ARIA
We made it back to his quarters before the adrenaline wore off and the reality of what we'd just survived hit me hard enough that I had to sit down on the edge of his bed and remember how to breathe normally.
Kael locked the door behind us and I watched him move through the space that was his again, properly his, not contested or temporary or dependent on Council approval. The Alpha King's quarters. Where I was now allowed to be because I was his mate and the Council had just witnessed what happened when they tried to question that.
He crossed to me and knelt in front of where I sat and looked at me with eyes that had been winter cold in the Council chamber and were something warmer now that we were alone.
"We won," he said.
"We survived."
"Same thing." His hands found my knees, slid up my thighs over the dress I'd worn to a hearing that was supposed to strip him of everything and had instead ended with Vivian in custody and his throne secure. "You're shaking."
