Disclaimer (just to be safe): this book is PG-13

Lexa watched as the Prince strided down the hallway, with a kiss on her cheek and a day's worth of exhaustion built into the soles of her feet. Just outside of the doors to her quarters, she was only steps away from leaving this day before the wedding behind.   

The day had been an eventful one, for the soon to be queen. But it had not been a difficult one. At a certain point in Lexa's time spent playing the sweet Adelaide, she had fallen into an ease with the prince. Sure, he was a kind man, annoyingly so. All this flattering talk of love and lifetimes spent together made her want to chop her own head off. But at the very least, the Prince was predictable.

Which made manipulating him so easy that it was almost too boring to bear. Where was Cleo when Lexa needed her? She may have been a conniving twit, but at the very least she was a challenge. An equal to compete with Lexa's own skills.

Regardless, the day before the wedding went as to be expected. The whole day had been spent listening to the prince drone on and on about the wedding. Honeymoon this, Children that. At some point it took all of Lexa's will power not to drive the excessive speaking out. 

William had left her with beautifully crafted parting words, something that she had made sure to feign swooning to. Something about Adelaide's innocence and kindness. Lexa had forgotten at this point, for it was what she did with all of the useless information not relevant to her plots. 

Lexa opened her doors, and sighed upon arrival. 

Bennie had never been one to handle envy well, especially when it came to Lexa. Some would say that it was his most dominating flaw.

But that had been different before, when he was not the high sorcerer. She had been able to use that jealousy to her advantage then. But now...now with all of the raw power that he had absorbed, he was uncontrollable. Powerful. Dangerous. He was no longer the goofy kid that she had once known, falling over his feet just to catch a glimpse of her attention.

But even high sorcerers wanted something. And Lexa, for better or for worse, knew that all that Bennie wanted was her. It had always been that way, and some things never did change.

Not even when one becomes the most gifted in the kingdom.

She shifted her eyes to where he laid upon her bed sheet, scowling at her. He sprawled across the fabric leisurely, like he did not give a care about how Lexa saw him. No leaning against the bed post this time, or sprawling across the couch.

Just him. And the bed.

And him.

It's like he knew what he was doing to her.

"How did you know?" She asked blandly.

"What? I'm just here to check up on my Innocent Adelaide." He flaunted his tone in a poor attempt at mocking Will.

"You've been watching me?" Lexa hadn't felt anything, the usual tug at the fringes of her mind.

"Being the sorcerer does come with it's..." he looked her up and down, sending chills through her veins. "Perks."

Bennie, she could tell, was about to speak of undesired topics. Things that she would not tolerate with the exhaustion on her mind.

"I'm tired of speaking of this Bennie. I-"

He cut her off. "Do you have feelings for him?"

She refused to answer his question directly, whether out of spite or if she did not know the answer. She never really knew much about her own emotions. Sometimes she wondered if she even had them. "You do not dictate who I spend my time with Bennie. We've been over this too many times."

"Hell, you're not the only one who has wasted a night or two for a little entertainment. I wouldn't care if you lied in bed with every man in the kingdom. As long as..." he broke off

"As long as what?"

For a moment, Bennie seemed unwilling to speak, as if the words that were to be uttered would cut his tongue like blades. But with wanting in his eyes and depravity in his tone, he conceded. "As long as you don't have feelings for them."

"Why." She wasn't sure if the word was a question or a statement, but she did know that as soon as it hit the air, it inflicted pain that for once she had not intended.

Bennie stepped closer, taking her wrists in his hands and held her vision with his emerald eyes. "Because I love you, Lexa."

The same scowl remained constant to her face, the same bored expression. However, somehow she felt like her breath had been knocked out from under anyway.

She couldn't believe it.

He actually said it. She had always known. But she never thought that he would actually admit it.

He searched her face with analyzing eyes, looking for anything at all tombs carried in her gaze.

"Can't you see it? Are you truly that blind? It's always been you. Always. I could sleep with millions of girls, and trust me, I've seen my fair share, But none of them would ever be you. You're my sun and my moon and my stars, and I don't want to share your heart. Especially when we both know that there is only a certain amount of it that you can give, if any at all. I love you Lexa."

"I know."

"Then why didn't you say anything. Do you love me, at least in the way that a friend loves her friend? If anything, I thought we at least had that."

For once in her life, she told him the truth. He deserved that.

"I do not believe that I can love."

For a moment, silence took their ears. Bennie's voice then broke through that.

"Lexa, what would you do for me?"

She pondered the question. But she already knew the answer on the instant. She had always known.

"I would burn down the world for you."

"And is that not love? When you think about who will stand by you for the rest of your life, who do you see? It's me, isn't it? I had once thought that you could never love me, Lexa. Just as you do, I had thought you incapable of the emotion. Of any emotions. But that's not true, I've known you much too long to know that. And it's because of that that I know that when I say this, I could not be more correct, for I know you better than you do yourself. You do feel emotions, and you do feel love. It's rare, but it's present. When you do love, it's with everything that you have, just as how you loved your mother, and it broke you to pieces when she loved another child more than you.

"And I realized something. You do love me, Lexa. But you're too afraid to admit it to yourself because you're afraid that I'm going to break you like your mother. But I won't break you, for there's nothing more in the world that I want more than you. I need you, my love, like I need air. Without you I can't breathe and with you I soar. So tell me, don't you love me back?"

They locked eyes. Between their gazes, years of their lives shared danced between them. Every moment they had spent side by side with each other, both good and bad. Stealing pastries and pranking the guards. Bennie teaching her the magic she would have never have been able to learn. Fragments of dreams of the day when they would share a kingdom together, and finally be free.

Didn't she love him?

Didn't she?

She wasn't sure.

But she was sure in one thing, in that knowledge that there was only one way that this scene could end without losing Bennie. She did not want to lose him, whether for the power she had to gain from his position or something else entirely. 

"Of course I love you, you idiot."

And with that, they collided like fireworks, setting off like flames. She had never expected him to be gentle, and she had been right.

She was always right, after all.

And in this case, as he pushed her up against the wall, she couldn't have been more ecstatic.

The two of them, as they embraced, were balanced like black and white, like ice and fire. Bennie wanted her with a desperate passion, and Lexa... Lexa found a buried life inside her body, a dormant feeling that had been asleep like a slumbering giant. For it was huge, and all encompassing. She wanted him. All of him.

She discovered something in the way he pressed against her, the way his tongue glided over her neck. That something that caused her to arch into him, the something that drove her head insane with the thought of him drawling as close as she needed him to be.

She pulled away for a second, an action almost impossible as if she was forcibly ripping her body away from binding glue. But it was just a tiny bit, as his body was still pressed up against her, only so that she could breathe without his mouth not upon hers.

Even with her mind and her body and her heart grew more frantic with each and every moment, she still had to put the thought of her throne first.

When she spoke, her voice came out as if she was gasping for air. "Someone will hear us. We can't..."

That grin of his, Lexa lost her thoughts to the winds as soon as he set it upon her. She had never known just how devastating it could be.

And when he looked at her with those eyes, he captured her within their cages. "Trust your sorcerer, my love. My magic won't let anyone hear." 

Once again they clashed together, moving like lightning. He fumbled with her corset, and she yanked at his shirt, both entangled together as they did so.

Lexa could see it now, how people compared their love to the stars and the sky and the moon. Because in this moment, with Bennie, she felt swallowed whole with the kind of wonder one finds when they are lost in the stars.

He was her sky.

He was her moon.

He was her stars.

And she was left to orbit around him, never knowing anything more than the sound of his name and the feeling that lit her brighter than any star.

In the shadowed room, the sound of panting breaths echoed throughout. Two bodies sprawled together across the wrinkled sheets, lying side by side as they had when they were children.

Lexa, as she caught her breath while entwined in Bennie's arms, still could feel that rush of euphoria within her, as it lingered around her like the aftertaste of an exceptional truffle.

Bennie's voice, still ravaged by loss of breath, shattered through the silence.

"Do you remember that one Catorada, when we were 12?"

She did, in fact. Perhaps the happiest moment of her life. She remembered those threads of bright color that he had created for her, how they had danced through them.

"What about it?"

"That was the moment when I knew that I loved you. I looked at you when we were laying under the stars and I knew that I'd follow you to the ends of the earth.

"One day, Lexa. One day I'm going to take you back there, to that spot in the woods. And then we're going to recreate this night, but only better."

"I don't know Bennie..." she smiled, teasing him. "I doubt much can top tonight."

"I've got a couple of tricks up my sleeve."

"Oh yeah?"

"Absolutely."

Lexa giggled, a sound that she had only ever heard when Bennie was around. She drawled closer as she put her hands on his chest, letting her fingers trace him. Every muscle, every inch of skin. 

"Well then, why wait?" She grinned a feral grin. "Show me everything that you have."

When she awoke the next morning, she felt something deeper in her heart when she leaned to the side, and saw the powerful man sleeping innocently beside her. She felt it flutter as he breathed in and out, deep breathes of sleep.

And that was it. Then, in that exact moment, she knew. They had spoken of sudden realizations, and this was hers. 

Bennie had stolen her heart the way she had his. She loved him, she knew for certain that she did. Her heart was his to keep, and to use how ever he wanted.

It would be her downfall.

And she could not let that happen.