The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

because I wanted to live. And I found you.”
He curled his arms around me, tightening his embrace.
A couple of additional moments passed as we watched the
wolven around the fire. “What would you want to be doing
right now if you could be doing anything? Barring seeing
your brother or anything that has to do with what we need
to do.”
My brows rose at the unexpected question. Letting my
senses stretch out to him, I felt a boyish sense of curiosity,
one that brought a grin to my face. I didn’t even have to
think about it. “This. You?”
“I’m being serious,” he said.
“I am, too. I would want to be doing this—all that we’ve
done today,” I said. “You?”
“The same,” he said quietly, and I knew he spoke the
truth. “But with you naked and more sex.”
I laughed loudly at that because I also sensed that to be
true. “I’m glad that I chose to spend right now this way.”
“Me, too.” He pressed his lips to my cheek.
I really didn’t know when we would have another day
like this one, or at what point there would even be time. But
I didn’t want to think of the reasons why it would probably
be a while. That wasn’t how I wanted to spend right now, so
I watched those dancing around the fire with avid interest,
entranced by the joyous frenzy of the dark outlines of their
bodies, how they moved from one partner to the next, both
male and female, with the kind of reckless abandon I’d
shared with Casteel in the garden. What I felt from them
could only be described as a release, as if they danced to
toss away the chains of what preyed on their minds and
souls, and in so doing, found freedom.
A body peeled away from the fire and moved toward us.
Sweat glistened off Delano’s bare shoulders as he bowed at
the waist. Pale hair tumbled across his forehead as he
extended an arm. “Would you like to dance?”