Free Daughters of Lyra: Heart of an Emperor by Felicity Heaton Page B

to his heart beating strong. Her
heart. She had captured it just as he had captured hers.

    She cursed her parents
when she saw them still standing by the door and tried to shoo them
away. Her father gave her a look that said he wasn’t going
anywhere.

    “ One more
condition,” he said and Regis looked at him. “Sophia is Lyran and
will live many long years just as the rest of our species, but not
as yours. Give her a wedding present when you are married in two
night’s time.”

    Sophia frowned. “Two
nights?”

    “ Hush,” her
mother said with a knowing smile. Sophia couldn’t believe it. If
they intended for her to marry Regis in only two nights then they
must have been setting everything up from shortly after she had
spoken to her father in the garden.

    “ I will give
her any present that she desires,” Regis said and she smiled at
him.

    “ Give her this
one. Give her the aeturnalia solis.”

    Regis’ expression changed
to one so serious that she was dying to know what her father had
said. She hadn’t understood it. It had sounded like the old
language that Regis had spoken.

    “ I will,” he
said and her parents left.

    Sophia looked at Regis,
eager to know what it was that she would be getting as a present.
It sounded interesting but the look on Regis’s face made her worry.
She hoped it wasn’t anything to do with him dying again. The
thought of him leaving her was terrifying. She didn’t want him to
ever leave her side, and definitely not on her wedding
night.

    In two night’s
time.

    Night.

    She was getting married at
night?

    Evening at least. She
wanted to see Regis’s face during the ceremony.

    “ Regis?” she
said as he wrapped his arms around her and the door closed. “What’s
aeturnalia solis?”

    He brushed the waves of
black hair from her face and smiled at her.

    “ Something I
would have given you without his asking, but only with your
permission.”

    “ Permission?”
she said and frowned.

    “ It goes with
this,” he said and stroked the mark on her throat. “Think of it as
love everlasting.”

    “ Love
everlasting?” she said and then remembered what she had read about
Varkans. “Or life everlasting?”

    He smiled and cupped her
cheek. “Both, for you.”

    “ Love
everlasting,” she whispered as she stared into his eyes.

    Eternity with
Regis.

    It sounded
wonderful.

    Taking his hand, she
placed it over her stomach, holding it there, and kissed him. She
wasn’t going to leave this room until the ceremony in two night’s
time. After that, she wasn’t going to leave Regis’s side
forever.

    She smiled when Regis
nicked her lip with his teeth and kissed her harder, stealing her
breath away but in control this time, just as she knew he always
would be from now on. Now that she was his.

    Always.

    And soon he would be
hers.

    Forever.

    The
End

    ###

    About the
author
    Felicity Heaton
is a great believer in love at first sight and the romantic ideal.
Having grown up reading extensively, she developed a deep love of
classical literature, ranking Jane Eyre, North & South, and
Persuasion amongst her all time favourite reads. The most romantic
moment of her life was when her husband got down on bended knee on
the steps of Sacré Coeur, Paris, at night in front of several
hundred spectators and proposed. She was too drunk on love, and
subsequently champagne, to care about the audience. All she could
see was the man that she loved. A writer of emotion and life, she
always strives to touch a chord of familiarity in her readers and
give them characters they can love and a read to
remember.

    Connect with
me online:
    Website: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk
    Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/felicityheaton
    Blog: http://felicityheaton.blogspot.com/