Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Reave doesn’t go far—just to the other side of the roof—but the space between us feels as vast as the sky above.
My body is still trembling, my weight odd and unbalanced by whatever it absorbed from his. I stumble over and settle down in the sitting area I created in the shadows of the roof, tucking my head toward my chest and closing my eyes.
I feel like I’m drifting through a nightmare for several minutes.
The curse curls through my blood like a living thing with claws that flex and dig, trying to make a deeper home for itself.
When it finally settles enough that I can regain some semblance of balance, I’m still hauntingly aware of it; it feels like a second heartbeat, slower and colder underneath my own.
With sinking clarity, I realize Reave was right: Transferring the curse into me isn’t going to solve anything unless I can figure out how to control and destroy it after taking it in. Given enough time, and with Sesca’s help, maybe I could…
But what time do we have?
When I look up again, I’m relieved to see Reave is at least still here, his head bowed and hands braced against the railing.
As I stare at him, I realize he’s standing in the same place he was when we first visited this rooftop together. I’ve relived that moment a hundred times in my head, down to the last detail. The cool night air, the rush of dragon wings, the almost-kiss we shared…
And it happens tonight just as it did back then: an urge to follow him, to meet him under the stars and tell him more than I’ve ever told anybody about even the deepest, darkest parts of my heart.
I still want to know you, he’d said.
No matter my mistakes or failures or secrets.
He didn't run from me that night, and he doesn't run when I come to stand beside him now.
When I put my hand on the railing beside his, his hand slides over top of it and simply rests there, some of the tension easing from his shoulders as though a part of him has been realigned by the mere presence of me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, barely above a whisper. “I keep trying to find a way to fix all of these things that are so much bigger than I expected them to be, and I keep coming up short.”
He shakes his head, but I can’t stop talking now that I’ve started.
“I knew it was risky. I couldn’t help myself, though. I had to begin, to do something, anything that felt like progress. I really didn’t mean to—”
“Quit apologizing. Please.”
I open my mouth only to close it again as he cuts me a sideways glance.
We fall silent for several minutes, both of us looking toward the sky.
I wonder about the constellations he knows, the stories his kingdom tells about them.
If any of them are the same as the ones I grew up with.
If we could ever really find common ground beneath them, or if we’re still just trying to fool ourselves.
The questions keep coming, and suddenly my heart is racing and I can’t make it stop, just like I can’t stop any of the frightening, uncertain things that are circling closer and closer to us.
“This is the spot where it happened,” he says suddenly.
“Where what happened?”
A pause, and then: “Where I realized there was no going back. That I was drowning in you, and I no longer cared about finding my way back to the surface.”
I slowly pull my gaze down to him, my breath catching at the way he’s looking at me—as if he’s forgotten entirely about the brilliant stars and all their stories, as if the only story that matters is the one we’re writing in this moment.
“This curse we’re facing has destroyed my kingdom, my family, my own body and mind,” he says.
“And yet, as foolish as it is, all I can think about right now is how it’s also the reason you’re here.
The reason we met. How I would endure it a thousand times over, in a thousand different lifetimes, if it meant even a chance of finding you again in any of them.
And if it ultimately drives me to madness, then I don’t think I would even care, so long as you are the last thing I see before the darkness takes me. ”
I still haven’t caught my breath.
“You are the only thing I wanted to see that night of the feast. And now you’re the last thing I want to see before I go to sleep.
The first thing I want to see when I wake up.
I don’t deserve you. I don’t know what happens from here, and I’m not sure I can protect you the way I want to—that I can even protect you from myself and that madness that threatens my bloodline.
And it’s fucking killing me to live with that.
But the thought of not having you, whatever the cost to keep you, is somehow worse. ”
I finally manage to breathe. “You have me,” I say, softly.
“I told you that the other night. I meant it. Nothing you could say or do would scare me away at this point, and that curse…” I swallow away the lump trying to catch in my throat again.
“It isn’t going to drive you to madness. Because I am not going to let it.”
His hand brushes my cheek. The softest of touches, but the desire it’s struggling to contain is obvious, and I’m again brought back to that first night up here—and reminded of the regret I felt after stepping away without kissing him.
It feels like fate is being kind to me for once, bringing me back to this moment. Giving us another chance.
“I wanted to kiss you so badly that night,” I tell him.
“I wanted to do more than just kiss you,” he replies. “Then and now.”
Breathe, I command myself.
But it’s useless.
I don’t want air as much as I want him. If he is going to drown in the turbulent waters of me—of us—then I want to go out the same way.
“Let’s not make the same mistake twice,” I whisper.
The world stops spinning for a moment, crashing to a stop with a force that makes me feel as if I’m floating, my feet ripped out from under me, everything around me blurring.
I’m not sure who moves first.
I only know that the instant his arms are around me, everything slams back into perfect focus.
His lips find mine, and the collision is fierce and beautiful and burning with all the combustible need we’ve been gathering and holding back for weeks. We tear at each other’s clothing, and in seconds we’re both bare from the waist up, exploring each other with no more hesitation, no more doubt.
I feel my way across every scar, every ridge of muscle, every peak and valley of him, trying to memorize every story written upon his chest in the same way I’ve memorized the ones that unfold across the stars.
He takes his time doing the same to me. But after he’s finished with this, his fingers trail lower, hooking around the band of my pants and giving a suggestive little tug as his eyes lift to mine.
My lips part with desire and need, with an immediate answer: Yes.
I don’t know if I actually manage to say the word out loud, but he understands me well enough. He takes my hands and guides them to the railing on either side of me. Curls my fingers over the cold ridge of stone and metal. Bracing me.
“Keep them there,” he orders, while his own hands return to my waist.
He drops to his knees before me, finishing undressing me as he goes.
He helps me step out of my pooled clothing and my shoes, tossing it all aside, then brings his attention back to one of my legs, caressing and kissing it before lifting it over his shoulder.
Opening me up. The sudden, more total exposure has my heart racing even faster, my thoughts spinning.
His mouth is between my legs an instant later.
My head tilts back. Stars wheel overhead and the sounds that spill out of me are unlike any I’ve ever made before. They’re also loud enough that even people far below can likely hear us, and they can probably guess what their king is doing to me, but I can’t seem to find it in me to care.
His hand joins in after a few minutes, following the path of his lips and tongue at first, alternating the sensations with a devastatingly perfect rhythm.
Then he wields both against me at once, sliding a finger inside while his mouth continues to work outside.
My toes curl as the first wave of true release builds and tingles through me.
“Reave, please—” I gasp, looking down at him once more.
He pauses. Draws his tongue slowly through the dampness he’s created, swirling the tip of it against my most sensitive spot and pulling one last moan out of me before fixing his eyes on my face. “Please what?”
I realize then that I don’t even know what to beg for; I want him in so many different ways that I can’t put a single, coherent sentence together to ask for any particular thing.
He gives me a small, wicked smile. He stands, hooking one hand between my legs and using it to help lift me, balancing me over one shoulder and carrying me to the sitting area I arranged.
“Throwing me over your shoulder?” I tease, breathlessly. “This feels a little brutish.”
“I have a reputation for that, if you’ll recall,” he replies, giving my backside a hard swat.
I inhale sharply at the sting his palm leaves behind, squirming at the unexpected pleasure that radiates out from it.
He readjusts my weight, shifting me so we’re nearly facing one another.
He keeps a hand between my thighs, and my legs hook around his waist, squeezing tight, trying to draw his touch deeper.
“And you’re obviously determined to prove the rumors are true,” he growls against my lips, pushing a finger back inside of me.
I cry out softly at the sudden pressure against my inner walls, and his mouth crashes over mine, swallowing up the sound.