20. Falling in the Treetops #2
He bites my lip, just enough to pinch a little, and I gasp into his mouth.
“Too much?” he asks, the words a growl against my cheek.
I shake my head. “Not enough,” I admit.
His breath shudders, pleased and restrained all at once.
For a moment, the jungle feels like it belongs only to us. I feel alive, like the jungle itself is energizing me.
I lean back just far enough to search his face.
“What would you have done,” I ask quietly, “if you’d brought me here the first night?”
His eyelids narrow to slits. “I would have waited.”
“For what?”
“For you to stop looking at me like I was your executioner.”
My throat tightens. “And if the Stone hadn’t pushed?” I press. “If there had been no mark. No ceremony. No bond.”
He studies me now, his fierce eyes searching mine. “You think I want obedience born of magic?”
“I think you like inevitability,” I breathe.
His fingers slide into my hair, cradling my head. "I like it when you walk toward me," he says. "Not when you are dragged."
A spark ignites low in my core.
“I don’t want to be claimed,” I breathe. “I don’t want fate deciding for me.”
His thumb brushes the bride mark. “Then do not let fate decide,” he replies.
I huff a soft breath. “You say that like I have power here.”
“You do.” His voice drops. “More than you understand. You bring danger.”
“Danger to who?”
“To me. To Xytheos.”
That startles me enough that I still. I started out terrified of his jungle, against everything he represents. Now that I’m in this vibrant, colorful place with him, I don’t want to leave it. I don’t want to replicate New Terra somewhere else. I want to live. Not just survive.
He watches me closely.
“You think I cannot feel the difference,” he continues, “between the Stone pulling you toward me, and you choosing to lean into my arms?”
I don’t answer.
Because he’s right.
The Stone has sparked back to life up here, but its hum is faint now. What I feel is something warmer. Wilder.
“I have followed orders my entire life,” I say. “If I choose you, it can’t be because a rock told me to.”
“Then choose,” he says.
He says it without pressure. But if I choose him, there is no returning to who I was. I reach up and brush a spore out of his hair. My fingers stay longer than they need to, sliding through the dark, finely braided strands to the back of his neck.
I feel his cheek against mine as it bunches in a smile. His hands slide lower, cupping my bottom through the robe, lifting me onto my toes until my feet leave the bridge.
I cling to him tightly, locking my legs around his hips. The height is dizzying for a moment. “Don’t drop me,” I squeak.
He supports me effortlessly. The bridge barely sways.
For a long, dizzy minute, I cling to him. Then I pick my head up. “This doesn’t mean anything,” I lie. “I just don’t want to fall.” There are too many ways to fall here—in this place of seductive beauty.
He narrows his eyes. “You are afraid again.”
I try to laugh, but my throat is too tight.
He touches my face, gentle now. “You know what I can do with the vines. I will never let you fall.”
“It’s not that kind of falling that I’m worried about.
” But it’s too late. I’m already falling.
And he knows it. I feel the mate bond flare back to life inside me.
I check the bride mark—it’s brightening.
I clench my hand into a fist, twisting to hide my finger, but Rythar’s eyes flick to the movement.
“You do not wish this?” he asks, voice soft.
“I don’t know,” I say, and it’s true. I close my eyes, enjoying the feeling of being wanted, of being held. Of feeling safe.
Rythar sets me down on the bridge again as his hands slide up to my face. His eyes are dark with intent and hunger. “Let’s go back to the fortress.”
My feelings match his, but this happened fast. I rejected him, and the bond went dark. I accepted him, and it flared back to life. I need to be sure that whatever I choose is what I really want. “If I say stop,” I say quietly, “you stop.”
“I stop,” he answers.
I draw in a steadying breath. “Okay.” But the mate bond is humming through me, and I know he’s feeling it, too. It’s in the way Rythar looks at me—like he knows something I don’t. Like he already knows what this will become. I stare out over the edge, watching the spores drift and swirl.
It's the same path back to the fortress, but it feels different. I force myself to walk the bridges without touching Rythar. Halfway across one bridge, the wind picks up, snatching at my robe and shoving me sideways. His arm goes around my waist before I finish stumbling. He pulls me into his side, my hip fitted against his, my head below his shoulder. His hand settles on my ribs, fingers spread wide. His arm doesn’t loosen.
His chest expands against my shoulder. A long, slow inhale, and I realize he is breathing me in, the way he did in the mating chamber when his nose found the curve of my neck.
Only this time his eyes are half-closed and his lips have parted, just slightly, and the look on his face is not composed.
The wind drops, and he slides me down, keeping hold of my hand. We pass under clusters of pods that light up as we go by. The light strobes across his face. I glance at our joined hands. The bride mark hasn’t dimmed.
He’s silent, but there’s nothing uncertain in him. He leads me down from the heights until we reach the main terrace. Rythar said he’d never let me fall.
The problem is, I’m starting to think I’m already falling.