Chapter Twenty-Five Inana
Chapter Twenty-Five
Inana
The first thing I feel is the cold.
The first thing I think is Fuck, I’m going to die.
Then the current takes me, churning my body in its violent pull and dragging me under before I can gather a full breath.
Something slams into my side, a piece of the bridge, perhaps, and the remaining air leaves my lungs.
This is it, I think. Even if I could swim, it would do me no good.
I can’t sense up from down, can’t seek the surface—
Icy air slices over my cheek, bared where my mask is askew.
I steal a breath, clawing for something, anything, to cling to.
Another heavy weight slams into me, and I grab for it.
It’s a plank of wood from the bridge, and I lock my arms around it like my life depends on it.
Bloody hell, it likely does. The plank keeps my head above water for the most part, though the current batters me, throwing me against rocks.
Pain spears through my limbs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve shattered every bone in my body.
I blink, trying to make out anything but the water rushing all around me, but no matter which direction the current turns me, all I see is water, darkness, or sky. I can’t find the shore. Everything is moving too fast. Me, the water, the wood I cling to.
My knee crashes into something hard, but my limbs are too cold to feel it now.
Then my back collides with another mass, this one jutting out from the river.
My plank slips from my grasp, and I claw at the rock I’ve slammed against, hooking my arm over the top and hugging myself around it.
The seconds of relative stillness feel like heaven, even as the river churns around me.
I gather in heaving lungfuls of air, then try to lift myself higher.
If I can just climb up on the rock, I can get a view of the shore, take a fighting chance at getting out of this fucking river.
For a second, I see it. Only one eye remains uncovered by my sideways mask, but it’s enough.
A silhouette of trees bobs over the rapids.
I heft myself an inch higher and catch sight of rocks. A snowy bank. Shore. That’s the shore.
My arms begin to loosen, my strength draining with every breath I take.
I cry out as I’m nearly wrenched off the rock.
My godsdamned waterlogged cloak has caught on something, or perhaps it’s been pulling downstream this whole time and I’m only now succumbing to its tug.
I can’t fall back into the current. I…I won’t make it back out.
I know this like I know my own heartbeat.
My only option is to release one hand to unhook my cloak.
But if I let go, even for a second, I’ll lose my grip on the rock.
Gritting my teeth, I fight the weight dragging me down the river. Pull my arms tighter. Lift my body higher—
My strength gives out and I surrender to the current.
Surrender to death.
Surrender to…the strong arms that close around me.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but I know it’s him.
Dominic. His arms are clamped around my waist, his legs braced against the rock.
Then he shifts his grip, securing me in one arm.
The rushing water batters us as he navigates us around the rock, to the side nearest the shore.
We pause there, and I realize he’s speaking to me, whispering into my hair.
“Breathe. You’re going to be all right. Are you ready?”
I don’t know what I’m supposed to be ready for, but I nod anyway.
The next thing I know, I’m moving again, dragged by the current.
But I’m not alone this time. Dominic’s hold doesn’t let up, and there’s something else here too.
A canine face keeping my head above water.
Paws paddling beside me. Two dark shadows filling the space between us.
Dominic fights the current while somehow working with its pull until we’re closer to the shore. Closer to safety.
My feet slam into the rocky riverbed, but it’s a welcome sensation.
I kick out, doing my best to gain purchase on them, to aid our progress, until—finally—I collapse on the riverbank, gathering shuddering breaths.
Everything hurts now. No, it doesn’t hurt.
I can’t feel anything. Sensations drift from pain to numbness, and I realize my eyes are no longer open.
My consciousness is fraying at the edges.
Maybe I’m dying, even after all of that.
Again, strong arms come around me, and I sense the world falling beneath me.
Or perhaps it’s only that I’ve been lifted up.
My face feels lighter, and I realize I’m no longer burdened by my mask.
Instead, something warm—so delightfully, deliciously warm—presses against my cheek. I whimper at the relief it brings.
Then a voice in my ear, so soft and kind, and I wish I could remember whose it is. “You’re going to be all right, love. You hear me?” His lips graze my temple as he speaks again. “You’re going to be all right.”
That same warmth floods my hand; it must be pressed against the same surface my cheek is. I spread out my fingers and let that warmth soothe me, along with the heavy beat that thuds against my palm.
The next thing I think is Dying isn’t so bad.
The holy texts are wrong. Hell isn’t at all what we’ve been led to believe. It isn’t some endless void crawling with Shades and demons. It isn’t a pitch-black hole filled with the stench of rot and the perpetual burn of icy air. If anything, it’s the opposite. It’s warm, peaceful.
Come to think of it, maybe I’m not in hell.
Maybe I defied the odds and made it to heaven.
That would explain the glittering sunlight that wraps around me.
I’m not sure when I opened my eyes, but my surroundings take shape, piece by piece.
Honeyed sunlight, sheer curtains blowing on a wind I don’t feel, an opulent bed beneath me—a bed unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, layered with pillows and the softest blankets my skin has ever felt.
If this is to be my eternal grave, then perhaps the gods like me after all.
The scent of cedar, snow, and smoke fills my senses, so at odds with my surroundings, but as I roll onto my side, I discover the source.
A man lies beside me, eyes closed, lips parted in slumber. His dark hair spills over his pillow, and I find myself entranced by his beauty.
Then I remember his name.
Dominic.
Confusion tangles the back of my mind, sending visions of cold water and a flash of terror, but it’s gone before it can grow. I blink, then study him again, and I’m no longer confused by his presence. Of course he’s here.
And…where is here again?
Dominic stirs before I can ponder the question too long, his eyes fluttering open, led by those long black lashes of his.
He turns toward me and wraps a muscled arm around me.
I’m shocked at first, by his touch and my realization that we’re both fully naked—weren’t we covered in blankets a moment ago?
—until my mind slips back into contentment and I can no longer recall why I was surprised.
He pulls me into his chest, and I press my palm over his pectoral, luxuriating in his warmth, his heartbeat. He kisses the top of my head, and I nestle deeper into him.
“Tell me a story, love.”
The voice is low, deep, and guttural, thrilling in its sleep-drunk beauty.
But there’s something about the words he said that sends a shock of fear through me.
I pull back, expecting a different face to look down at me.
Because Dominic has never said those words to me. It was someone else. Someone who…
Dominic meets my eyes with a frown, and I’m torn between the vision before me and the one that haunts the edges of my mind.
A man who pulled me to his chest long ago. Tell me a story, Inana.
A man who used those same stories against me later. You were always a sinner.
“What’s wrong?” Dominic’s warm hand comes to my cheek, and every thought flees my mind, drifting away until I can’t recall what put the worried expression on his face.
“Nothing,” I say, wrapping my arms around his waist. “How about I sing you a song instead?”
He pulls back and lifts my chin until our eyes meet. “Let’s make it a duet.”
The hunger in his eyes stokes a fire deep inside me. There’s nothing I want more than to make music with our sighs. So I claim his lips with mine, and he meets them eagerly. I angle my head, deepening our kiss. When I part my lips, his tongue sweeps in, caressing mine in slow, seductive motions.
Want sparks between my legs, and I roll my hips.
Dominic smiles against my mouth, then breaks our kiss, rolling me onto my back.
He pulls away slightly, his fingertips grazing my cheek, my bottom lip, then trailing down my neck.
His eyes dip, drinking in the sight of my peaked nipples.
I arch my back as his hand skates from my neck, down to my chest, circling the curve of my breast before cupping it fully.
He watches my nipple harden between his fingers and I go slick with arousal at the sight of him biting his lower lip, his sharp canine nearly puncturing his skin.
Gods, I’m dizzy with desire as he continues to circle my nipple.
A soft whine leaves my lips when he releases my breast, but I’m satisfied with the direction his hand moves next, smoothing over my stomach and down, down, down, to the curls that dust my mound.
I slowly part my knees in invitation, spreading myself wide for him.
He releases an appreciative moan, then grips my knee, parting my legs farther.
I rock my hips again, so ready for him to touch me, to sate the growing want that’s burning hotter and hotter by the second.
“Such greed,” he says with a wicked smirk, then lowers his lips to mine.
Our kiss doesn’t linger this time, and he soon leaves my mouth to glide his tongue over my other nipple.
I cry out, panting as he draws slow circles with his fingers up the inside of my thigh, closer and closer to where I want him to be.
I feel like I’ll explode if he doesn’t touch me soon.
Like everything around us will burst into particles of golden dust and I’ll be left on the brink of want for the rest of my existence.
Hell indeed.
“Touch me,” I whine, shifting my hips as his hand finally trails to just outside my mound.
He freezes, both the hand at my sex and the mouth over my breast. I open my eyes and stare down at him with a hateful glare.
He holds my gaze as his tongue hovers just over the tip of my nipple.
I arch my back, meeting his tongue the rest of the way, and he gives in, suckling me.
“Bastard,” I bite out. “Touch me already.”
“What do you say, sinner?” He slides his fingers outside my entrance, painting my folds with my slick arousal without entering my aching core. Then he drags his thumb up and around my clit but doesn’t give me the pressure I need.
I groan in my impatience, rolling my hips to meet his hand, to silently beg for the friction I want. Fuck, why can’t I feel the friction?
“What do you say?” he repeats. “I want to hear you beg.”
He presses down the slightest bit, rolling his thumb over my clit for all of a heartbeat. It isn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Yet somehow pleasure courses through me. A frustrated, agonized pleasure that needs release. Friction. Gods, I hate this man.
Yet I want him.
Need him.
I give in to his demand. “Please,” I say through strangled, panting breaths. “Touch me, please.”
“Good girl.” He slides his fingers down my sex. Fuck, it feels good.
But it still isn’t enough. There’s something…missing. Something I can’t quite reach. Why is he holding back?
“Please,” I cry out again. “Dominic!”
His name leaps from my throat in a way that feels different from every other word I’ve said.
From every moan and whine I’ve made over the last several minutes.
Maybe it’s the way silence echoes in its wake that makes it so strange.
Or the way my eyes fly open to find dark stone where a second ago there was golden light.
And that’s how I find myself awake and grinding my ass against Dominic’s rock-hard erection.