Rap rap rap.

Rap.

I’d been drinking since four in the afternoon, and the resulting nap was so liquid and thick that it was impossible for me to find my way to the surface. There were sounds…sounds at the door…knocking… Someone’s here.

I managed to open my eyes and roll off my couch with a groan and a wince. I’d had at least four martinis, maybe five, but honestly, I wouldn’t have blamed myself for having six or seven. Today was the first day back on the campaign trail since Jenny’s death, and I’d gone with Ash to Norfolk for a speech he was supposed to give.

It had not gone well.

There had been a moment during the speech, as Ash’s hands were shaking as he struggled to find the right page in his notes to speak from, as he’d trailed off, unable to focus on what he’d been saying, when Merlin and I had shared a look so filled with mutual panic that I almost felt a kinship with the man, despite how much I disliked him. In many ways, this entire venture was more Merlin’s than Ash’s and mine. He had been the one to spend years building up the New Party at the state level, pulling together coalitions and winning support from disaffected Democrats and Republicans. He’d been the one to groom Ash for the role, to gradually convince him that it wasn’t hubris to run for office—or that it was forgivable hubris, at least. It seemed like his entire life had been about getting Ash to this point…I wondered what would happen to Merlin if it all fell apart now.

The speech had been a wreck, but that’s not why I went home to polish off half a bottle of gin. The pity and sympathy on the faces of the people at the speech assured me that for the moment, the campaign was safe enough. In fact, Ash’s shaken delivery had probably helped the message, which was driving home the importance of the sacrifices servicemen and women made in the course of performing their duties. I half suspected that if we’d been able to put voting booths outside the venue, they would have voted for the handsomely grieving Maxen down to a person.

No, it wasn’t the speech. It was Ash himself. It was those haunted eyes, his faint voice, his hands trembling too much to shuffle the pages of his speech. The slump of his shoulders, the blank purposelessness in his face. Watching him like that, so emptied of himself, felt like drowning.

Was this really the same man who’d calmly and charmingly won his first two debates? The same man who’d fought off a building full of rebels to get me to safety? The same man who looked unflinchingly at the muddy, fog-wisped plain of Badon and urged his frightened men forward?

It couldn’t be. It wasn’t.

I drove back to my too-expensive Capitol Hill condo thinking two things:

One, my king was broken.

And two, I didn’t know how to fix him.

Those two things made me miserable, and thus the gin. Which I regretted now as I forced myself to my feet and over to the door. The large clock Morgan’s decorator had picked out told me that it was almost midnight. Fuck. How long had I been asleep?

The rapping was insistent now, like the visitor was trying to break their way through my door with their fist.

“Hold on,” I muttered, fumbling with the locks and chains. Jesus Christ. Didn’t people have any respect for politicians trying to sleep off a bad day?

The moment I unlocked the door, it opened with a bang and there was my running mate, soaked through with rain, not even wearing a fucking coat, the ends of his black hair clinging to his cheekbones and neck.

“Ash, what the f—”

His lips were on mine before I could finish my sentence, his body pinning mine against the wall as he kicked the door closed with his foot. His lips were hungry, his body hungrier, all of him hot and firm and soaking wet. And that body and mouth were so familiar, so achingly familiar, and yet brand new at the same time. Seven years. It had been seven years since the last time his mouth had chased mine, had pressed against it, had claimed it and invaded it.

I could taste the rain on his lips.

One hand fisted my shirt at the shoulder to keep me against the wall and the other ripped through my buttons, my belt, every barrier between my skin and his. I pulled back to see his face, expecting to see the same empty mask I’d seen this afternoon, but when his eyes met mine, they were the eyes of my king.

I stared at him in wonder. “Ash?”

“I need you,” he growled, still pulling at my belt. “Can I have you?”

My chest felt open and exposed, full of tender, unburied hopes like soft green shoots in barely-thawed soil. “You’ve always had me,” I murmured, and I had to close my eyes as I said it or else he’d see too much, and I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear him knowing how I starved for him, how I ached down to my marrow for him. How these last seven years had scooped me out and left me a keening husk, wandering in the cold while he’d been warm and happy at Jenny’s side.

My pride refused to let him see, but also my compassion—I couldn’t bear for him to know how much pain he’d caused me for Jenny’s sake, not so soon after her death. But as always with Ash, what I wanted didn’t matter, because when I opened my eyes again, I knew he saw it all anyway. His gaze moved from my eyes to the rest of my face, and he said tenderly, “Patroclus.”

I didn’t want to hear what he might say next, and it didn’t matter anyway. I’d chosen this life, I’d chosen to put his future above ours, and so in a way, I deserved all the pain I’d felt. And I didn’t know what had caused this midnight visit, this rain-soaked vision of sex and desperation, but I was too frantic and starved to let it pass without savoring every moment of it. I leaned forward and kissed him so he couldn’t speak, and my kiss seemed to reignite whatever flame had been burning inside him when he tried to knock down my door.