Not gone.

And then, without deciding to, without checking the dark, I sleep.

I half-wake once. The dark. Her breathing on my chest. I reach for the threat.

There is not one. I go under.

The next time, the window is gray, and the whole night has closed over me with no break in it, and I lie still and feel how strange it is, and sleep again.

The room is full of morning and she is gone from the bed.

The field is at peace. Six lines. All settled.

The sheet is in pieces. There are four holes in the mattress on her side. I find my shirt and go.

She is at the counter with a mug. Her hair up. My shirt. The mark showing where the collar opens. She sees me. She does not say anything.

I cross to her and put my hand on the side of her face and she leans into it.

"I slept," I say.

She goes still.

She sets the cup down. Her eyes go over my face and go wet, and she does not do anything about it. She turns her face into my palm.

"I have not been afraid since you claimed me."

She waits.

"Last night I was not afraid asleep either."