Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ophelia
Sapphire seemed to be walking at her slowest possible pace.
“Come on, girl.” I flicked the reins, but she only ambled across the dirt. Once she’d gotten us far enough away from Aird and Kakias’s camp that we weren’t worried about being followed, she’d slowed to a stroll that she showed no sign of picking up.
With only one horse, Tol was forced to sit behind me, his legs braced on either side of my own, squeezing me to him, his cuffed hands looped around me.
“So impatient.” Tol’s arms flexed around my waist, and everything within me tightened in response.
“I want to get out of the open,” I breathed.
He looked up at the tightly interwoven branches, then around at the packed trees, sweeping cypher branches forming curtains around the path. “Yes, we’re very exposed here.” His whisper was hot against my neck, his stubble brushing my shoulder. “Relax.”
I sank into the low tenor of his voice, but I knew what he was doing.
He was distracting me from every pressure that chased us through this forest. From the threats of the queen, the deals of the fae, and the chains still around his wrists.
The links brushed against my stomach as he shifted, a jolt of unexpected chill shooting through my body. I hissed, leaning back into him.
“Sorry,” he laughed, moving his locked wrists forward so they didn’t touch my skin. But then his hands rested just between my legs, and I wished for the cold sweep of his chains to calm the heat budding within me. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“I know a place,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
Tol’s bare chest brushed my back as I pressed further into him.
How he still smelled good despite his time captured was truly a mystery to me.
The spicy citrus scent mixed with the feeling of his muscular arms wrapped around me and his torso cushioning my back didn’t help the desire flooding between my legs.
His Spirits-damned smirk radiated against my shoulder, like he knew exactly how my body reacted to him.
Angels, with how attuned he was to me, he probably did.
“I think you have something that belongs to me,” he muttered.
He didn’t so much as brush his lips against my neck, though my hair was thrown over one shoulder. Didn’t even dare twitch his hands where they rested at the hem of my skirt.
No, Tolek Vincienzo was a tease.
“What’s that?” I hummed.
Slowly, his hands drifted to the sheath on my thigh, brushing my skin next to the Vincienzo dagger and giving me goosebumps. “This?”
“I brought it for you,” I admitted, reaching to give it back.
But Tol clamped a hand down, pressing the handle to my flesh. “Keep it,” he instructed, squeezing once. There was a possessive edge to his voice. “I like seeing my blade on you.”
He placed his hands back where they’d been resting between my legs, smiling smugly when I released a slow breath.
With everyone else Tol had been with he’d likely used this anticipation to his advantage—coaxing them to the point of no return until they threw themselves at him.
If I was any other person, I’d be tilting my head to the side, begging him to press dangerously slow, open-mouthed kisses to my skin.
To drag his teeth across my collarbone. Wanting his fingers to slip from where they rested against my thighs up beneath my skirt.
Angels, a part of me did want that. To feel his hands exploring my body, his lips claiming mine…the image ignited something within me.
But this was us. And as well as he knew me, I knew every tell he had.
He may be wrapped in promises of pleasure and teasing smiles, but it was all to distract from what he was really feeling.
Beneath the surface he bubbled with want rivaling the heat coiled within me.
It was in every near-silent hum of approval rumbling within his chest, every move laced with the tension vibrating off him.
As I allowed myself to relax further into Tolek, Malakai flashed through my mind.
The Bind pulsed, and the memory brought a pang of the shame I’d grown accustomed to.
Was I wrong for considering indulging this need within me?
Even now, weeks later, thoughts of Malakai still echoed with sorrow, but it wasn’t the deep grief I’d expected.
It was a reluctant understanding.
Malakai and I had been over long before I’d said those words to him—as over as we ever could be with the Bind marking our skin. Perhaps we’d ended the day he walked away from Palerman, hands tied and lies sealed, and it took us over two years of fighting and torment to see it.
Did that mean I should turn my back on what was before me now—on the choice I had to be happy? Though I was still repairing myself, I was whole enough to know the answer to that question.
So, I did my best to dismiss that guilt and lean into what I had here. The promise of feeling whole and happy. Of just feeling.
In the subtle shifts of our posture and tightening of limbs tangled atop Sapphire, this had become a game between Tolek and me. There was no way in the Spirit-guarded hell I was going to let him win.
I scooted back against him until I could feel everything. He bit back a groan, his desire impressively evident. But then, he laughed at the challenge.
“Okay, Alabath.” His words caressed the shell of my ear.
It wasn’t meant for me to respond to. Instead, I sat up straighter. And I didn’t pretend not to like it when his arms tightened around me.
“What was that about?” I asked Sapphire when we dismounted, Wayward’s warm windows glowing in the late hour. She exhaled, nudging my shoulder toward where Tol walked into the inn, my pack in hand.
If my damned horse could have chuckled, I swore that’s what it was.
It had taken her longer than I anticipated to get us here, and all the while Tol’s heat burned into my body. I eyed Sapphire, her crystalline stare bright and innocent.
“Was that pace on purpose?” I accused, hands on my hips.
My fucking horse walked away, sending herself to the stables down the block. I frowned at her swishing blue tail, sighing as I turned to follow Tolek inside.
A nice long bath, a warm meal, and perhaps a moment alone to calm the heat that coursed through my body on the ride—the list wrote itself as we climbed the rickety staircase to the room I’d rented in Wayward.
We’d taken an indirect route to the inn, heading south first then looping back north.
I prayed it was enough to avoid being followed.
The idea of a mattress—even a hard one—and a moment to breathe between four walls rather than looking over my shoulder at every crack of a stick was enticing.
But when I pushed the door to our room open, I quickly lost any hope of solitude. The room was small at best—a chest of drawers and a desk on one side, a bathing area without a proper door or partition on the other. And in the center, demanding attention like a star falling from the sky, one bed.
“They didn’t say there was only one,” I murmured, walking to the window and throwing it wide, inviting the crisp air into the stale room.
“I think it’s the only option in a place like this.” There was a smirk in Tol’s voice.
“And what’s so funny?” I spun toward him, but my jaw popped open when I saw his handcuffs now sitting on the bed. “How did you do that?”
“Don’t worry about it, Alabath.”
“You got out of them on your own?”
My favorite smirk curled his lips. “It’s not my first time.”
I shoved away every salacious image that comment brought to my mind, all involving Tolek handcuffed to various—
No, I could not go down that path.
I cleared my throat, ignoring the heat gathering low within me, like a trap ready to be sprung. “You could have done it earlier,” I mumbled.
“We were a little busy.” He shrugged, then started unbuttoning his pants.
“What are you doing now?” Exasperation rattled my voice, but I couldn’t stop my eyes from dragging over his torso. Broad shoulders and lean, defined muscles tapered into a narrow waist and hips. Angels curse me, even beneath dirt and bruises his body was perfect.
Half of me itched to slaughter everyone who’d hurt him—for the second time—but the other half wanted to close the distance between us, grab a cloth from the shelf above the tub, and slowly, carefully, clean each stained piece of his skin until it was once again flawless.
Then, kiss each mark to remind him of my promise of revenge.
Tolek grinned like he saw right through me. “I’d like to get this mess off before I go to bed.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” I crossed my arms, stifling every ripple of taut energy coursing through my body.
Without breaking eye contact, he backed toward the bathtub and turned on the tap. “Sorry, did you want to go first? I don’t mind waiting.” He leaned across the basin, reading the bottles lining the small shelf. “They have a lovely little assortment of scented soap. Oh! This one is jasmine—”
“Fine, Vincienzo.” I hated that I couldn’t stifle my laugh. “I don’t think I’ll be using that tub.”
“I’d prefer you bathe if we’re to share a bed.”
I was certain I did not smell good after days of travel with only streams to wash in. Still…
“I won’t be bathing in here.” Spirits, why did I suddenly feel self-conscious?
We had been riding together all night; we swam in the river wearing little more than our undergarments our entire lives.
But as I watched him open one of the bottles and pour a healthy amount into the tub, clouds of bubbles foaming, my chest tightened.
I had never been this way with Tol—with anyone. I always dove into challenges headfirst, but every move around Tolek was a dance toward an unspoken future I didn’t yet understand. I thought I might want it, but I was afraid.
Afraid of messing up. Could you do that twice in such a short time?
While I may have once climbed into the hot water without a second thought, now I shook my head. “Sorry if I smell.”