Keeping Kyra in Alfhemir will endanger her life. If I had thought a future with her was possible, the norn’s shenanigans have wrecked that hope. I cannot let my burgeoning desires endanger my mate, and I refuse to let my world consume her.

So I ignore the budding ache spreading across the center of my chest. A half-blood king cannot afford weakness. Already I have made too many mistakes. Mistakes that have jeopardized my subjects and my kingdom. Mistakes I will gladly make again if means my mate reaches her Earth unharmed.

Yet, with each day that passes, I hunger for more than the physical. I hunger for her voice. Her laugh. The tenderness she bestows with her eyes. The quick wit she showers with a sassy flip of her brow.

I hunger for it all.