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remember it,” he said factually, turning away.
    “ I won’t?”
    “ Nope.” He bent down and looped the dead girl’s arm over his neck. “You never do.”
     
    ***
     
    What David and I had done in this bed with each other over the past few weeks had surely ruined Arthur’s turkey baster plan. I’d held off as long as I could, but couldn’t exactly tell my husband I didn’t want to have sex with him in case I fell pregnant and ruined his uncle’s and my plan to save him from certain death. So, I let him have me last night, all of me, and prayed now, as I laid here in his sleeping arms, that we hadn’t conceived. I wished it didn’t matter. I wished I could imagine his life force moving through me, inside me, electrifying things to existence within my body. I wished I could cup my hand over my belly and imagine the colour of her hair, or if she’d have his eyes or mine. What kind of smile she’d have, whose temperament she’d have. But all of those dreams belonged to normal people—to people who were human and not immortal weapons, whose vampire-hunting child was foretold to be powerful enough that one of the oldest immortals in the world wanted her dead before she could even say her first word.
    “ Morning,” David said sleepily, and all my thoughts halted, my hand falling away from my belly.
    “ Hey.” I rolled slightly to look up at him; his stubble had grown in thicker overnight, making him look gruff and sexy, covering his dimple just enough that it looked like a ditch in the ground covered by grown-in grass. And under his thick, dark brows, pulled together slightly as he studied my eyes, those shining green emeralds stood out, brightening my day. “I love the feel of your hand on my back first thing in the morning.”
    “ Is that so?” He spread his fingers wider, waking each inch of my skin he touched, firmly cupping my hip and moving his fingertips just into the rim of my underwear, a naughty millimetre away from my butt-crack. “And I love feeling you in my hands first thing in the morning,” he added.
    I giggled, pressing my head into his kiss. “Woke up on the right side of bed today, huh?”
    “ When I wake with you snuggled into me like this.” He squeezed me. “I can’t possibly wake in a bad mood.”
    “ Well, you’ve woken up late today.” I patted his chest and pushed off it gently to sit, tucking my legs to one side. “Breakfast is in ten minutes.”
    He rolled onto his side, his body going long as he grabbed his watch off the nightstand and checked it. “Lucky I’m a speedy vampire and can break records for getting showered and dressed.”
    I copied his lively smirk. “Yes, but it’s a pity you’re not the king and can just decide breakfast isn’t all that important today.”
    “ And what, pray tell, is more important than dining in community with our people?”
    I moved one shoulder up shyly to my ear, and David’s smile spread across his face, his white fangs gleaming in the early light, warming my blood with a pang of hunger. But not hunger for the kind of food we’d have in the Great Hall.
    “ You, my girl—” He cupped my chin and slid his thumb down it, “—are insatiable.”
    “ But, insatiable and still bound to my queenly duties, right?” I said, knowing he was about to throw the covers back and get up to break that record.
    “ Just as I am bound as king.” He winked, and disappeared behind the bathroom door, leaving my bed empty, aside from the mound of proverbial duty I couldn’t escape.
     
    ***
     
    I’d not heard a guitar being played in so long I couldn’t remember the last time. And I knew David’s style, knew before I even heard his voice rising above it that he was playing. But I wasn’t exactly sure who the second guitarist was.
    I wandered down the stairs to the Great Hall and crossed the room, hugging myself. The dining table was empty now, all the breakfast dishes removed and the people disbursed, but a small group was still