In the darkest hours, the Undying King entered her room on silent feet and stood sentinel by her bed, admiring her beauty. The knowledge of his sins had aged her. Fine lines marred her brow, and she muttered in her sleep.
He wanted to reach out, draw her into his embrace and somehow force her to believe that Cededa the Butcher was as dead as Cededa the Fair. Only the ghosts remained to haunt him and remind him of a past evil for which he’d never receive absolution.
As if she sensed his regard, her eyes fluttered open and she rolled to her side to face him. They gazed at one another long moments before she lifted the covers away in wordless invitation.
Forgiveness. The gesture nearly sent Cededa to his knees. He stripped and slipped beneath the covers to gather Imogen’s warm body close. She spooned against him, still silent but pliant in his arms. He buried his face in her hair. The memory of her accusation echoed in his mind.
“You would make me your redeemer.”
How very wrong she was. “I would make you my wife,” he whispered in her ear. “My only wife. My beloved wife.”
Melancholy thickened her voice, and her fingers lay cold over his. “I don’t want to hate you the way they did.”
His chest constricted. “I don’t want that either, Imogen.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m no longer that man.”
“Aren’t you?”
Cededa pressed on her shoulder until she lay on her back, face tilted to his. Tear tracks silvered her pale cheeks. “No, I’m not.” What else was there to say?
Imogen sighed and closed her eyes. “Everything you’ve done in your long years, everything you feel, is part of who you are now. The question is whether or not the greater part is the man who committed atrocities or the one who regrets them.”
He wanted to tell her that regret and guilt ran through his veins like death ran through hers, but he stayed silent. That question was hers to answer for herself.
Her hand drifted down his arm in a languid caress. “I never thought I’d meet a king,” she said in a sleepy voice. “Especially a fabled one.”
Cededa hugged her to him. Her breathing slowed, and her body grew heavy against his. “I never thought I’d hold Death,” he whispered in the darkness. “Or beg her love and mercy.”