Chapter 10 Nyssa
Nyssa
Thank fuck a pair of obscenely muscular arms were there to catch me.
“Oof,” I huffed — breathless, heart racing.
“There she is, falling for me all over again,” my storm-wielder murmured, pulling me in close to nuzzle my head with his chin.
I cracked my eyes open just as Vel soared past with a brazen screech, her terror and guilt visceral through our shared link.
That would have hurt, her voice quavered.
I scowled as she made another pass.
That could have killed me.
She hummed, the gravelly sound grating at the back of her throat. You’re durable. You’d have survived.
You should have caught me.
My dragon’s guilt intensified as she carefully considered her next words. You’re right. I should have. But you shouldn’t have fallen in the first place.
I leaped out of Caelus’ arms, completely misjudging our height — and toppled right off of Lykos’ furry back.
Velira snorted as she landed, violet flames dancing out her nostrils.
See? What a clumsy goddess you are.
“Velira, that’s enough!” I yelled, loud enough to startle a nearby flock of foraging sparrows. “No more teasing. This” — I gestured between the two of us — “is not good enough. We need to be better. We need to be perfect.”
Perfect might be a stretch… but I understand your meaning.
“Would this be a poor time to suggest a harness?” Caelus winced as he pointed to the brown leather rigging atop Lykos’ shoulders.
Curious, I approached the gigantic white wolf, eyeing the swirls and jagged bolts of lightning etched into the straps.
“May I?” I asked him.
Lykos’ aurelian irises skewered mine. His head dipped in acquiescence then lay down. The peak of his back still reached eye-level, and I was again thrown by the sheer size of him, but I was also able to inspect the handiwork much better from this height.
“Hephaestus?” I tossed the question behind me, knowing the wolf wouldn’t respond if I’d asked him directly. Bonded animals only speak directly to their companions, except in extreme circumstances.
Caelus stepped up beside me, shaking his head. “Arch, actually.”
“Oh.”
The ease with which he draped an arm around me still startled me sometimes.
Years had flown by without another’s touch because I’d been too terrified I’d accidentally murder them. And now that I could share casual intimacies like this with those I’d come to love, I was at risk of losing them all.
Kronos had started with Charon and he wouldn’t stop until I surrendered — or succumbed.
Caelus mistook my piercing dread for worry. “We will find a way to save him.”
I frowned. “Who?”
He eyed me quizzically. “Archimedes.”
“Oh,” I replied dumbly. Now I was worried about that too.
“We have to, Caelus... I can’t lose another friend.”
“You won’t,” he vowed.
That’s not a promise you can keep, Golden.
He didn’t reply for a long time. Not until I conjured that shadowy doorway to take us back to the palace. He wrapped his fingers around my own, startlingly warm against my icy skin.
I can try.
Once we were home and I had a moment alone while Caelus was showering, I allowed myself to take off that icy mask of indifference and feel.
Why is the voice of my dead best friend haunting me? Why is this grief so much worse than any other?
I was almost certain my mind was fractured beyond repair.
Velira’s large snout nuzzled my spine, her exhale hot and sulphurous against my back.
She didn’t fit inside the Palace of Hades anymore, so her head and outstretched neck did their best to comfort me from where she lay outside on the balcony, while I lay curled in on myself atop the bed. I hadn’t even bothered to pull back the covers, or get changed into something more comfortable.
My anxiety lay too thick, too cloying, upon my skin — like a layer of oil that could not be washed away no matter how much soap I used.
And that was exactly how Caelus found me twenty minutes later.
“Nightshade,” my storm-wielder lamented as he sank to his knees beside the oversized bed.
His worry poked through the haze clouding my mind, latched onto my heart, and caused the tears I’d been ignoring to finally overflow. I couldn’t stop them even if I’d wanted to.
Maybe it was better to feel it after all.
Caelus said nothing, just settled into the empty space beside me. His strong, warm arms encircled my tired body and pulled me onto his lap, humming a soft tune until eventually, I had no more tears left to cry.
I was an empty, exhausted shell, and I fell asleep to the soft sounds of his lullaby.
When I woke hours later, we were both still coiled around each other.
“You didn’t move?” I asked quietly.
He grinned at me sheepishly, his cheeks tinted copper. “No. Every time I tried to wriggle out, you whimpered and latched onto me tighter in your sleep. I didn’t have the heart to leave you… though it was much to the dismay of my bladder, I’m afraid.” He winced.
I jolted upright, narrowly avoiding breaking his nose with my forehead as I rushed to move off his lap. “Shit — sorry! You should have woken me.”
“You needed the sleep, and I needed the reassurance of you being in my arms,” he said so earnestly, with a smile so sweet, that my face crumpled. “Hey now, don’t go breaking my heart again,” he teased.
“Again?” My brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know” — he shrugged, his tone casual, lips twitching from the effort of holding back a grin — “I took a blade for you pretty recently… which quite literally tore my heart open.”
My mouth dropped open.
Too soon, taser boy.
This time he couldn’t stop the smile. Crinkles appeared on his cheeks and in the corners of his eyes as he grasped my face between his large, beautifully scarred hands.
“Listen carefully: I am completely and irrevocably in love with you, Nyssa. You can doubt anything else — you can doubt everything else — but not that. The realms could crumble, and still, I would love you. You could destroy them, and still, I would love you. You are my sole reason for existing, and I would gladly take any blade, blow, or poison meant for you. I would happily die for you, again—”
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered, a heartbeat before falling into his embrace. My lips met his with a whimper, reigniting my entire body.
He set my soul aflame.
And I did not kiss him gently. It was a kiss that spoke of a feeling so deep no words could properly convey it. It was a kiss that reminded me I had so much to live for, and how badly I wanted to live for it.
Caelus groaned as he pulled away, both of us breathing hard, unwilling to let go. Until—
“Don’t you dare move,” he whispered. He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and stared at me like I was his favourite meal and he was a man famished.
“What?” I laughed, confused. “Come back here right now.”
But Caelus had already launched to his feet, barrelling towards the door.
“I mean it!” he called. “Don’t. Leave!”
“Where are you going?!”
“If I stay, I’ll piss my pants, and that would be infinitely more mortifying than finishing in them. Again.”
He dashed out the door and around to the right, footsteps fading as he fought the tenuous battle against his bladder. I cackled at the sight, throwing myself back against the pillows in unbridled glee.
An idea came to me as I waited, and my face split into a devious smirk.
I’ll take that as my cue to leave, Velira’s amused voice laughed through my skull as her large snout retreated. Her mental barricade slammed up between us shortly after.
And when Caelus bounded through the doorway a minute later, he skidded to a stop at the foot of the bed. Once his mind had caught up to his gaze, his mouth hung open, those stormy eyes were glued to my unexpectedly naked body — almost every part of me on display.
The air filled with the decadent scent of fresh caramel.
He swallowed roughly, and stared intently as I let my left hand drift down over my breast, toying with a peaked nipple.
He groaned as my legs dropped open — louder, when my right hand slid down my stomach, and passed through my soaked core.
His restraint visibly snapped when I moved to pinch that very swollen, very sensitive bundle of nerves, and dashed forwards, capturing my adventurous hand in his own. Caelus leaned over my body, slowly lifted my hand to his lips, and licked the wet pads of my first two fingers.
I inhaled raspingly as my entire body tingled in anticipation.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to play with food?” he rumbled.
I frowned in confusion. Was he hungry? Now?
“That’s my breakfast you’re playing with.” A devious smirk tugged on his lips as he released my hand and stole my breath with another hungry kiss.
My legs wrapped themselves around his middle — entirely of their own volition, of course — and lured him down to rest against my throbbing centre.
He dragged his body slowly up mine — maddeningly slowly — his rock-hard cock twitching against my needy core as we moaned in tandem.
Our bodies and breaths danced together over the hard planes of his body and the softer swells of mine.
The sensation was both achingly delicious and entirely not enough.
I writhed — desperate and heady with desire — as he repeatedly ground against me, capturing my lips in sweet, frenzied kisses, each more tender than the last.
His training gear still caressed his body in all the places I was desperate to. Though I wanted nothing more than to tear it off him, I didn’t want to damage them. And I didn’t want to be the reason he lost anything else.
Even still, I cursed the scrap of black fabric between us.
On second thought, the delicious friction of leather against my most delicate skin was quickly hauling me into a rapturous orgasm and I knew it wouldn’t be long before my release soaked right through his leather breeches.
His fingers wound their way through my hair as our tongues danced together; our bodies moving to the same rhythm, the crescendo building.
Then, all at once, I imploded, crying out his name as I shattered.