Chapter 334: Oh, He Liked That

She had been here. In this water. In these arms. With this heartbeat against her spine. She knew it the way she knew how to breathe, with a certainty that lived below thought and above proof.

The memory wasn’t there. The feeling was. And the feeling was so much worse because it was a promise without a receipt, a home she could stand inside but couldn’t find the door to, and every second he held her was another second she spent memorizing something she had apparently already memorized and lost.

His voice broke her out of her thoughts.

"What are you thinking about right now?"

She realized he could probably feel that and was wondering what she was trying to remember. It was easy to forget that matebonds were a two-way street.

"Have we done this before?"

The question came out more uncertain than she meant it to.

He didn’t hesitate. "Yes. We did this earlier this week."

The statement put a lump in the back of her throat. Earlier this week might as well have been a lifetime ago.

"We did it every day before I lost my memories," he added.

"You lost your memories too?"

"Yes. I’ve been getting them back though. And you are going to get yours back too."

"How much have you gotten back?"

"Most of it. There are still gaps. Moments I know happened but can’t see yet."

"How do you know they happened if you can’t see them?"

"Because the people around me mention things in passing. Things they don’t realize I don’t know and I have been filling in the gaps."

That hit the nail on the head for exactly what she had been going through. Tears were in her eyes before she could stop them. One fell into the green water and disappeared.

His thumb caught the second tear before it fell. "Don’t cry in the bath. It throws off the salt ratio and I already fucked that up once tonight."

Something between a laugh and a hiccup left her chest.

"The memory thing is hell. I know." His voice softened by one degree. "And from what I can tell, you’ve been handling it by sprinting through kingdoms, riding demons, and falling through clouds, which is impressive and also completely insane."

Her body softened against his by one degree and his arms tightened by exactly the same amount.

"But, good news, you married someone who’s going to fill in every gap. Even the ones that make me look bad."

It was the closest thing to a normal conversation she’d had all week and her body gave it approximately three seconds before pulling the fire alarm.

White lines were crawling across her forearms beneath the surface. She let out a sigh, watching them spread up her arms. Then across her chest. Down past her collarbone into the water where they continued glowing through the green like bioluminescent eels that had enrolled in calligraphy school and were practicing on her body.

That’s when she noticed his forearms had matching runes.

Matching runes. Same pattern. Same pulse. Same glow filtering through the green bathwater like they’d been plugged into the same circuit.

"Oh no."

The runes were spreading. To him. Because of her. She was a walking, glowing, contagious light-bomb and every person who touched her caught them like a rash she couldn’t control.

She had tried to warn him. Being naked in the bath was probably not the best way to avoid them.

She opened her mouth to say something, but before any words came, he was spinning her around to face him. One second she was facing the wall. The next she was straddling the Dragon King, nose to nose, her knees bracketing his hips, her hands pressed flat against a chest that was glowing.

Her blush hit so fast and so hard that the runes on her skin had competition for the brightest thing in the room.

"The blush or the runes. Pick which one you want me to comment on because both are making it very hard to focus."

His lips were on hers before she could answer. The kiss swallowed the panic whole. His hands held her jaw, tilting her face to the angle he wanted, and the angle he wanted was all of it. He kissed her like a man correcting a misunderstanding that he found personally offensive.

When he pulled back, his eyes were warm and his thumbs were stroking the hinges of her jaw and the runes on his forearms were pulsing in time with hers like a heartbeat that had been shared and was showing off about it.

"I like them."

"They are going to spread on you more. They’re contagious through skin contact and we are currently doing maximum skin contact."

"I am aware."

His mouth dropped to her neck. His lips traced the curve of it the way a man traces a path he has memorized and intends to walk again. Slow. Thorough. Each kiss pressed deeper than the last until her fingers curled against his chest and the green water lapped between them in tiny waves that neither of them caused on purpose.

"I was concerned about transmission within your household after Kael caught them. But now it’s too late."

"Our household," he corrected, lips against her skin.

A response formed in her throat and stalled at the starting line because every version of it began with a name and she wasn’t sure what to call him. She had been dancing around that since coming into contact with him. Everyone had called him something different in front of her. Nicholas referred to him as Drakencrest. Kael said Maddox. Other people said Commander.

King Drakencrest in the bath sounded insane. Commander sounded like a fetish. Your Majesty could work. Maddox could also work.

The kissing was making the naming crisis exponentially harder because his lips kept landing on spots that made her lose her train of thought.

"M-Maddox?"

Every muscle in his body locked at the same time and the water went still.

"Say that again."

That was the correct answer. She had almost said Your Majesty. In a bathtub. While naked. While sitting on him. That would have been embarrassing for all parties involved.