Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
BELLAMY
I woke up curled tight into Kairoth’s side. His shadows floated around him while he slept, but his face was visible like it had been that night in the cave. His chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. I sat up, studying his golden skin, the scars riddling his face, his strong, sharp jaw.
Not able to help myself, I reached out a finger and traced the scar above his eyebrow. He caught my hand, eyes opening.
They were a beautiful amber that reminded me of the harvest moon, halfway between golden and brown, shifting in the sunlight.
“You’ve gotten my schedule turned around,” he murmured, bringing my hand to his mouth and pressing a kiss to my palm. “I’m not supposed to be awake right now.”
“Where did you get these scars?” I traced each one.
They added to his fierceness, made him look so brutally handsome.
He sat up next to me, leaning his bare back against the black headboard. “I got them when I fought Khalasa.”
My brows scrunched together.
He sighed. “I’ve wanted to have this conversation with you ever since that night in the cave, where you revealed so much of yourself to me. You trusted me enough to tell me about your brothers, the curse.” He pushed a hand through his thick brown hair. “It made me realize that I trust you too. That I was sick of hiding things from you.” He tilted his head. “Maybe I was also a little afraid that things would change, become complicated between us once I revealed everything.”
I nodded, understanding what he meant. I’d avoided asking the hard questions for exactly that reason. I liked sitting on the terrace every night, knitting and hearing Kairoth tell stories of his time as a god. I liked telling him my own stories of my time growing up in the Wilds. When it was just us and our stories, everything felt easy. But when it came to the real reason I was here, the real reason Kairoth was allowing me to stay here? Well, that became very, very complicated.
“I don’t want things to change between us,” I signed slowly, a wry smile coming over my face. “Especially not after last night.”
He leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips that set me on fire. “Then let’s not let it,” he whispered. “We’ll be honest with each other, and then we’ll move forward.”
I let his words roll over me, realizing I trusted him enough to share everything. “I came here to kill you,” I signed.
His eyes widened.
“I was angry with you for what you did to the star court, for what you did to your own shadow court. So I got Spirit Sky’s bolt, and I came here with it to kill you.”
“Fucking fuck,” he muttered. “You’re really not holding back.” Then he paused. “Wait a minute. Did you just say...”
He didn’t have to finish that sentence. I knew what he was talking about. I nodded. “Spirit Sky’s bolt. I have it with me here. It’s hidden in the garden. You should retrieve it. Add it to your collection.”
He sat there for a minute, mouth open, then he rubbed his jaw. “Since you’re telling me this, I’m assuming you no longer want to kill me?”
It was my turn to lean forward and kiss him. This kiss was slower, drawn out, a chance for us to taste and savor each other. When I pulled away, I hoped that was answer enough.
“You can’t kill me with the bolt anyway.” He quirked a brow. “The plan would have failed. We can’t die. The gods. That’s what I’ve spent the better part of sixty years trying to figure out. How to kill them.”
I frowned, needing to tell him this next part, the part that had been eating at me since I’d started falling for him. “I saw myself stabbing you in a vision. I stabbed you right in the heart. I thought it was with the bolt, butnow I’m wondering if it was with another weapon. I’m scared. I’m scared the vision will come to pass.”
I’d seen it at the same time I’d seen how to save my brothers. It was all jumbled together in bits and pieces and flashes. But I knew what I’d seen.
He pressed a kissed to my head. “Visions of the future aren’t always meant to be. That could’ve been one possible future if you and I hadn’t... well, if we hadn’t started getting along.” He gave me a wry smile, and I pushed him, feeling slightly better about that.
I searched his face. “Why try and kill the gods when they’re already trapped?”
“They won’t stay trapped forever. I got free. The rest of them will, too, eventually. Mortals will come to figure out where they are, they’ll find a way to get the weapons from me. It might take a hundred years or a thousand. Either way, I can’t let that happen.”
“Then what are the weapons for?” I asked.
“I want to collect them all before any other mortals find them and have a chance to free the gods. But also, I think the key to killing the gods has to do with those weapons. I just haven’t figured out how yet. Those weapons are how we originally got our powers. When we pulled them from the stone.”
I nodded, remembering his story about that.
“The weapons themselves can’t kill us, but pulling them from that stone is what originally gave us our powers.” He frowned. “There has to be something to that. I just can’t put the pieces together.”
“I can help you,” I signed. “So can Leoni and Driscoll.” Then I peered at him, knowing I needed to rip off the bandage and ask the next question. “How does your prisoner in the east wing relate to all of this?”
He stiffened. “So you do know about her.” His voice was calm, deadly calm. He swallowed, eyes once again flashing red.
There had to be more to the story than what the woman had told me, but my stomach still twisted at the thought that any part of it might be true.
“I will tell you about her,” Kairoth said. “But give me a little more time. There are things”—he paused, seeming to choose his next words carefully—“things I’m still trying to figure out. A puzzle that I’ve been piecing together. I think it’s almost complete, but I don’t want to say too much if I’m not right. I’ll know soon, I think. That’s why I was gone for so long. I had to do something, to find something, that I think can finally fill in the missing pieces.”
“So you found what you were looking for?” I asked.
He shook his head, grabbing my hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it. “I didn’t, but I did find a clue about where it is. I’m going to have to leave again. Soon.” His gaze heated with desire. “But maybe not just yet.”
The area between my legs pulsed with want, but we needed to talk through more of these secrets we’d been keeping. “I thought you couldn’t leave your castle? What allowed you to travel for so long?”
His eyebrows bunched together in confusion. “Can’t leave? What gave you that idea?”
“Something I heard.”
“The truth has a way of getting very twisted, doesn’t it?” he asked, lips tipping up. “I can leave anytime I want. I’ve just chosen not to. I didn’t want anyone knowing about me. Though if you found out about me, it seems now word is spreading, which means everyone will also begin to wonder about the other gods, why they aren’t free, what happened to us.”
I thought of Aron, how he’d promised to update all the other leaders of the courts. Spirits below, I needed to tell him everything. Hopefully he could still get word to the other rulers.
“Bellamy?” I looked up and met Kairoth’s gaze. “Promise you won’t go down there. Promise you won’t talk to her. She’s dangerous. Manipulative.”
I swallowed, guilt rising up. This was my chance to tell him that I already had spoken to her. Several times. It wasn’t like she’d revealed anything important. I didn’t even know her name, didn’t know what she really looked like. In fact, she’d barely revealed anything at all, other than the location of the briar. Kairoth wouldn’t care about that.
Yet the words stuck in my throat, and I just nodded, not wanting to ruin this moment between us. I’d tell him if there were ever a reason to.
“Good,” he said, then pressed his forehead to mine. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“We’ll work together and figure this out,” I signed, tracing the signals against his chest. “We will find a way to kill the gods.”
His lips found mine, teasing them open, his tongue slipping into my mouth.
So much for talking.
But I didn’t care. I groaned and arched into him as he pressed me down into the soft bed, his heavy body hovering over mine.
His hard length pushed against my thigh, and I reached down, massaging him over his pants. I was already wet, the area in between my legs aching for him.
I wanted to taste him, to feel him in my mouth. He slipped his fingers in between my legs, but I grabbed his wrist, stopping him. He shot me a questioning look as I shimmied down his body, tugging at his trousers and pulling them down. His cock sprang free, hard and thick, so long. Perfect.
“You don’t have to—” he started.
I cut him off as I licked the bead of moisture off his tip, then closed my mouth over him.
His head fell back into the pillow. “Fuck,” he dragged out. “Oh, fuck that feels so good.”
I ran my tongue along his shaft, a shudder rocking through him. His hand threaded through my hair, and he gently guided my head at the pace that was good for him, then let go as I continued with that rhythm, sucking him deep into my throat.
“Fucking gods, Bellamy.” His voice raked down my skin. “You make me lose control in a way no one else can. No one else has ever been able to.”
I kept going, taking him as deep as I could while using my tongue to run along his long length. He tilted his hips, pumping into my mouth. I reached up a hand and cupped his balls, giving them a gentle squeeze that made him let out a string of moans.
His speed increased as he murmured my name like it was a prayer. Like I was a goddess who he should be worshiping.
“Bellamy, oh Bellamy. I’m going to come,” he said, voice raspy and low.
His entire body tensed, and then his cock pulsed in my mouth, which filled with his seed. I swallowed every last bit and slowly released him from my mouth.
He lay back, arm over his forehead. I cuddled into him, laying my head on his chest while he trailed his fingers up and down my back.
He spoke finally, his voice quiet. “You make me feel like I’m not alone. No one has ever done that for me. Everyone has always feared me. I was death to mortals before your time. They didn’t even know my name. When I appeared, all they saw were my shadows, my beast.” He turned his head. “I don’t know how you looked past all that. I don’t know how you didn’t cower or run. But you never did. You never have. You saw through all of that. You saw me.”
“I like what I see,” I signed. “Beast and all.”
He kissed me, already going hard again, and this time, when I reached down to wrap my hand around him, he slipped his fingers between my legs, his hands working the same magic his shadows had the day before.
We didn’t leave the room for the rest of the day.