Текст книги "The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King"

Автор книги: Carissa Broadbent

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

“I never considered the Hiaj my enemy,” he said, and she scoffed.

“You considered us an enemy even before you killed our king. You destroyed the Moon Palace. You ask for my help to fight against usurpers, but you’re a usurper yourself.”

Raihn’s jaw tightened. “I told you many times, Jesmine, that I had nothing to do with the attack on the Moon Palace. And you’re such a damned effective torturer, how could I lie?”

This wasn’t going anywhere good.

“Enough,” I said. “This is an order, Jesmine. It isn’t just Raihn’s throne that we’re reclaiming. It’s mine, and I don’t want Simon or the Bloodborn anywhere near it.”

Her eyes flicked between Raihn and I.

“So this is a formal alliance.”

It felt a bit odd to hear Jesmine, of all people, putting it in those terms.

“An alliance that goes both ways,” I said. “We help him. He helps us. We take back the throne, and the Hiaj are free again. No more hiding. No more fighting.”

It sounded like a sickly-sweet dream aloud. Jesmine looked at me like I was a toddler espousing the beauty of rainbows.

“And,” I said, “I am queen just as much as he is king. When we’ve reclaimed our kingdom, I intend to rule beside him as such.”

I could feel Raihn’s eyes on me. Could practically hear his voice: Really, princess? You’re finally taking me up on my offer?

Fine. Apparently I was. And hell, why shouldn’t I? If I was going to ally with him to get Septimus out of this kingdom, I might as well put my ass on that throne, too.

The silence was suffocating. Jesmine didn’t show shock the way most people did. She just stared at me like she kept trying to make puzzle pieces fit together that were incompatible. I could feel it from the others, too—on me, on Raihn. I wondered if this was the first they were hearing about this arrangement, too.

Finally, Jesmine said, “Understood, Highness.”

It would never get less uncomfortable, hearing her call me that. But I tried to take this in stride, as Vincent would have, like it was nothing more than a given—of course a general would obey her queen.

“You will work with Vale and Ketura,” I said. “Devise a strategy for raising our joint army and using it to retake Sivrinaj. The quicker, the better.”

I felt like such an imposter.

But she obediently inclined her head. “Yes, Highness. It will be challenging. But not impossible.”

“Challenging has never scared us before.”

I found myself glancing at Raihn. Because of course, he and I were the “us.” I had never fought beside Jesmine before—never would have been allowed to, and Jesmine would have never deigned to lower herself to it. But Raihn and I... we had done the impossible together countless times over.

The little smile on his face said, There she is.

Then I looked to the rest of our sorry group—all in their dirty and stained fineries from the wedding, more than a week ago, now. Not that they looked much better than Raihn and I, in our ill-fitting, disgusting leathers. A pathetic sight.

“But that can wait a couple of hours,” I said. “Is there somewhere we can...” There was no other way to put it. “…wash the shit off of us?”

Jesmine’s nose wrinkled slightly. “That would be a relief for everyone. No offense intended.”

None taken.

“There are hot springs in the lower levels of the caves,” she said. “Alliah, my second, can show you. And she’ll find some clothes for you, too. Something less... marinated.”

Thank the fucking Mother for that.

I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Mische audibly groaned at the mention of springs.

“But Highness,” Jesmine said, as the others began to file out of the room, “if I may have just a few more moments of your time.”

I nodded, allowing the others to leave. Only Raihn hesitated, until I gave him a small nod, and he followed the others out.

She waited until the footsteps faded before she stood, her arms crossed over her chest.

“So,” she said. “Is that real?”

I knew what she was asking, and I knew why she was asking it. I would too, in her position.

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

“Pretty trouble,” she said. “I warned you of that, once.”

Yes, well. Raihn was definitely trouble. Even now, I couldn’t deny that. But maybe he was the kind of trouble I needed. Right now, he was the kind of trouble all my people needed.

I should have had a very diplomatic, queenly response for her. Instead, I just said, “Sometimes we need a little trouble to get shit done.”

A short laugh. “Perhaps.” That smile faded, her face going steely. “You have my full loyalty and respect, Highness. Even if your decisions are not the ones I would make. In light of recent events, I want to make that clear.”

After seeing the way Raihn’s people had rebelled against him, I was so grateful for this, I could’ve hugged her. Yes, I knew this loyalty was borne of nothing but my relation to Vincent, complicated as it may be. But loyalty, no matter the source, was more precious than gold.

“I wanted to speak to you, too,” I said. “About something that Septimus has been working on.”

She listened as I told her about Septimus’s claims of the existence of god blood in the House of Night—and his claims that Vincent had known, and perhaps even harnessed it. I told her about the pendant I had recovered from Lahor, and the unfortunate fact that it was likely now in Septimus’s clutches. With every sentence, her brows rose slightly higher—the only change in her expression.

“Do you think this could be real?” I said. “Did Vincent tell you about it?”

Because surely, if he was going to entrust knowledge of a secret, powerful weapon to anyone, it would have been Jesmine, his Head of War—right?

But she was quiet, a regretful expression passing over her features—like a distant reflection over glass.

“Your father,” she said finally, “was a very secretive man.”

I wasn’t expecting this shade to her voice—sad, and a little vulnerable.

“But he trusted you,” I said. “Didn’t he?”

She laughed, short and humorless. “Trusted me. Yes, perhaps. As much as he trusted anyone.”

I was confused by this. Because when he was alive, I had envied Jesmine and Vincent’s closest advisors. I had envied them because they had a level of respect from him that I thought was beyond my reach. At least, until I won the Kejari and bound myself to him, matching his strength with a Coriatis bond.

My confusion must have shown on my face, because her brow quirked. “This surprises you.”

“I just... I always thought that you two had a...”

I wasn’t sure how to word it.

“You thought because I was his Head of War, and because he was fucking me, he told me things.”

I wasn’t going to put it that way, exactly, but…

“Well, yes,” I said.

A pained flinch, there and gone again in less than a second. “Me too,” she said. “For a while.”

The tone in her voice was so uncomfortably familiar. I’d always assumed she’d gotten some part of him I never could—not the sex, of course, but the trust. It had never occurred to me that she was chasing him, too. Hell, it had never even occurred to me that she had even cared enough to want that intimacy from him.

The question slipped out before I could stop it. “Did you love him, Jesmine?”

I half expected her to laugh at me for asking. It seemed like far too personal a question. But instead, she seemed to actually consider this.

“I loved him as my king,” she said at last. “And perhaps I could have loved him as a man, too. I did in some ways. Maybe I wanted to in more. But he could not have loved me.”

Why? I wanted to ask. Because Jesmine seemed like the epitome of everything a man like Vincent should love. Beautiful. Brilliant. Deadly. Powerful. If he had ever chosen to marry, I couldn’t have imagined a better match for him.

A tight smile flitted across her lips.

“Loving someone else is a dangerous thing,” she said. “Even for vampires. More dangerous still for a king. Vincent knew that. He was never going to open himself up to more weakness. And he already had exposed himself enough with the love he had for you.”

The words struck deep, and I wasn’t prepared. My jaw tightened. A raging monsoon of emotions knotted in my chest, all of them contradictory.

I so desperately craved to hear that Vincent had loved me.

And yet, I was so angry to hear it, too. Yes, maybe he had loved me. But he had still lied to me. He had still isolated me. He had still hurt me.

Maybe he had loved me. Maybe I got what Jesmine wanted and never could have. Was I supposed to be grateful for that alone?

What if I couldn’t be?

I just said, “Well. You said it. He was a secretive man.”

Jesmine nodded slowly, in a way that said, shamefully, she understood.

Then she cleared her throat. “So no,” she said. “He never talked to me about this... god blood. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t have it. On the contrary, I think it seems like exactly the sort of thing he would do. If it existed, he would have found it.”

“If that’s true,” I said, “then I sure as hell hope he hid it well. Somewhere Septimus and Simon can’t find it. Even if the pendant—”

I winced, as I did every time I thought of that damned pendant, cursing myself for ever letting it leave my sight.

Jesmine’s lips thinned, clearly imagining all the same terrible scenarios that I was.

Defeating Septimus and Simon would already be a challenge. If they had any surprises for us, we would be fucked.

“Vincent was a very cautious person,” she said. “Especially when it came to weapons. If he had it, he never would have left it accessible by a single key, no matter how well-hidden that key was. And even still, I think he would have multiple failsafes. Split it into multiple locations, for example.”

Goddess, I hoped so. At this point, I wasn’t even holding out hope of finding this god blood—if it existed—myself. I just wanted to make sure Septimus didn’t have it.

“Here’s hoping he hid it well,” I muttered, and Jesmine laughed bitterly.

“Men and their secrets,” she said. “We spend a lifetime trying to unravel them, and once they’re gone, we’re still at their mercy. Yes. Better hope Vincent hid his well.”

In-fucking-deed.

51

RAIHN

I could not fucking wait for a bath. It was hard to play the convincing role of the confident Rishan king to a bunch of my greatest enemies while coated in two-week-old shit.

Jesmine’s second, a straight-backed, wary-eyed woman who looked like she was debating whether to stab us with every step, showed us to the springs. It was amazing that such a thing could exist out here in the desert—I had to admit that the House of Night, for all its many faults, was a place of great natural wonder. The springs were located deep in the tunnels, where the dry air turned damp and steamy. The water was a perfect teal blue, illuminated by shocks of bright light running up the cave walls—which seemed far too beautiful to just be minerals and algae. The caves separated down here, running into many little offshoots. Convenient for privacy, which I think everyone was glad for after so much nonstop travel together.

“Well,” Mische sighed, the moment our guide left us, “this is amazing.”

She stretched out her arms, as if already imagining diving in.

I watched her out of the corner of my eye. I knew Mische, and I knew that something had been wrong since we left Sivrinaj. Hell, I could tell from the moment I saw her in the dungeons—those big eyes practically bursting with tears. Not a hint of those, of course, during the journey. It would be easy to mistake Mische’s outgoing attitude for emotional openness. She may be chatty, but she was damned good at hiding all the things that mattered.

Oraya had told me about the Shadowborn prince—that Mische had been the one to kill him. It was a diplomatic headache, but one I could put off dealing with for a while. I was more concerned about what Oraya didn’t tell me. And I knew there was something. Her stilted, “You should talk to Mische, when you can,” said that well enough.

But Mische made sure I never got that chance. We had been moving so fast that I’d barely gotten a private moment with her since we fled, and every time I tried, in our rare moments of rest, to speak to her alone, she’d run off with some harried, half-baked excuse.

Now, I turned to her. “Mische, before you go—”

“Later,” she said, without so much as looking at me. “Bath now.” And she was gone into one of the caves before I had time to argue with her.

I wished I could say I was surprised.

Ketura and Lilith excused themselves immediately too, clearly just as eager to wash themselves off. Vale, though, lingered for a long, awkward moment as I gathered the clothes our guide had brought.

I peered over my shoulder.

“If your goal is to make this as uncomfortable as possible,” I said, “you’ve achieved it.”

Vale’s jaw tightened. He still said nothing. Still didn’t move, either.

Amazing. The man’s wife was off naked in some hot water after a week of travel and zero privacy, and he was still standing here. I dreaded to think what this would be about.

“What, Vale?”

“I wanted to—” His gaze slipped away, examining an apparently fascinating pile of rocks. “I appreciate the rescue.”

So this was what a noble looked like when they had to say “thank you.”

“You’re more useful to me out here than you are in there,” I said, hoping this was the end of that conversation.

But he still lingered. His eyes snapped back to me. “I’m no fool. I know that you must have wondered. But if you need confirmation of where my loyalties lie, I hope finding my wife in that prison cell gave them to you.”

Ah. Now I understood.

I straightened and turned to him. Vale’s chin raised slightly, all traces of his earlier uncertainty now gone. Even covered in shit, he was every bit the Nightborn noble.

Sometimes, vampires’ agelessness seemed like a cruel joke. Two hundred years had passed since my time under Neculai’s control. And yet I looked the same, and Vale looked the same. Every time I looked at him, I saw him as he was then. I saw him just watching as it all happened. Maybe if he’d had lines to his face or gray hair or aging eyes, I might’ve found it easier to forget that this was the same person.

But there he was. Vale. One of Neculai’s nobles.

And yet, I knew that what he was telling me was the truth. I’d known it from the moment I opened Lilith’s cell door and saw him run to her. If Vale had remained loyal in the face of threats against her… that was true loyalty.

I gave him a rueful half smile. “You can’t blame a man for wondering.”

He pursed his lips. “No. I can’t. What you said before the wedding was the truth.”

I didn’t show my surprise, but it struck me anyway. Even as a king, I never thought I’d hear anything even close to “you’re right” from Vale.

“Things are...” His gaze momentarily flicked down the path Lilith had followed, before returning to me. “Things are different than they were. In those days, I was more committed to the House of Night than I was to anything. It was the only love I knew. I let it define me, and that meant letting Neculai define me. I did not question the things he did, or the way he treated those beneath him. What my king said was truth. And when he treated his Turned slaves as possessions, I didn’t question that, even if I didn’t agree with it.”

It was harder than I wished it was to hear this. I didn’t like addressing that time directly—not ever, but especially not with Vale, of all people. It just made me painfully conscious of everything he had seen.

“And to be clear,” he went on, “I didn’t agree with it. Not then. Not now. But you were right. Not agreeing was not enough. I was complacent. And if it had been Lilith—”

“It never will be,” I said.

He inclined his chin. “I know that as long as you are king, it never will be.”

As long as you are king.

We both knew neither of us could say the same for Simon. Or Septimus.

I’d never thought of Vale as the romantic type. Back in Neculai’s court, he had been just like all the others—maybe not as abusive, but just as power hungry. Even when I’d called on him to fight for me, I’d figured it would be his pride and ambition alone that brought him back. Two hundred years ago, his vision for the House of Night had been simplistic in the way all vampire aspirations were: Be bigger, be stronger, and above all, be more powerful.

Maybe now he was looking for something more. Maybe he had found it.

It didn’t make me forget who he had once been. But it made me respect the person he had become a little bit more.

And perhaps that was why I found myself saying something a little dangerous to him. Something that undermined the image I presented even to my most “trusted” inner circle.

“Any kingdom that Oraya rules,” I said carefully, “would also be safe for Lilith. If it comes to that.”

Vale stiffened, and I briefly wondered if I’d made a mistake by saying this. Hundreds of years had cemented his hate for the Hiaj.

But maybe people could indeed change.

Because Goddess help me, Vale’s face did soften with reluctant understanding.

“If it comes to that,” I said again.

The message clear:

If I die, and you want this kingdom to be what you dream it could be, then support her.

Vale nodded.

“I understand,” he said.

And then he bowed. Not just a little polite one, like he had often given me since arriving here. A deep bow, one that lingered for several seconds, offering true fealty. Not for any audience. Just for us.

A strange feeling came over me at this sight. A weight on my shoulders, heavy and dizzying.

He straightened. We regarded each other for a few awkward seconds, as if both readjusting to this freshly re-established power dynamic.

Being a king was bizarre.

“If that’s all,” I said, “I’d like to go wash the sewage off of myself.”

Vale almost smiled. Almost. “Likewise.”

I found a secluded offshoot in the caves and stripped down. My clothes practically cracked when I peeled them off, leaving flakes of dried-up Goddess-knew-what on the damp stone ground. These leathers were a back-up set from my apartment in the human districts, and they fit poorly, too tight around my shoulders and chafing at my wings during all the flying. I let out a borderline-sexual groan of pleasure to get them off my body.

There was nothing borderline about the noise I made when I walked into that pool, though. Ix’s fucking tits. Paradise did exist, and it was here. The water was still and hot and clear. It didn’t even smell, not even a little.

Amazing.

I conjured my wings and stretched them out in the water, lowering myself to submerge them completely, flexing the weary muscles. Then I dunked my head under the surface and remained there, submerged in blissful warm darkness, until my lungs started to ache.

When I came up again, I was aware of her immediately.

That smell. Steel and Nightfire and a hint of spring.

I didn’t even have to turn around.

“Enjoying the view, princess?”

52

ORAYA

I’ll admit it. I had been staring.

It was impossible not to. He looked like a Mother-damned painting, standing there with that uncannily teal water pooled around his waist, the blue algae glow settling into every line of his form, tinting his wings with yet another shade in their already endless complexity. And then, of course, there was his Heir Mark—glowing red in the darkness, the whorls of shadowy strokes stretching across the muscled expanse of his back, trailing down his spine all the way into the water.

I hadn’t looked at that Heir Mark closely since the night of the final trial. I found it almost as striking now as I had then, though in a very different way.

He turned and glanced at me over his shoulder, one eyebrow quirked.

“Water’s fantastic.”

I just said, “Turn around.”

He paused before obeying. “There are other caves,” he said, “if you want privacy.”

Respectfully. He understood that just because he’d seen me naked before, didn’t mean he was entitled to see me again.

But I stripped off my rancid leathers, leaving them in a heap beside his. It was so comfortably warm down here, just hot enough to raise a sheen of sweat to my skin, and yet it still felt fresh and clean and comfortable. And the water itself—Goddess, when I stepped into it, I practically moaned.

He chuckled. “I made that sound, too.”

Still, he kept his back turned.

I dunked my head under the water, swimming submerged for a few strokes before surfacing again near Raihn. The water here was up to his waist and my ribcage. His hair clung in wet whorls to his upper back, water pearling into beads on his tan skin. I found myself struck by the scent of him. He’d always had a distinctive smell, but lately, even beneath the disgusting scent of grime, it had gotten overwhelming to me—a constant, lingering awareness whenever he was in my proximity. I’d chalked that up to the fact that we all probably smelled something fierce while traveling, though I’d never noticed anyone else’s scent like Raihn’s. But, even with the sweat and sewage washed away, it was just as strong—the sky and the desert, even when submerged in water.

Was this, I wondered, what vampires felt like all the time? This aware?

My eyes fell to his Heir Mark. The red ink pulsed with the slow, steady beat of his heart, faint wisps of red smoke rolling from each stroke. The scarred flesh beneath it was raised and rough, though the lines of the Mark were smooth and clear. Once he’d claimed his power from Nyaxia, nothing could have kept that Mark hidden. I couldn’t even imagine how badly he must have burned himself all those years ago to hide it to begin with.

The Mark stretched across his back, all the phases of the moon rendered in delicate brushstrokes, framed by spirals of smoke. The spear traveled down his spine, fitting perfectly between his wings, down to the dimpled small of his back. Until now, I hadn’t realized just how similar his Mark was to mine. The arrangement was different, but we both had the smoke, the moons, the same elegant red strokes.

Strange, that these Marks supposedly branded us as innate enemies. And yet, they were obvious mates to each other.

My fingertips traced the lines, following them across his upper back, around his wings, down his spine. I couldn’t help but wince a little at the rough texture of the scar beneath them. Mother, that must have been terrible.

His shoulders stilled for a moment at my touch.

“What do you think?” he said. “Suit me? I don’t actually get to look at it too often.”

His voice was flippant. And yet I heard what lingered beneath it. Knew that there was nothing flippant about Raihn’s feelings towards this Mark.

“It’s beautiful.”

He scoffed slightly.

“You don’t like it,” I said. Not a question. It was true.

He glanced over his shoulder again, giving me a glimpse of his profile, before turning ahead.

“You’re too perceptive for someone with such bad people skills.” Then, after a moment, “It reminds me too much of him. Doesn’t seem fair, sometimes, for him to have marked me this permanently. I don’t want anything of his on me.”

“It’s not his. It’s yours.”

My fingertips ran up his spine again, this time following the swirls of smoky red. I had never met Neculai, never seen his Mark, but I couldn’t imagine this one on anyone other than Raihn. Every small detail of it seemed crafted to complement his body, the flow of his muscles, the shape of his form, even bending and reforming around his scars.

“Your skin,” I murmured, pushing aside tendrils of wet hair to follow the strokes near his neck. “Your body. Your Mark.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. I was very conscious of the way goosebumps rose on his flesh beneath the trail of my touch.

“May I turn around, princess?” he asked.

The tone was teasing. The question was real.

The corner of my mouth twitched. “Queen. Remember?”

I could hear the smile. “Of course. My queen.”

The “my” made it something more than a joke.

“I’ll allow it,” I said.

He turned.

His gaze drank me in slowly, starting at my hair, my eyes, my face, and then trailing down over my shoulders—lingering at my breasts, peaked and wet, exposed above the water that pooled around my ribcage.

But he lifted his eyes to my Mark, over my throat, shoulders, and chest. He reached out to touch it, his fingertip tracing the lines just as mine had done to his. I wanted to hide the way it made my skin pebble—made my breath grow a little uneven.

His eyes were heavy lidded, unblinking. With the blue reflection of the water and the algae, they looked almost purple.

“Can’t imagine it looked this good on Vincent,” he murmured.

I wondered if he was seeing the same thing in my Mark that I had just seen in his—all the ways it complemented my specific form. I hadn’t noticed that before. Like Raihn, I had seen the Mark as something that belonged to someone else, superimposed onto my skin.

It wasn’t until right now, looking at it through the lens of Raihn’s, that I considered the differences. The way the wings across my chest were a little smaller, more delicate, than Vincent’s, following the shape of my clavicle. The way the smoke speared down between my breasts, following the lines of my body and mine alone.

“I never thought it looked right on me,” I admitted.

Like it was a costume. Something that never should have been given to me.

“I think it suits you perfectly.” His touch trailed down—down between my breasts, feather-light over the sensitive skin.

“You said it yourself. Your title. Queen. This Mark belongs to you.” His lips curled. “Your skin. Your body. Your Mark.”

Somehow, it didn’t sound like a platitude when Raihn said it. It sounded like the truth.

His gaze lifted, those deep red eyes piercing mine. His touch stalled, lingering on my chest.

“Did you mean it?” he said. “What you told Jesmine.”

He didn’t need to specify what he was talking about.

When we reclaim our kingdom, I intend to rule beside him as such.

I felt, all at once, much more naked than I had thirty seconds ago.

“I’m not going to risk my life and the lives of what little army I have left just to put your ass back on that throne without taking some of it for myself,” I said.

Somehow, I could tell he knew my dismissive tone was a little forced.

He rasped a low laugh.

“Good,” he said. “I’d be disappointed otherwise.”

“It has nothing to do with you,” I said, before I could stop myself.

An infuriating, stubborn smile clung to his mouth. “Mhm. Of course not.”

“I’m still not sure that you’re not going to fuck me over,” I grumbled—just because I felt like it was what I should say, even if the truth of it was now obvious, even to me.

But his thumb came to my chin, gently tipping my face back to him. His stare was steady, uncomfortably direct.

“I am not going to fuck you over,” he said.

Firmly. Like it was nothing more and nothing less than fact. It felt like fact, when he said it like that. And the truth was, I believed him.

I didn’t want to give him that satisfaction, though. So I narrowed my eyes.

“Again, you mean,” I said. “Fuck me over again.”

His lips twitched. “That face. There she is.”

Then the smirk faded, revealing something so much more serious, something I wanted to wriggle away from. I didn’t, though—I met his stare, let his thumb hold my chin.

It was frightening to give someone your trust.

More frightening still to give it for a second time, after they broke it the first.

“One honest thing,” I murmured.

And he didn’t hesitate as he said softly, “Never, Oraya. Never again. And not just because I don’t have a chance in hell of taking Sivrinaj back without you. But because I wouldn’t want to, anyway.”

I thought of what was ahead—two armies that hated each other now forced to work together to take on a greater evil. For a moment, I couldn’t help but consider what myself from a year ago would say if presented with all of this.

She would fucking laugh.

No. She would refuse to believe it altogether. That version of Oraya literally would not be able to comprehend any of it. Not Vincent’s death, or his lies. Not the Heir Mark on her skin, or her wish to a goddess, or the idea of allying with the Rishan Heir.

She certainly would never believe that I could be standing here now, naked, in front of Raihn—not only a vampire, not only a Rishan, but her greatest enemy—and not feel even a little bit afraid.

At least, not afraid for her physical safety.

Another fear settled, though, deep under my skin.

“Do you really think we can do this?” I murmured.

He contemplated this.

“Yes,” he said finally. “Yes. I do.”

He traced my Heir Mark again, a line of concentration between his brows.

“At the very least,” he said, “I sure as hell believe that you can.”

I wanted to laugh at him.

I wanted to weep.

Because I knew he meant it.

My fingertips touched his chest—damp skin, rough with various little scars and the soft texture of dark hair. Right over his heart, where my blade had pierced that night.

“Funny, how things change.”

He tipped my chin up. And I didn’t have time to move or react before he kissed me, slow and deep, his soft tongue gently caressing mine as my lips parted for him like leaves opening toward the sun.

It was the kind of kiss that made doubts wither. The kind that made it easy not to think about difficult realities—even if it hinted at a more frightening one that I hadn’t yet accepted.

Our mouths parted, but our noses still touched, as he murmured, “Been wanting to do that constantly for the last week.”

Goddess, me too. I wasn’t sure what had changed the night we were together, but it was like my body had awakened to a whole new sense. It was a little shameful, actually, how I craved him. I was constantly aware of his proximity, his scent, his gaze. I could feel it when he looked at me, even when I didn’t meet his eyes. And every time we had lain beside each other in our sparse, very much non-private moments of rest, I had to stop myself from closing the distance between us.

It was dizzying. It was terrifying. It was addictive.

I hated it. Fucking hated it.

...But maybe also liked, just a little bit, that he felt it too. I could practically sense his heartbeat, slow but quickening, hot beneath his skin. And I could very literally sense his cock, hardening in the space between us, nudging my hip.

I took a certain satisfaction in the fact that his desire was so much more physically obvious than mine. I could pretend my peaked breasts were from the cooling water on my skin. Could pretend my own quickening heart was from the anticipation of what we were about to do.