91. Chapter 91
CHAPTER 91
Lucenna
L ucenna towel dried her wet hair and rolled her neck. Her long soak in the bath helped ease her stiff muscles, especially after a long day of training with that old elf. She glanced out the windows at the coming evening as rain pattered on the glass. Once she was dressed, she headed to join the others for dinner, but heard a clattering when she opened the door.
From a thin chain hung a small glass vial with a four-leaf clover.
Growling to herself, Lucenna snatched the chain and stormed to Klyde’s room.
She barged in and tossed it on his bed. “I don’t want it!” she snapped. “Have I not already made that clear?”
Klyde paused by the bed, in the middle of packing his clothes into his bag. Her heart shook at the sight of it.
Lucenna crossed her arms, focusing on her anger to regain her composure. “I have lost count of how many times I have returned that clover to you. Why do you insist on giving it to me?”
He looked at her steadily, his expression somber, and he took a heavy breath. “You need that more than I do. Take it. At least so my conscience is clear.”
Lucenna clenched her fists. “Klyde, I need you to stop trying to rescue me. I can take of myself. Neither I nor no one places any blame on you for what happened at the keep. Going there was my choice. I knew the risks. Getting wounded in battle, especially one of magic, is inevitable.”
He clenched his jaw. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“Gods, you are infuriating!”
“I can say the same about you, lass.” He tossed down his mercenary coat onto his bed. “You are stubborn, haughty, tempestuous?—”
“Excused me?” she hissed.
“It means?—”
“I know what it means!”
Klyde sighed and rubbed his jaw already shadowed in a layer of stubble. His blue eyes stormed as he looked at her in a way that made her heart twist. “I am leaving tomorrow, so I won’t dance around it anymore. You reject my gift not because you don’t need it, but because you need to refuse anything having to do with me. That is the only way you can persuade yourself you don’t feel for me the way I do for you. And it frightens you.”
Lucenna stared at him, her chest heaving.
Klyde closed the distance between them. “So insult me all you wish. Threaten me. Throw things at me. Hit me. I’ll take anything you give me but stop lying to yourself.”
She tried to speak, tried to shout, but all she could manage was a faint whisper. “It’s not a lie.”
“Say that again and mean it.”
Hot tears build up behind her eyes and threaten to spill over. This man got under her skin. He challenged her. Confused her. Provoked her. Made her skin heat with anger and longing.
And she loathed it.
Lucenna clung to that anger and made it her boat to stand on. “I don’t want you . I never wanted you. Not a ridiculous man who never cared for anything but his own selfish desires. I despise you. You are an infinite source of irritation, and once you’re gone, I will be glad of it.”
Klyde took a shallow breath, and it was the only indication that the blow had hurt. But he didn’t fight her as she wanted. He didn’t even raise his voice. He only reached out and gently wiped away the tear that had escaped. Because they both knew it was a lie.
“Why?” Lucenna weakly hit his chest. “Why must it be you? I don’t understand it at all. You’re the fool that maddens me every day with your ways and stupid dimples. I can’t stand that you see through me, that you hear what I don’t want to say. When I finally allow you to get close, you pull away, and leave me to stew in my own humiliation. You accuse me of lying to myself, yet I sense you’re afraid, too.” She moved away from him, shaking her head. “You should never have kissed me, Klyde. For not even you know what you want.”
Lucenna stormed out of his room for hers and slammed the door shut behind her. She leaned against it and shut her eyes. Gods, why did she tell him that? It didn’t matter. Tomorrow he would be gone, and she could then breathe and move on with her life.
Yet why did she feel lonely at the thought of him leaving? She didn’t want him to go. Lucenna’s hand lingered on the doorknob. She likely wouldn’t ever see him again after today.
Could she let that be the last thing she ever said to him?
Maybe life came down to more than wants. If anything, this part of her journey had showed it was awful to live with regrets.
Lucenna swung open the door.
Her heart lurch to find Klyde standing right there, his eyes burning. “I was never confused about what I wanted.”
Then he grabbed her face and kissed her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and rose on her toes, kissing him back. Her heart surged in her chest. With thrill. Relief. And complete utter surrender. They stumbled backward into her room, and he kicked the door closed.
Klyde leaned her against a dresser, claiming her mouth with his. His heated hand slid to her waist, sparking a rippling current along her spine. Gripping her thigh, he hooked it up his waist. Her pulse throbbed as his tongue slid against hers, devouring her mouth. She couldn’t hold in the small moan, and she felt his hand tighten around her waist.
This wasn’t like their first kiss.
This one was hungry.
Starved.
“What I want,” he panted against her mouth. “Is your today and your endless tomorrows. I want to tear this off you.” He gathered a handful of her dress in his fists so tight she heard the fabric tear. “And forget all else as I lose myself in the wonder of you. I want to feel your heart race in time with mine. To breathe in your scent and swallow the sound of your voice calling my name. I want you. Every blessed inch of you.”
His voice vibrated through her being. Each ardent word stripping her to her bones. Lucenna kissed him heatedly. Challenging. Damn him for knowing exactly what to say to make her defenses fall.
“Tell me to go if you don’t want this,” Klyde said, so close she felt the brush of his low plea on her lips. “Give me a reason not to touch you. Convince me you still belong to another so I don’t take you to bed and kiss you until I can’t breathe. I’ve lost the will to fight against what I want.”
There wasn’t another. No other man who stirred her like him. No other touch she wanted but his.
Lucenna was done denying what she wanted, too. “Stay,”
He shuddered. “Thank the gods.”
She pulled him to her and his mouth captured hers again. She melted into his touch, into the sweep of his tongue and grip of his hands on her waist. She clutched him with a soft sigh tangled in a moan.
“It would be irresponsible of me not to address an important matter first,” he said, and she already knew what he would ask. “Are you?—”
“Yes.”
“You won’t?—”
“No.”
The shortest conversation she ever had about contraceptives, but Klyde understood her perfectly.
He pressed her into the wall as he continued to kiss and explore her neck, coursing down to the soft plush of her cleavage. She gasped softly at the stroke of his fingers tracing up her leg still wrapped around him.
Her pulse speed with each caress, warming her skin. She tugged up his shirt and he lifted her arms as she pulled it off him, dropping at their feet. His lashes drifted closed at the first graze of her hand on his chest. She lightly traced his scars, exploring every hard, inch of warm skin, savoring the chiseled ridges of his body. She nipped his neck and the tortured sound he made vibrated in her pulse.
He reached up her dress, and she heard fabric tear as he dragged off her undergarments, exposing her to the air.
His strong hands traveled up her thighs to the source of her need. Her breath caught at the first stroke of his fingers, and she dug her nails into his back. Her breath came in soft pants as he created a building demand she couldn’t take anymore. She tugged at his britches, and they were gone in her next breath. Klyde hoisted her up onto his waist. She wrapped her legs around him and as he pulled her close and she felt how much he craved her.
He carried her to the bed without releasing her mouth. Sitting on the edge, he scooted back with her still straddling him. He grabbed the hem of her dress, lifting it up and off over her head. Then there was nothing between them but this moment. His dark, heavy-lidded gaze trailed over her body, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.
“Gods you’re beautiful …” Klyde breathed. His husky voice, so laden with desire in the dimly lit room it made Lucenna shiver.
His hand slipped around her nape and his fingers threaded through her hair as he kissed her languidly. His lips moved on to her neck and she leaned her head back as he learned the beat of her pulse.
The purple light of her Essence flickered around them, dancing like fireflies. He pulled from her every thread of her heart, lacing them with his own. Breath trembling, she ran her hands over hard lines of his forearms to his shoulders, learning his flesh, feeling the muscles flexing with the movement of his hands trailing over her back.
Klyde panted a moment before saying faintly into her ear. “Tell me what pleases you.”
“I have a feeling you already know.”
Because even when she tried to deny it, when she lied to him and to herself, he always could see through her.
She wanted him to take her tenderly. Then wildly. To tangle his fingers in her hair and lose himself in the arches of her skin. She wanted his teeth to mark her with his need. She wanted him to tame the tempest inside by taking her breath away. She had enough of his wavering and restrained desire. She wanted to feel the crash of his waves and know that she wasn’t drowning alone.
Klyde flipped her onto the bed and pinned her wrists above her head. Her eyes rolled closed as his mouth slowly made its descent over her body. He trailed kisses over her heartbeat, down her stomach to her highs, and lower, until he had her writhing. She clutched the bedding in tight fistfuls. With every touch of his lips, he imprinted webs of stars across her body and made her his. Pressure rose in her, and building and building until she was crashing on his shores.
Klyde’s lips returned to hers and he breathed her name mid-kiss. Each vowel curled up her spine. Whenever he spoke her name everything seemed to stop. Lucenna couldn’t decipher what they were anymore. She didn’t know what she wanted them to be. Only that she had to hold on for as long as she could.
Klyde’s eyes rose above her, and she saw the storm in them. “Should you come to regret this tomorrow, know that none of what I feel for you is a lie.”
She shook her head and wrapped her fingers around the back of his nape. “Klyde, shut up and kiss me.”
He did. Deeply, tenderly. As his body joined hers, filling her so perfectly, Lucenna decided tomorrow didn’t matter.
Only now.
The first roll of his hips dragged out her whimper. The sound seemed to snap something inside of him and Klyde picked up the pace in a measured, powerful rhythm. Lucenna pulsed at the sudden fire be built inside of her. He pulled her hips up, burying himself so deep, pleasure rolled through her in waves. A low sound rasped from Klyde’s throat as he rocked into her, extracting her every panting gasp and convulsing moan. Each swell more intense than the last until she cried out and her entire body arched.
Lucenna sagged weakly into the bed, and he sank down beside her, breathing hard. She quivered with soft ripples of pleasure.
Klyde’s fingers brushed the silver locks from her eyes. “I take it that smile means I did indeed exceed expectations?”
Smirking lazily, Lucenna said, “That depends, Captain. Are you already conceding?”
Rolling over, he hooked her leg over his thigh, and she found he was nowhere near finished. “Moonlit-lass, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Lucenna lay nestled into Klyde’s side, as if the cradle of his arms were meant for her. His presence was a warm sensation she wanted to wrap herself in and never leave. It would be easy to fall asleep like this, listening to his chest rise and fall with even breaths as he slept. She breathed in his familiar scent of leather and sea salt, and something primal she couldn’t get enough of.
Slowly, she traced his scars and curves of his abdomen, memorizing the feel of his skin. He was the most beautiful sight she’d ever laid eyes on.
She was going to miss him.
The low candlelight glinted over the pink diamond on her finger. The ring no longer belonged there.
Perhaps it never did.
Lucenna took hold of the band and began to slide it off, but a warm hand fell over hers.
“Keep it on…” Klyde murmured sleepily, and his blue eyes met hers through his lashes. “At least until I can replace it with my own.”
She stared at him, her chest catching with a breath. Then she was up, moving back on the bed.
Seeming to realize what came out of his mouth, Klyde slowly sat up.
“What did you say?” Lucenna asked faintly.
“I suppose something foolish because you look terrified right now.”
Swallowing, she struggled to sort her thoughts and looked away to the floor.
“Hey…” Klyde turned her chin, making her look at him. “I am merely in a blissful mood and said something I shouldn’t. Don’t think anything of it.”
“But you meant it.”
He sighed and rested his arms on his crossed legs. “Are you so worried that I want a life with you? Or is it because I am not a mage?”
Her heart shook. “I am worried you would die because of it.”
Then a somberness crossed Klyde’s face. She didn’t know what her future held but it did hold a war to come and a life constantly on the run. Elite Enforcers were always on her tail and so was her father.
Lucenna shut her eyes, and her mind flashed with an image of her mother. “Do you know what I fear the most? Having a dream in this hopeless world. I fear I will grow weak because of that hope and lose those I don’t wish to lose because I wasn’t strong enough to protect them. If I allow myself to fall into you, I am putting a target on your back, Klyde. I won’t do that.”
Wrapping the sheets around her, she rolled out of bed and went to sit in a chaise by the fire.
She heard the rustle of the bedding as Klyde rose and got dressed. What else could he do but leave?
“I knew the risks that came with choosing this,” he said a few steps from her, dressed in only his trousers. “I told myself nothing good would come of it, but there was no ignoring what you did to me, and I always asked myself the same question.” He gazed at her, his eyes glistening. “Why ... why can’t I stop?”
“Stop what?” Lucenna whispered as he stepped closer.
“Wanting you.”
“Don’t say those things to me,” she begged as he kneeled in front of her. “When you do …” She shut her eyes. “You draw out parts of me I never show anyone.”
He made her feel like the world was no longer on her shoulders.
“Then show it to me, Lucenna. Every part.” He brushed the hair from her eyes, cupping her face. Her pulse drummed beneath the tenderness in his gaze. “I wasn’t ready for this. I don’t think anyone ever is. I wasn’t looking for anything when I found you, but I found what I needed in you.”
“What are you saying?
“You know.”
She shook her head. “Don’t. Don’t say it when you’re leaving.”
“I always planned to come back, lass.” Klyde drew her close, his noise trailing over her cheek and her eyes stung with relief and fear to want this. “If you don’t want to hear it, then in place of it, I will tell you my life started the moment I met you. When I close my eyes you’re all I see.” His voice vibrated through her, making her feel stripped to her bones. “I don’t think I will ever forget the first time I saw you.”
She flushed. “As the old hag in the witch’s den?”
“No, I saw you before that in the city. In your leather redingote, silver hair swaying like streams of stars, and eyes that reminded me of twilight. Then you yelled at me, and I was completely, irrevocably done for.”
She cracked a smile. “Why?”
He gave her a half smile, and his fingers stroked down her arm. “Apparently, I am fool of women who can destroy me with a snap of her fingers or a lashing of her tongue. Regardless of whatever consequences entering your life has brought to mine, I will never once regret it.”
Lucenna warmed under his touch. He leaned in for a kiss, but she slipped out of his range, eyeing him slyly as she backed away. “You say that now, but what if we wake up one day and realize last night was a mistake?”
“What is living without making a lifetime of mistakes?” Klyde rose to his feet and followed, forcing her to retreat until he cornered her against the wall. He dipped down, and the low rumble of his voice vibrated against her ear, sending a little shiver down her spine. “I suggest we continue making several more.”
Her body shivered with delight at the thought.
“If we are going to be together, then promise me one thing.” Lucenna reached into his pocket and pulled out the chain holding the four-leaf clover. She slipped it over his head, laying it over his heart. “Never take this off.”
Because the Magos Empire would come for her again and she needed to make sure he would not be another casualty in her life.
“I promise.” Klyde buried his hands in her hair, rendering her molten beneath the demanding press of his mouth. Gods, she loved the way he kissed her. She wanted to keep kissing him, to lose herself in him. To feel safe and warm for as long as possible.
“Stay,” she breathed. “Stay in Sellav until the end of spring.”
He paused, pulling back a little to meet her eyes.
Lucenna looked up at him, never feeling more vulnerable. “I know you must return to Skelling Rise, but … can I have you a little longer? It’s selfish of me, but I can finally admit to myself that I want something. And I don’t want you to go.”
He groaned as if it were torture. “Don’t look at me that way, lass. The last thing I want is to leave.”
“Then don’t. Not yet.”
The way he beheld her, with such soft adoration. It made her feel like she had reached a turning point in her life. When things would change into something new.
Klyde’s fingers curled around the back of neck, and gently pulled her to him with a defeated sigh. “Then I will stay right here with you a little longer more.”