Chapter 29 #2
His smirk told me he liked that, and my gaze drifted to his lips. I pressed my finger against them, feeling their surprising softness. His smile slowly died, and I felt a familiar energy rise between us. One of awareness.
“I was terrified of you,” I said quietly.
“But not of the Elthika. I looked at them, at Samryn, and I thought…this was what was meant to happen. The path I was meant to take. Kiron was meant to be a guardsman, if only so I would be here. That single decision led me across the sea. Right here. With you.”
Something shifted between us. An acknowledgment, perhaps, of what we were to one another. Of what it was we actually felt for one another.
I hadn’t expected someone like Alaryk to ever appear in my life.
Yet here I was, in his lap, my hands running down the wide berth of his chest, my fingernail clicking over his nipple piercing, making his abdomen tighten against me.
His eyes came to my pendant. He reached for it, running his thumb across the gem. “Who gave this to you? A lover?”
I heard a roughness in his voice I hadn’t anticipated. I chuckled low. “Would you be jealous if that were the case?”
“Yes,” he replied simply.
I tried to bite back my soft smile. “You’re one to talk about lovers. Speaking of, I saw one of yours today, watching the confrontation with Potra.”
Alaryk’s brows furrowed. “One of my lovers?”
“One of your harem,” I teased with a pointed, dry look.
He bit out a frustrated sigh. “You know I’ve been with no one since…”
“The feast night?” I asked.
He rubbed his thumb over the fire gem. “Watching me? Even then?”
I wouldn’t let him distract me. “That was the last time you were with her?”
That was the night I’d seen Samryn crash into the forest. It had only been half a moon cycle ago, but it felt like so much longer.
“Yes,” he replied. “The arrangement I had with Rivenna was sex and nothing more. I’d only been with her a handful of times over the course of two seasons. Besides…”
“Yes?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I ended our arrangement after the night in Ny’am with you. I saw her in the village the next day and told her.”
I jerked back, surprised. “You did? Why?”
“Because I knew it was inevitable between you and me,” he said. And I…liked that way more than I should. “I felt it then. I know you did too.”
For a long while, I regarded him with my insides fluttering. He was still holding my pendant between his thumb and forefinger, and I looked down at it.
“My parents gave me the pendant,” I finally told him.
His eyes were molten as he absorbed the words.
“My parents saved every piece of gold they could to buy me the fire gem. My father is a talented metalworker. He works in the forges in Dothik. He set it into the backing, and my mother crafted the chain, piece by piece. They gave it to me when I got accepted to my apprenticeship.”
For the first time, I saw a soft smile cross Alaryk’s face, one only of gentleness.
“It’s my most cherished possession,” I said, looking down at it. “I like having a piece of them here.”
“Have you ever given thought to if they’d like it in Karak?”
The question made me still as I searched his eyes. I swallowed as he dropped the pendant, and it hit the space between my breasts, his words permeating the air.
“I haven’t,” I replied honestly. “They have community in Dothik. Lifelong friends, especially my mother. I don’t ever see them giving that up.”
He knew what went unspoken…that I didn’t know if I would give them up to stay here. I didn’t think I would. I would feel too much like I was leaving them behind. I didn’t want my mother to feel like she had in the aftermath of Kiron’s leaving. It would break my heart.
I tried to change the subject, away from something I didn’t even know how to answer.
“We’re close to the center,” I said, past the lump in my throat. “Did you feel it?”
He knew exactly what I was talking about. And thankfully, he let the prior subject drop. “Yes.”
Samryn’s curse. We were nearly there, untangling the Idima’s curse within him. And once we found the center, we could eradicate it completely. I didn’t have a doubt in my mind now. Not with Alaryk’s support, not with his strength.
“We will save him, you know,” I said. “I feel certain of it now. And I promise that I won’t leave until we do.”
Alaryk’s hand tightened in my hair, and he drew me forward. Our lips met in a crash, and a low groan tore from his throat, but it sounded like one of relief, not pleasure.
“You like me too, don’t you?” I couldn’t help but whisper against his lips.
“Too much,” he growled, sounding perturbed by that fact, and my laugh made his kiss turn even fiercer, like he was trying to punish me for it.
For a brief moment, as I sank into him, I let myself imagine it. Staying.
Days in the hatchery, nights in Alaryk’s arms.
But eventually, we would have to return to Grym. The Arsadia was only a temporary home for him after all. This wasn’t his stronghold.
But I imagined it nevertheless…loving him.
I sighed into his mouth, liking the feel of him between my legs, the heat, the bulk, the strength. I felt exposed like this, but protected. It was freedom, but it was safety. Like running off a cliff, knowing he’d be there to catch me.
Alaryk pulled back. Suddenly and strangely. When I moved to try to catch his kiss again, he held me back.
When I opened my eyes, confused, I saw his head was cocked, his gaze directed at the wall of his dwelling, his body stiff.
Alarm went through me. “What is it?” I whispered.
“Samryn,” Alaryk said. “He’s…warning me.”
Just then, in the distance, I heard bells ringing, hard clangs that echoed throughout Grymia.
“Fuck,” Alaryk growled, rising with me in his arms until he righted me. Already lacing up his trews and snatching his tunic off the floor quickly, his movements jerky and hurried.
“What’s going on?” I asked in a rush, going to my boots by the door.
“You stay here,” he growled. “We’re under attack.”
“What?” I breathed.
Shouts and commands funneled inside the dwelling when Alaryk tugged open the door. A breeze whistled inside. It was dark, only a half-moon illuminating the quiet road beyond.
“Stay here,” he growled. “Promise me.”
But I did no such thing, and he was already out the door, racing into the darkness beyond.
The hatchery, I thought, a twinge of fear filling my insides.
I couldn’t break a promise I’d never made, after all.
And so I ran out the door, my eyes on the glowing dome in the distance.