24. Lucid Love
24
Lucid Love
Ki’REMI
H e swiveled to find Issa standing near the terrace doors.
Nude, arms crossed over her beautiful tits, her expression carved from ice and fire.
The sheer force of her gaze pinned him in place, a warning, a challenge, like a blade unsheathed.
Ki’Remi stilled.
He’d thought about what might happen if she learned about his other mission.
He just hadn’t factored in the raw betrayal burning in her scowl, the rigid set of her jaw, and the space between them that now crackled with her wrath.
‘Where were you?’ she asked, her voice a whisper of silk over steel.
He sensed Mirage sidle out of his mind, giving him a tap of encouragement.
Even as his meta armor peeled back from his body and retracted, revealing his muscled frame.
Now, barefoot and clad in a dark undersuit, he thrummed in the aftermath of his fast escape.
‘Out.’
Issa’s chin lifted, her nostrils flaring. ‘Try again.’
Ki’Remi’s chin flexed. ‘I was gathering intelligence.’
Silence for a beat. Without warning, her form ignited.
Actual flames rippled from her skin, pale amethyst and deep azure licking up her arms, pulsing with the unmistakable energy of the High Heavens.
Ki’Remi took a step back, not in fear but in awe.
Fokk , she was something else.
The blaze warped around her, charged with celestial fire, bending to her rage.
Her luminous eyes burned into him, a goddess cloaked in wrath, every inch of her screaming betrayal.
‘Knew shit wasn’t adding up. You used me,’ she accused.
Her voice was hushed, trembling, broken. ‘Was this your plan all along, Sable? Spy on me? On my people? Learn all you can and take it back to your Riders?’
Ki’Remi exhaled, trying to tamp down his chest’s sudden, ruthless ache. ‘You know that’s not true.’
‘Do I?’ she shot back. ‘Because it sure looks like it.’
The Rider narrowed his eyes, locking his emotions behind his practiced wall of sheer, unshakable cognition. ‘I came with you because I adore and respect you, and I wasn’t going to let you go alone into the enemy’s lair. However, I am also a soldier and will not sit back while a potential war surrounds us. This isn’t just about you, Issa. Pegasi is in danger. My people, our people, might be at probable peril. The gods have already erased one civilization from existence. Do you want to hazard a second annihilation?’
Her flames flared, brighter, hotter.
‘You think I don’t know about the Ascended’s warring past?’
Her voice shook, edged with fury. ‘I’m au fait with my people’s military complex and the warriors it designs. I was one of them, for Sacran’s sake. However, by rooting around and spying, you’ve just put my loved ones, my father, and I, at risk. If the Ssigis soldiers discover what you did tonight, do you think they’ll sit idly by?’
Ki’Remi clenched his teeth. ‘They won’t find out.’
She laughed then. A bitter, hollow sound. ‘Won’t they?’
The conflagration around her pulsed in warning.
He had never seen her so undone, unmoored, and incandescent with emotion.
‘Your sheer arrogance and stubbornness wound me,’ she whispered, shaking her head. ‘I have fought for years to keep my family safe. I have sacrificed so much to get to this point where I am close to an audience with Sulfiqar. You, the one person I trusted above all else, might have now jeopardized that.’
He stepped toward her. ‘I did what I had to do and was careful about it. Hell, Mirage had my back, and she’s the best.’
‘She might rule Pegasi, but she’s nada in this place where your soul and mind can be vaporized with a single whisper.’
‘ Kidaya ,’ he called, ‘please -’
She cut him off with a raised palm and a long suck of her teeth.
Then she turned away, shoulders rigid as steel.
Her firestorm imploded into embers that floated to the ground as, without another word, she walked to the bed, climbed in, and twisted her back to him.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Ki’Remi dragged a hand over his face, frustration burning in his gut.
She had a right to be angry.
But he had done what needs must.
He had fulfilled what she would have in his position.
Still, that didn’t make it hurt any less.
The heavenly bodies above Sivania pulsed in slow, endless spirals.
Through the glass-paneled ceiling of their celestial prison, casting pale gold light over the smooth stone floors and walls of the divine suite.
All was still.
Yet Ki’Remi lay wide-eyed in the dark, his thoughts far from sleep.
Listening to her breathe.
Feeling too much. His heart racing too fast, freakin’ guilty at arguing with her.
She was livid, no doubt, evidenced by her stiff shoulders and the emotional barrier she’s thrown up between them.
It fokkin ’ burned; it hurt to know he let her down.
He also realized he was falling in love with her.
That truth washed over him, hitting hard hardest in a shattering realization that she now claimed his heart.
Since he met her, he’d been mesmerized by all of her.
Her care, the brush of her fingers over a patient’s brow.
The brilliance of her intellect, her laugh, her sensuality, and the way she chose joy despite the burdens she carried.
He now loathed that they’d gone to bed angry with each other.
With a hushed growl, he turned to her.
She lay curled on her side, back to him, hair a halo of wild curls across the pillow, one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
Her breathing was soft, even. She was asleep and unaware of the storm roiling in him.
Unable to help himself, Ki’Remi reached for her, stroking her from shoulder to hip.
It wasn’t lust that guided his touch; it was pure craving.
Needing to be inside her, on her like a tattoo.
The raw, aching desire to anchor to her realness. To her sweet essence.
She moaned and instinctively curved her backside like she always did, half asleep, as an invitation to love on her.
His shaft hardened, thickened, wanting to sink into her now.
He nestled into her from behind, sliding an arm over her waist. She shifted, mumbling an incoherent word.
The heat of her wetness pressed against his cock, and his nose nuzzled to the nape of her neck, breathing in her scent, jasmine, vanilla, and musk.
His hand brushed across her belly, then stilled, resting flat as her body shifted.
Her awareness stirred, and she adjusted to his presence.
‘Remi?’ she breathed, voice thick with sleep.
He found her ear and whispered into it. ‘I’m so sorry, my love, for not coming clean with you about my alternate agenda on Sacra.’
She froze, now fully conscious.
After a beat, she sighed. ‘You were devious; you lied to me by omission.’
He sighed. ‘I’m well aware, kidaya , and I apologize.’
She took a deep inhale, tilting her face toward him. ‘I get why, but honey, we can’t jeopardize my mission for yours.’
‘I get that, and I’m so regretful.’
Silence fell as she mulled his words, but she didn’t pull away from him.
He stroked her pussy mound, then moved up to tweak her nipple.
He sensed her resistance crumble when her breath hitched, trembling beneath his touch.
Then her hand came between them, stroking his cockhead over her slickness.
He groaned and rocked his hips, sliding shallowly in and out of her.
She moaned. ‘Not fair. Don’t tease me, not now, Rider. I’m still fokkin ’ mad at you.’
The almost indiscernible flames in her skin reignited, but they did not burn with rage this time.
They glowed, shifting into a dance of purples and azures, surrender and understanding.
‘I know, my love. It’s killing me that I made you this angry, and again, I apologize,’ he growled, his tone so raw that he felt her jolt against him. ‘I can’t stand for us to fight. I need you. Not just sexually. I crave your peace, kidaya . I must know you forgive me.’
Twas the most vulnerable he’d ever been with anyone.
Silence fell for a beat then she arched her ass into him. ‘You’re forgiven,’ came the husky whisper. ‘As long as you tell me you will do better before you make any moves. Like this.’
She demonstrated with a sensual chuckle, reaching for his shaft and stroking it, bringing the seeping head to her folds.
He eased his cock into her, bottoming out with an extended groan. ‘ Foookkk woman!’
He cupped her jaw from behind and turned her face to kiss her. ‘In a perfect world, I’ll never make you rage at me. Given I’m part human, I’m fallible. So, kidaya , let me restart. I’ll be good. I’ll try and be better and love on you the way I should.’
She nipped his earlobe. ‘ Naam , I like that. The love on me bit.’
He chuckled, pressing his hips in, fokking her deep and slow. ‘Your wish is my command.’
Their mouths crashed together, a collision of longing, lust, and desperation.
His hands were all over her front, gliding up her tummy, gripping her thighs, pulling her against him like he could absorb her into himself.
She sighed, her grip sliding to his ass, anchoring him.
‘I’ve got you, baby,’ she whispered. ‘Whatever it is, give it to me.’
So he did.
He moved within her like a man returning to his senses, her limbs mooring his pistoning hips, her fingers in his hair, her voice like a lullaby in the dark.
At one point, she turned, canting herself under him, widening her legs so he thrust deeper into her.
‘You’re lucky,’ she breathed, brushing kisses along his temple, stroking his locs, ‘that I want to love on you too.’
With a ragged sigh, Ki’Remi closed his eyes as he thrust into her, drowning in her solace, in the burning release of need, acceptance, and comfort.
Faster, he drove into her until, with a groan, he exploded, his seed pouring into her in a white-hot blaze of ecstasy.
When it was over, his breath slowed, and her fingers stroked his scalp. He rested his head between the hollows of her neck and shoulder.
When he spoke, his timbre edged with raw feeling.
‘ Sante ,’ he murmured. ‘For being amazing and forgiving me.’
‘I felt betrayed, Remi.’
He detected the chiding in her utterance but also warmth, which gave him hope. ‘Yet you understand. You, of all people, who would go to the ends of the universe to protect your own?’
Issa remained still.
His fingers trailed lower, his lips pressing against the exposed curve of her shoulder.
‘If Pegasi falls,’ he continued, ‘it won’t matter if your father lives. The gods might wipe it out, too. Like they did the Paladians.’
She sighed in inevitable acquiescence. ‘Why do you always make so much sense?’
‘To counter all your fire,’ he rasped.
Ki’Remi rolled her toward him, his hands firm but gentle, his gaze searching hers in the moonlight.
The fire they shared them re-ignited, his cock hardening once more.
‘Still hate me? he grated, sliding into her again.
‘I loathe you,’ she whispered, kissing him deeper.
He smirked against her mouth, voice dark. ‘Lie better, Elaris.’
This time, they moved in a slow cadence, with the unspoken promise that they were still whole, still together.
The tension unraveled between their limbs, in the press of skin on skin, in the unhurried, aching push and pull of bodies rediscovering their rhythm.
When she finally shattered, when he followed, it was not in battle but in surrender.
Later, she pressed her lips to his chest, where his heart beat steady and firm beneath her mouth.
‘You were right,’ she murmured, voice groggy with exhaustion.
His brow quirked. ‘Come again?’
‘I already did, twice.’
She huffed a laugh, then sighed.
‘I meant you were correct about my people,’ she breathed. ‘They are toddlers that need minding. They also need to be understood before they can be parried with. Their history, ancient wars, archaic alliances, and betrayals must be studied to create the appropriate countermeasures. We must always remain a step ahead, for their deviousness is beyond measure, beyond time itself.’
Ki’Remi exhaled, his fingers tangling in her curls.
‘However,’ she added, turning those luminous, fire-lit eyes on him, ‘if you ever pull some espionage shit like that again without telling me, I will set you aflame.’
He smirked. ‘Duly noted, kidaya .’