Page 55 of Royal Resistance

“I’ve been raised to keep my emotions hidden,” Selene confesses. “I’m sure it’s been difficult to be able to read me, and we still don’t know each other very well. But I’d like to. And I’d like to make this clear. I am sure. This is what I want. You’re what I want. Not the king or the rock star—you, Magnus.”

I start breathing again, because I’m going to need air for this.

I cross the room in two steps.

Selene stands there waiting.

I touch her neck, my fingers slipping into her blonde hair to find the pins or whatever is holding it up. “I like your hair like this,” I say, my voice suddenly husky. “It’s pretty. Messy.”

“I want to be messy.”

My heart gives a thump, and I nod, easily finding the clip holding it all in place. When I pull it out, her hair tumbles to her shoulders, and she shakes it out, like she’s doing a half-hearted attempt at the head shaking she might have been doing at the bar.

“I like the jeans, too,” I tell her, and hook my finger in her belt, tugging her closer

“Diandra got them for me,” she whispers.

“I’ll have to thank her.”

“After you stop being angry with her for taking me to that bar?”

“How can I be angry when it led me to this?” My hands are back in her hair, the silky strands sliding through my fingers, and I look down at her closely. “Are you sure?” I ask. “Screech can be a lot the first time—”

Selene reaches up on her tiptoes and kisses me.

She kisses me, and it’s everything.

Soft lips, a tentative touch, that suddenly isn’t all that tentative. Selene presses against me, pushing closer. One of my arms wraps around her waist, the other still tangled in her hair.

Her arms wind around my neck and this. This is what I’ve always wanted.

It feels like a moment. It feels like forever.

But finally she pulls away, her eyes bright and smiling.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever kissed a queen,” I admit.

“I hope it won’t be the last,” Selene says in a flirtatious voice. “Feel free to do it again.”

So I do.

Epilogue

Magnus

The day after the one-year anniversary of King Magnus’s coronation

“I’m sorry you missed the anniversary party,” Selene says sadly.

I laugh. I can’t help it. If my wife thinks that the party celebrating the anniversary of my coronation that she’s helped plan for the last three months can ever take the place of this…

This bundle of snuffling newborn baby, born only hours ago, with a head full of reddish fuzz and a set of very healthy lungs that I’m holding swaddled in my arms.

My child. Our baby.

My son.

The heir to my throne. The next King of Laandia.