Phoebe’s POV
Perry’s arms tightened around as we watched the sunset bleed across the mountain peaks, painting everything in shades of fire and gold. His breath was warm against my neck when he answered my question.
"I see you and ," he murmured, his lips brushing the sensitive spot behind my ear. "Happy. Together. Forever."
The word ’forever’ hit like a physical blow.
My heart clenched so violently I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying out. Forever. Such a beautiful lie.
"The view is incredible up here," I managed, my voice steady despite the hurricane building inside my chest.
Perry seed completely at peace, his body relaxed against mine like he’d found his ho. Like I was all he needed in this world. The only thing keeping him anchored to sanity.
People had started seeing him differently lately. The mad king was gone, replaced by a man madly in love with his mate. They whispered about how I’d tad him, softened him, shown them the gentle heart beneath the crown.
But they didn’t know the truth.
They didn’t know that my love would be the very thing that destroyed him.
"You’re tense," Perry said suddenly, his hands moving to massage my shoulders. "Your muscles are like stone. What’s wrong?"
Nothing. Everything. The future that’s coming for us both.
"Just tired," I lied, forcing my body to relax against his touch. "It’s been a long day."
His fingers worked at the knots in my neck with practiced skill, but he couldn’t reach the real source of my pain. That lived deeper, in the place where hope used to be.
An heir. The two words that haunted my every quiet mont.
I’d tried not to think about it, tried to lose myself in Perry’s love and the joy of finally being free. But reality had a way of creeping back in, especially in monts like this when everything felt too perfect to last.
"Better?" Perry asked, pressing a kiss to my temple.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
The truth was, I loved him so desperately it felt like drowning. After everything we’d survived to get here, we deserved happiness. But happiness had an expiration date when you couldn’t give your king the one thing that mattered most.
Without an heir, the elders would never stop their whispers. Even if Perry silenced the current ones, more would rise up. More questions. More demands. More pressure until sothing broke.
And it wouldn’t be Perry who broke first.
"What are you thinking about?" His voice carried that gentle command that always made want to tell him everything.
I turned in his arms, studying his face in the dying light. Strong jaw, eyes that could be ruthless or tender depending on who was looking back at him, lips that had spoken both death sentences and love words with equal conviction.
This man would burn the world for . I knew that with terrifying certainty.
"I’m thinking about how much I love you," I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie.
His smile could have powered the entire kingdom. "Show ."
The words sent heat spiraling through my body, washing away the cold fear for blessed monts. This, at least, was real. This was ours.
I rose on my toes and captured his mouth in a kiss that tasted like desperation and desire mixed together. Perry responded imdiately, his hands fisting in my hair as he took control of the kiss with barely restrained hunger.
When we broke apart, both breathing hard, sothing wild had awakened in his eyes.
"Not here," he said roughly. "I need you sowhere I can worship you properly."
He found a sheltered spot beneath an overhang of rocks, protected from the evening breeze but open to the stars beginning to appear overhead. When he laid down on the soft grass, his touch was reverent, like I was sothing precious he was afraid of breaking.
"You’re shaking," he observed, his fingers tracing patterns on my skin that made arch beneath him.
"I’m cold," I whispered, though we both knew it wasn’t the temperature making tremble.
"Let warm you up."
His mouth found mine again, softer this ti but no less consuming. Every kiss felt like a promise, every touch like a prayer. When his hands began their familiar exploration of my body, mapping territory that belonged to him completely, I let myself forget everything except this mont.
The mountain air was crisp against my heated skin as he slowly removed my clothes, pressing kisses to each newly exposed inch. By the ti he settled between my thighs, I was already lost to sensation.
"I love watching you co apart for ," he murmured against my inner thigh, his breath making shiver with anticipation. "Love knowing I’m the only one who gets to see you like this."
When his mouth found my center, I cried out loud enough to echo off the mountain walls. Stars exploded behind my closed eyelids as he worked with his tongue, alternating between gentle exploration and focused intensity that had writhing beneath him.
"Perry, please..." I didn’t even know what I was begging for anymore.
"Please what, love?" He lifted his head just enough to speak, his lips glistening with evidence of my desire.
"Don’t stop. Never stop."
His dark chuckle vibrated against my sensitive flesh. "Never," he promised, and dove back in with renewed determination.
The orgasm hit like lightning, stealing my breath and making my back arch off the ground. Perry didn’t let up, extending the pleasure until I was sobbing his na and pulling at his hair.
Only then did he crawl up my body, positioning himself at my entrance with trembling restraint.
"Look at ," he commanded softly.
I opened eyes I didn’t rember closing, eting his gaze as he pushed inside with agonizing slowness. The stretch was perfect, familiar, ho.
"I love you," he said as he began to move, each thrust deliberate and deep. "Whatever’s bothering you, whatever you’re afraid of - we’ll face it together."
The tenderness in his voice almost shattered my composure. How could I tell him that the thing I feared most was losing him? That every day we stayed together made the inevitable ending more devastating?
Instead, I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him deeper, losing myself in the rhythm we’d perfected over countless nights like this. In the dance of bodies that spoke louder than words ever could.
When he finally spilled inside with a groan that sounded like my na, I held him close and let the tears I’d been holding back fall silently into his hair.
We lay tangled together afterward, my head on his chest while he traced lazy patterns on my bare shoulder.
"What is it?" Perry asked eventually, his voice heavy with satisfaction but tinged with concern. "Sothing’s eating at you. I can feel it."
I lifted my head to look at him, this man who knew better than I knew myself sotis. In the moonlight, his face was all sharp angles and gentle shadows.
"What do you see when you imagine our future?" I asked instead of answering.
Perry’s hand stilled on my skin. For a mont, sothing flickered across his features - uncertainty, maybe, or recognition of the weight behind my question.
Then his expression softened, and he cupped my face with both hands.
"I see mornings where I wake up next to you. Evenings like this one, just the two of us against the world. I see growing old together, ruling together, facing whatever challenges co our way together."
Each word was like a knife twisting in my chest. Such beautiful impossibilities.
"And children?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.
Perry went very still beneath . In the silence that followed, I could hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.
"Phoebe..."
"Do you see children in our future, Perry?" I pressed, even though I already knew the answer would destroy us both.
His thumb brushed away a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen. When he finally spoke, his voice was carefully gentle, like he was handling sothing fragile.
"I see whatever future makes you happy," he said diplomatically.
But his eyes told a different story. In their depths, I saw the sa fear that kept awake at night. The sa knowledge we both carried but refused to voice.
A kingdom needed heirs. A bloodline needed continuation. And I was broken in all the ways that mattered most.
"That’s not an answer," I whispered.
Perry sat up, pulling with him so we were facing each other in the starlight. His hands frad my face like he could hold back the storm building between us.
"The only future I want is one with you in it," he said fiercely. "Everything else is just details."
"Details that could tear us apart."
"Never." The word ca out like a vow. "Nothing will tear us apart, Phoebe. Nothing."
I wanted to believe him. God, how I wanted to believe that love could conquer biology, politics, the weight of an entire kingdom’s expectations.
But fairy tales didn’t survive contact with reality.
"Promise sothing," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Anything."
"Promise that when the ti cos - when you have to choose between and what’s best for the kingdom - you’ll make the right choice."
Perry’s face went deadly still. "Phoebe, don’t-"
"Promise , Perry." I grabbed his hands, squeezing tight enough to hurt. "Promise you won’t destroy yourself trying to hold onto sothing that was always ant to be temporary."
"This isn’t temporary," he said, his voice turning dangerous in a way that reminded he was still the king who’d earned his fearso reputation. "We aren’t temporary."
"Everything is temporary," I replied, hating how calm I sounded when my world was crumbling. "Even love."
Perry stared at for a long mont, and I saw the exact instant he realized what I was really asking. What I was really afraid of.
His expression shifted from confusion to understanding to sothing that looked suspiciously like devastation.
"No," he said flatly.
"Perry-"
"No." He stood abruptly, pacing away from with restless energy. "I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is no. I won’t give you up. I won’t choose duty over love. I won’t beco the kind of king who sacrifices his heart for political convenience."
"Even if it ans watching your kingdom tear itself apart?"
He spun around, his eyes blazing with an intensity that made glad he loved instead of hating .
"The kingdom can go to hell before I let anyone take you away from ."
The fierce possessiveness in his voice should have thrilled . Instead, it filled with cold dread, because I could see exactly where this path led.
Perry would fight for us. He’d wage war against his own people if necessary, burn bridges and break alliances, rule with an iron fist to silence anyone who dared question our union.
He’d beco the tyrant they’d always feared he was, all in the na of love.
And when the history books were written, I’d be rembered as the woman who turned a good king into a monster.
"Co back to ," I said softly, extending my hand.
He hesitated, then crossed back to in three quick strides, pulling against him like he was afraid I’d disappear.
"Don’t ask to give you up," he whispered against my hair. "Ask for anything else - my crown, my life, my kingdom - but don’t ask to give you up."
I closed my eyes and breathed in his scent, morizing this mont when we still had each other completely.
"I love you," I said instead of making promises I couldn’t keep.
"I love you too," he replied, and the desperate edge to his voice told he understood exactly what I hadn’t said.
We held each other as the mountain wind picked up around us, carrying the scent of pine and the promise of changing seasons.
In the distance, the palace lights glittered like a constellation fallen to earth, beautiful and unreachable.
Tomorrow, we’d go back to being king and queen, playing our roles in the endless theater of politics and power.
But tonight, we were just Perry and Phoebe, two people who’d found love in the ruins of their broken lives and were desperately trying to make it last.
Even as we both knew, with crushing certainty, that so storms were too powerful to survive.
"We should head back soon," Perry said eventually, though he made no move to let go.
I nodded against his chest, then pulled back to look at him one more ti in the starlight.
"One more night," I said, my voice carrying all the weight of an unspoken goodbye. "Give one more perfect night before everything changes."
Perry’s eyes searched mine, and I saw the mont he heard what I wasn’t saying.
"Phoebe, what are you planning?"
But I was already reaching for him again, pulling his mouth down to mine in a kiss that tasted like endings and desperate hope twisted together.
"Just love ," I whispered against his lips. "For whatever ti we have left."
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