Chapter Six
The wind through my hair feels good, but not as good as it should. It doesn’t put out the fever of panic in my blood. The webs of Rowan’s touch linger, as does the taste of his mouth on me, and I blink to clear the blur from my eyes.
It refuses to go, the breath scraping in my lungs.
What in the gods was that? I figured he’d have a touch that was infused with a power no one could resist, but I never expected the sweetness.
I never expected the way his heartbeat fluttered in my veins, twisting with mine to form something truly glorious.
I never expected Rowan to be Rowan.
With a shuddery inhale of air, I slow my horse to a stop and dismount, letting it eat some grass as I slowly pace on the hill above my village.
I’m a member of the Ashen Flame. Not some girl with dreams of a prince. The fact Rowan’s touch is still on me, like a lingering perfume, unbalances me.
I thought if there was distance then… Then perhaps I’d be back to myself.
But I’m not. I feel like the earth shifted, leaving me on an untried landscape. Even as I try, I can’t seem to find my footing, and there’s something in me like I’m somehow responding to a call from… From him. It’s innate, a reflex, subconscious, and somehow that makes it all so much worse.
I’d rather he be the monster I believed he was.
Believed?
Believe.
My fingers brush the feather’s softness on my belt. It’s warm, strong, almost pulsating when I stroke it. It should scare me, but it doesn’t.
I’m not, however, returning. Not yet. Not until I can complete my mission. The one that’ll take me down. But first, I must face the Order of the Ashen Flame.
Can I even return like this?
With a sharp breath, I look down at my chest but the golden glow is gone, the skin pale and seemingly normal, and even as I rub at the spot, the pain’s nothing but a memory.
I slide the quiver of arrows off and check over my bow. I take my time. It’s not something I need to do, but I need time to think before I face the Order, who’ll know I’ve failed by coming back early.
Of course, they might not resend me. Even keeping the kiss and the fated part to myself, they might not send me back. If I tell them I can end him by killing myself, I’m sure they won’t hesitate to run a blade through my heart.
It’s best if I keep that all to myself.
But the worst part isn’t the failure. It’s that this looks like I turned and ran like a coward, or worse, didn’t even try.
And maybe I didn’t.
But I’m not one to back down from things, and I’m not about to start now.
I’m about to make my way down the hill when I still.
I’m not alone.
“There you are. Finished playing silly games?” The voice fills me with revulsion. It’s not the deep, seductive tone of Rowan. It’s someone I know and hate, so I gather my strength and turn.
“Saving people is silly, Titus?” I ask.
The big, ugly brute laughs. Snorts. His flat nose and reddish cheeks reminding more of a swine than a man. “But you haven’t. I knew it was foolish for my father to send you. I think he was just hoping you’d die.”
There’s malice in his eyes and purpose—and we’re alone. Titus knows this; the knowledge rolls off him in thick waves. A brutish confidence that makes my fingers flex.
His grin is all toothy. “I guess I’ll have to finish the job myself. But first, I want to taste you. A holy girl was the perfect choice. Strong for one so small, able to take a man of my size, my…needs…and I think I’ll have you.” He comes at me.
Horror hits. I hold out my hands. “Stop.”
He doesn’t. Instead, Titus laughs. “My own personal whore.”
He moves fast and lifts a heavily ringed hand to backhand me, whipping it across my face hard.
I hit the roughness of a tree and wetness trickles down my cheekbone. Blood.
“The more you resist, the more it’ll hurt.” He grabs my hair and drags me to him. I try to fight, to kick out, and reach for my blade, but my belt sheath is empty except for Rowan’s feather.
I left it back at the ruins.
Oh no…
I wrench my hair and turn in his arm, biting hard.
He screams and loosens his hold. It’s all I need. I dart around him. But he catches my arm, tossing me to the ground with such force, my vision darkens. He climbs on me, pinning me there, ripping at my tunic to expose my breasts.
“Did you lie with the Cursed One?” His sour breath washes over me. “Or are you still untouched?”
“Get off me!”
“You want me after all,” Titus crows as I try to throw him off. He hits me again and manages to pull my hem up, exposing my womanhood to his gaze. Then he twists one of my nipples. “You’ll be a whore for all to use. I’ll keep you in the barn. I’ll—”
“Unhand her.”
I nearly sob at Rowan’s command. I can feel him near. His presence calms me, even faced with very real danger.
Suddenly, Titus is gone from me and on the ground. My heart beats fast as the Cursed One, Rowan, a fallen angel, stands over him, hands clenched, face hard, and his cheek…
It bleeds gold.
I raise shaking fingers to my own, and red stains the tips.
The bond…
Titus tries to kick him, but Rowan’s too fast. He flickers to another spot and lets Titus lumber to his feet.
“Leave this place. Last chance,” Rowan says, still standing with his hands clenched.
Titus narrows his eyes. “She’s my betrothed. I can do whatever I wish with her.”
“Lyra is no whore,” Rowan snarls. “She is mine. Go home and live. Stay and die. Your choice.”
Roaring, Titus pulls a knife and runs at Rowan. But all he does is spin, his wings lashing out and spearing Titus through the chest. There is a grunt and a sickening sound as the spiny tip of Rowan’s wing withdraws, and I know immediately what’s happened.
The body hits the ground. It happened too fast, I blink, wondering if I had imagined it all.
But no, Titus is unmoving with blood soaking his tunic in a dark red.
I stare at Rowan. “You killed him.”
“He tried to hurt you.” Rowan doesn’t move.
My mind spins. “It wasn’t—”
“My fight?” he asks softly. “Yes, it was. As I said, you’re mine.”
I want to argue, to snap back at him, but I don’t feel anything but relief. A nasty brute, a true monster like Titus is gone from the world.
Rowan bled for me. Came for me. Killed for me.
Inside me, the bond throbs like something is missing, and even though Titus lays dead, I approach Rowan and touch the center of his chest, where the gold veins spread outward, fingers soft.
He leans into me. “I didn’t mean to make you run. I wanted…”
I stare at him.
It’s hard to think with him so close, with my hands on him. Because the need and desire pumps hard in my veins.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline of what just happened, maybe it’s the bond, or…
“You can’t go back to your village,” he says. “The Order will punish you for failing your mission.”
Not just that. They’ll try to kill me when they discover Titus is dead. Elder Solarre will have me burned at the stake.
“No one will ever hurt you again,” Rowan whispers, as if he’s peeking into my head again. “You can come with me.”
My heartbeat gallops at that. At the idea of leaving everything I’ve ever known behind and being with him forever, but with excitement or fear, I do not know. “I can’t—”
“Hush.” He lowers his mouth to mine, but I close the gap, kissing him.
At first, the kiss is gentle, healing, intimate, almost reverent. A softness meant to soothe what was broken.
Then it deepens. Darkens. Smolders into something raw and pagan, all heat and hunger, and I want him. I want to finish what we started in the ruins.
But Rowan has other intentions.
He grips the tattered remnants of my tunic and tears it away, never breaking the kiss as he lowers me to the ground. I tense when I realize how close we are to Titus’s body, his presence a stain in the shadows. Doing this here feels wrong. Twisted.
And yet, it feels inevitable.
This isn’t tenderness anymore. It’s possession. A declaration. Rowan claiming me in the most primal way possible, right beside the man who tried to destroy me, proving, without words, that I was never Titus’s to take. I am Rowan’s. And I always have been.
Two souls created from the same cosmic fabric.
“My Lyra,” he murmurs against my lips as he settles between my legs. I feel his weight, his heat, the unmistakable promise of him. Yes, my virtue is still mine to give. And I’m ready to give it to him freely.
Rowan strokes his fingers from my nipples, down along my stomach, then down, down. He follows with his mouth, and each touch of his tongue and nip of his teeth peels back a layer of me.
When his head settles in between my thighs, I hold my breath.
“Rowan, what—”
“You’ll see,” he says.
It’s like the kiss in the ruins when he pushed his finger into me, only now he explores me with his tongue.
His mouth’s wet and hot on me, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
It’s wild, freeing, it’s like touching the heavens as the sweetest sensations roll over me, as he licks and sucks on my folds.
He’s enjoying this as much as I am; he’s hard and aching, and it just adds to the pleasure rising in me. Every new sensation is a revelation. I jump, clutching at him as his tongue touches the most sensitive part of me. Rowan sucks and licks it, making the fires inside burn brighter.
His fingers enter me, and I explode. My muscles clench, and I hit pure euphoria. I gasp as pleasure spirals through every inch of me, my back arching.
Just then, he slides over me, pushing my thighs apart, and I’m trembling, aching, needing this.
“This may hurt a little,” he whispers, but I nod. I’m not afraid.
I can feel him hold back, the rough oceans of desire in him, and then the damn breaks and he surges into me, breaking all barriers.
He starts to drill into me, and I’m mashed between him and the cool grass. His assaults are somehow coming from all angles, physically, emotionally, mentally. All the sensations make my head spin.
I never knew laying with a man could be like this.
Each time he slams in, he hits something so deep, it’s like a dull pain that is edged with a rolling pleasure.
“I can touch you forever, Lyra,” he pants, never stopping his relentless thrusts. “You were made for me.”
Yes, I think as that delicious pressure begins to build again. Yes!
His hand snakes under my hip, lifting it slightly, and the move makes him go even deeper, all the way to the hilt. And when his mouth latches on to my throat, I cry out. He bites and sucks hard, and it isn’t long before I’m vibrating, starting to shatter all over again.
“Gods!” I manage to squeak out. “Rowan! Yes…”
The pleasure hooks me with each of his deep and savage thrusts. I gasp when he withdraws and moan when he slams back in. I want it harder. Rougher.
I let the wild sensations crest and crash until I’m barely holding on. Every movement drags me deeper, until I’m shaking, lost, drowning in the bliss of it all.
And then, something ancient snaps into place.
I’m being claimed in body and soul, marked by him in a way that can never be undone. And he feels it too. I know it in the way his soul fractures and rebuilds, in the low sound he makes against my throat, in the way the forest seems to lean in around us.
As his wings stretch out, we’re both cast in shadow.
He begins to move again, but this time with no rhythm.
He’s thrusting into me in wild, frantic strokes.
It’s enough, though, to set off another cacophony inside me.
Screaming, my thighs squeeze together, entrapping his hips, and he groans low as he thrusts one more time and spurts inside me.
We stay like that for a long moment, his golden-brown eyes gazing into mine as the weight of what we just shared pushes down on us. And just like that, my heart breaks open beneath him and the world narrows to only us and the knowledge that whatever comes after this, there is no turning back.