Chapter 21
Bastion
The air outside the manor tastes like cold metal and wet leaves, and it’s a relief after the way we’ve been living inside.
I step out onto the gravel, helmet in hand.
Immediately the night cuts through my shirt and bites down to the bone.
Emery’s standing under the portico, hunched into her borrowed jacket.
For a second I think she’s going to turn around and decide she’s not up for whatever this is.
But she meets my eyes and walks straight toward me.
She eyes the helmet like it might explode. “Is it weird that I’m nervous?”
“If you weren’t I’d be worried.”
Emery takes the helmet and yanks it on with both hands. Her hair flares out the bottom like an anime character, half the colors of the visible spectrum, and she fumbles with the strap for a good ten seconds before I take pity on her.
“Come here,” I say, crooking my finger.
Emery steps in close. I fasten the strap under her chin, careful to keep my hands steady.
She’s so close I can smell her through the synthetic padding.
It’s a wall of sugar closing in around me.
Her eyes are wide and glassy, still a little raw from the last few days, but there’s an edge of stubborn left in her mouth that makes me want to ruin her and protect her at the same time.
I gesture to the bike, a bastardized racer with my initials scraped into the gas tank. “Ready?”
She glances at the handlebars like she’s conducting a risk assessment. It’s a bit late for that. “Are you allowed to drive without telling someone you’re leaving the grounds?”
“I do a lot of things I’m not supposed to,” I say, and swing my leg over.
Emery hesitates just long enough for me to notice, then climbs on behind me, arms wrapping around my waist. She’s warm, her body still radiating a bit from the last days of her heat cycle.
I start the engine and feel the shudder roll through both of us.
Emery presses her cheek into my back. I decide right then and there that I never want to ride this motorcycle without her.
We take off slow—manor gravel, city road, a ramp up to the main drag.
The city at night is a bruise with a gold vein running through it, every window and sign and streetlamp reflected in puddles from the afternoon’s rain.
Emery’s grip on me is tentative at first, but as I gun it onto the highway, she cinches up, her arms locked under my ribs.
We don’t talk. There’s no point. The roar of the engine, the wind tearing past, and the adrenaline slamming through both of us says everything.
I take her on a scenic route past the river and the old warehouse district, and through the tangle of side streets.
Emery’s body is fused to mine. Every time I lean into a curve, I feel the roll of her hips, the way she braces her thighs against the seat to keep us balanced.
She’s a fast learner—by the third turn, she’s not even flinching.
I could ride like this forever.
Half an hour later I cut up to the overlook, a dead end at the top of Holloway Hill, where the whole city lays out beneath you. I kill the engine and let us coast the last twenty feet, gravel popping under the tires.
We sit there for a second. Emery’s arms go slack, but she doesn’t let go. She laughs—a real, full-body sound—and the tension leaves her all at once.
She climbs off, rips off the helmet with both hands, and shakes out her hair. She’s got helmet-crease lines pressed into her forehead, but her face is lit up with something wild and free. She tosses the helmet at my chest and stalks to the edge of the overlook, boots clapping on the pavement.
“Holy shit,” she says, looking out. “It’s actually beautiful.”
I lean the bike on its kickstand, tuck the helmet under my arm, and follow her. The night is colder up here, the wind sharp enough to make your teeth hurt. I stand next to her, not touching, but close enough to feel the static ripple between us.
“You ever come up here with anyone before?” she asks, eyes never leaving the city.
I think about it. “Not like this,” I say. It’s true.
She’s quiet for a second, then turns and looks at me, really looks. “You know, I didn’t get it before.”
“Get what?”
“Why you run. Why you’re always trying to go fast, or go nowhere.” She shrugs, hair blowing in her face. “I think I get it now.”
I want to say something clever, but all that comes out is, “It’s the only time I don’t feel like I’m being watched.”
Emery smiles, soft at the corners. “Same.”
We stand like that, side by side, until the cold is too much.
Emery shivers and hugs herself. I unzip my jacket, offer it.
She slips it on, even though it’s too big and she disappears into the folds.
She looks like a kid playing dress-up. Or maybe she looks like my omega, wearing my clothes, standing in my shadow.
The thought hits so hard I almost stagger.
Emery sees it. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just definitely cold out.” It’s the wrong thing to say, both because it isn’t the truth and because I just know she’ll try to give back my jacket which I’m never allowing.
I shove my hands in my pockets and look up at the sky.
The stars are out, faint but stubborn, holding their ground against the city glow.
Emery looks up at me. “Do you ever think about leaving?”
I shake my head. “Not really. I figure whatever’s chasing me will just chase harder.”
Emery nods. She’s close now. So close I can smell her—heat or no heat, her scent is impossible to ignore, even with the night air blowing it away. I can feel it radiating off her, clinging to the lining of my jacket and sneaking in behind the ribs.
I could kiss her right now. I could push her against the guardrail and let the city watch. But she surprises me.
Emery grabs my hand instead and threads her fingers through mine. No words, no performance. She just holds on while we enjoy the view together.
We stand there for a minute. Then another.
It’s her heat that returns first. I can sense the shift before she even says a word.
The change is subtle at first. Emery’s breathing gets shallow and her grip on my hand tightens.
Then the sweet edge of her scent spikes hard, flooding the empty space between us.
She presses closer, nuzzles my shoulder, and the need spilling through me is so sharp it’s like a physical thing, a hook in my gut.
“Emery?” I ask, even though I already know.
She looks up, her cheeks pink and her eyes half-lidded. “Yeah,” she whispers. “Sorry. I thought I’d get more time before the heat fever spiked again. I thought my heat was almost finished.”
I squeeze her hand. “Do you want to go back?”
Emery shakes her head, hair brushing my chin. “No. I want… I want you.”
It’s not the first time she’s said it, but it hits different out here, with the city spread out like a promise below us.
I pull her in, hands on her waist, and kiss her. It’s soft at first, but she pushes back, hungry and unashamed. Her mouth tastes like sugar and something new—adrenaline, maybe. She’s shivering, but not from cold.
I slide my hands under the jacket, find the hem of her shirt, and slip my fingers up her spine. Her skin is hot, feverish. She arches into the touch, nails digging into my back.
Emery pulls away, breathing hard. “Can we—” she starts, but doesn’t finish. She doesn’t have to.
I grab her hand and pull her into the trees behind the overlook. There’s a dirt path, barely visible, but I know it by heart. We crash through the underbrush, branches whipping past, until we find a little clearing—a patch of grass and pine needles, shielded from the world by a ring of trees.
Emery is on me the second we stop, her hands in my hair, her mouth at my throat. I press her up against a trunk, rough bark at her back, and kiss her until we’re both gasping.
Then Emery drops to her knees, fast and sure, and fumbles with my belt. Her hands are shaking, but she doesn’t stop. She gets it open and out I come. Emery looks up at me with a purely wicked grin.
“Don’t tease.” My voice has gone ragged. Don’t stop now. Fuck, I’m so hard already. I’ve had her body pressed against mine since we left the manor. And now my cock is in her hands and she’s just grinning up at me.
She laughs, the sound unfiltered, wild. Then she’s on me, lips wrapping around the head of my cock with a hunger so eager it might have scared me if I weren’t already running on pure instinct.
The first glide of her mouth is tentative, but the next is bolder: she sinks down, slow and deliberate, wet heat sliding over me until her nose is nudging my hip and my vision whites out at the edges.
Emery’s hand wraps around the base, twisting in a counterpoint to her tongue, and she hums low in her throat, sending vibrations up the shaft that almost buckle my knees.
I brace myself against the tree, bark digging into my palm, terrified I’ll break in half right here.
Emery works me with a rhythm that’s part science, part witchcraft.
Every pass of her lips is a little deeper.
Every swirl of her tongue perfectly placed.
And when she pauses to look up at me, blue eyes glassy with want and mouth stretched wide, I know I’m ruined.
Emery doesn’t flinch from the taste, the mess, or the sharpness of my need.
She devours it all. Her hair spills wild across her cheeks, streaks of pink and lavender flaring in the moonlight.
She sweeps it aside with one hand, determined not to lose pace.
Her other hand never rests. She alternates pressure, squeezes, and tugs, dragging me closer to the brink with every motion.
My hips jerk involuntarily, and she moans again, greedy for the loss of my control.