I tangled my fingers deeply into his dark hair, pulling his handsome face perfectly level with mine. The dark, eternal reign had officially begun, and absolutely nothing would ever stop us.
The next three days at the coastal fortress were a surreal, deeply intoxicating blur of absolute peace and completely uninterrupted devotion. We existed entirely in a flawless vacuum, completely disconnected from the chaotic, heavy machinery of the massive empire we commanded. Valerius did not wear his razor-sharp suits or strap the heavy sidearm to his chest. He wore casual, dark linen, his massive, heavily scarred frame completely relaxed as we spent hours walking the isolated, wind-swept beaches of our private peninsula.
But the absolute rulers of the global underworld could never remain entirely h
