Chapter 58
Now, nearly two weeks after regaining consciousness, Tethys’s legs were steady enough to carry her to the shoreline of Altair’s estate. Much to the healer’s protests, Tethys insisted she needed fresh air and warm sunlight.
“Are you sure you’re ready, Goddess?” Araes asked, grasping her hand as she threw her legs over the bed’s edge.
“Even if I wasn’t, Lieutenant, we’ve wasted enough time in this wretched room as is,” she replied.
Tethys leaned her weight on her left foot, just as the healer’s instructed.
Then her right. Her toes gripped the woven rug beneath them.
As before every attempt at standing, she wiggled them, feeling every joint working.
Araes watched her with held breath as Tethys pushed up on her braced palms. Her body, although still weak, accepted the movement, and she rose to her feet.
Some little piece of the goddess’s mind paused.
Although her recovery felt linear, each time she attempted to stand, she half expected her knees to buckle.
“Are you steady?” Araes asked, holding his arms out to catch her if needed.
“Yes, thank Eos above,” Tethys breathed. She wiggled her toes once more, and as if she were again learning how to walk, took a step. A smile stretched over her cheeks when her ankles stabilized the weight. She took another step, then another.
“A huge improvement from a few days ago,” she said, gaining confidence in her stride.
“Let’s not push too hard,” Araes said.
Always the worrisome voice of reason.
“I just have to make it to the hallway,” she replied, pacing slowly across the room. “Then you can whisk me off my feet and carry me downstairs like a gentleman.”
Araes huffed, but his eyes glittered with newfound energy.
She imagined how difficult the last few weeks had been—thinking her too far from recovery, then watching her reanimate like a corpse with a half broken body.
If the roles were reversed...she wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to withstand that storm.
Lazy afternoon light poured through the windows, like water from a pitcher. Although she admired the beauty of Altair’s home, its wonder had expired. Now, the gleaming walls and lavish artwork were constant reminders of the pain she felt.
The pain she caused.
“Ready?” Araes asked, offering his hand. Tethys nodded her response and took it, cherishing the scratch of his calloused skin on hers. “Let’s go then,” he said, grinning.
His smile, although a rarity, outmatched every wonder in this world. Tethys could bask in its warmth for eternity and never grow tired of him.
They followed golden threads stitched in the navy blue rug down the hallway and to the top of the stairwell. Sunlight beamed in from skylights lining the ceiling, reflecting off dust and salt particles speckled in the air.
Araes wrapped his arms around her legs and pulled her into his chest, cradling her like a babe as they descended the steps.
“Might I remind you, Lieutenant, there are wandering eyes that wouldn’t appreciate seeing your hand in its current placement,” Tethys mused. Araes, now gripping her ass, tapped his fingers.
“Can you blame me? It’s been weeks since I’ve gotten to feel this perfect ass of yours in my hand,” he whispered. His breath against her ear sent a shockwave of chills down her body.
“Well, when the staff report us to my brother, it’ll have been the last time you’ll get that opportunity,” Tethys replied, guiding his palm to her thigh. Araes sighed and scanned the great hall below.
“Not another soul in sight. I’ll take my chances,” he whispered, brushing his lips along her cheek. Heat rushed to her cheeks in response.
Araes wasn’t alone in his desires. With Altair and his staff lurking just behind them every waking hour, they hadn’t gotten more than a moment alone. Tethys knew her brother suspected there was something deeper between her and Araes, but she wasn’t a fool.
He’d keep his suspicions to himself until given evidence that solidified them. Escaping the confines of her bedchamber wasn’t her only motive this afternoon. She desperately needed time alone with Araes, to feel their connection wholeheartedly.
Now, as they faced the massive front doors with lapis handles, her fingers itched for his soft brown curls and her lips craved the warmth of his pressed against them.
“If you keep staring at me, Goddess, I’ll have no choice but to find us a vacant room,” Araes growled, his voice low enough for only her to hear. “One free from wandering eyes.”
Her muscles tensed around his words, letting sheer, agonizing need pool in her belly.
“Perhaps I’ll continue staring then,” she challenged, watching his eyes glaze with equally intense desire.
“As much as I’d love nothing more, we only have so many hours of sunlight left,” he said, setting her down.
“Let us make haste then,” Tethys sighed. Something like disappointment cooled the flush from her cheeks.
Araes led them across the rocky front drive and down a sloping path, flanked by waist-high sea grass. Palm fronds lined the private expanse of beach, maintaining a thick wall of greenery around the serene coast.
The infinite stretch of robin egg sky melted into the southern sea’s horizon, trading a soft, comforting shade of blue for one fiercer. Wilder. As the trail opened into white sand shoreline, Tethys closed her eyes, letting sunbeams seep into her skin.
Eos above, she’d nearly forgotten what fresh air smelled like. How her hair rustled in the warm, salty breeze. How the vast, seaside openness filled her lungs as she pulled it in.
The couple made their way to a stone bench, shrouded by blooming primrose brush. The tide was ebbing, and soon mollusk shells and sea glass would appear throughout the sand.
“Araes, there’s something I need to tell you,” Tethys said, letting her curls fall down her spine.
The beach, Altair had said, was private and heavily secured from curious eyes.
Even the staff weren’t allowed to traverse its sandy shores, and with Altair holding council until dinner service, they’d be safe to speak freely.
“Anything, my Queen,” he replied, stroking the back of her hand.
“Back in Centaurus…I thought you were gone. I couldn’t breathe thinking you were dead. I’m…I’m sorry for putting us at risk like I did. My recklessness got the best of me. We shouldn’t have gone down to that cavern…” She trailed off, glancing at her hands.
“Tethys,” Araes tipped her chin up. His eyes, gloriously warm and bright in the sunlight, flashed with an intensity that disarmed and excited her all at once. “I once said you were no queen of mine. I called you childish…reckless, and I’ll have to live with those words for the rest of my life.”
Her chest tightened, reliving the memory of their heated battles.
“But I barely survived seeing you unconscious. The world felt empty without you—lifeless, even. Maybe it was reckless going down there, but when I said I’d follow you to the ends of the earth if you so asked, I meant it.
I cannot live in a world where you aren’t beside me.
” He brushed a thumb down her lip, igniting embers throughout her whole body.
“You will always be my queen, my goddess. Even if we face obstacles from every fucking direction. I love you, Tethys. That won’t ever change. Not now, not until the end of my days. I won’t ever stop loving you,” he whispered.
She stilled, feeling her heart devour Araes’s words. Was that what this was? Love?
He was the first person she searched for in a room full of people, and the last to drop her gaze from.
She let him in. Let him see the darkest of demons that clawed under her skin. Showed him the worst parts of herself. Yet, here he still sat.
His was the first and only comfort she sought when everything fell apart.
She’d allowed him to pick up the pieces when she shattered. Allowed him to hold her when the world got too heavy. He was the quiet in the chaos.
“I love you too,” she said, and she meant it, too. Her whole damned body felt the truth in those words.
Before he could speak, she pressed her lips to his.
He greeted her with voracious hunger as their mouths drank each other in.
She needed all of him, every piece—both broken and whole.
Araes wrapped his arms around her, his fingers lacing themselves through her hair, as the wild southern winds whirled around them, cocooned them in salty sunlight.
“Someone could see, Goddess,” Araes breathed, his voice ragged and rough against her lips.
“I don’t care, Araes, please,” she replied, running a hand up his trousers.
She expected a protest, but it never came. They both succumbed to each other’s touch, burning and writhing in the flames.
Araes groaned as she unlaced his seams. Feeling his cock harden for her sent wildfire up her veins, silencing any rational thought left.
The world stilled as she placed her palm against his length, reveling in its sleek, silky feel. She wrapped her hand around its base, moving slow enough to savor every second between them.
“Goddess…I—” Araes’s words cut short when Tethys stroked him again. His breath was warm against hers as he leaned into her touch, losing himself in pleasure.
She placed breathless kisses down his neck. The groan rumbling in his throat sent a pulse of tension through her center, and she brushed her legs together, desperate for any release from the tension building there.
“Fuck, Tethys don’t stop,” he growled between heavy breaths. Her hand quickened its movement, pumping him to his tip.
His cock pulsing against her palm made her ravenous.
“I need you inside me, Araes,” she whispered. He jerked under her touch again.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Tethys tested herself for a moment, and although a dull ache settled in her lower back, her legs were stable. “Yes,” she breathed.
“As you wish it then, Goddess.” He wrapped his hands around her waist, collecting her shift in his hands. The scratch of linen against her skin sent jolts of lust through her veins.
Araes’s hand traced her soaked underclothes, building tension in her low belly.
“Fuck, you’re so ready for me already,” Araes groaned, sliding a thumb over her slit. Slick heat dripped between her legs as he lifted her, positioning his thighs against hers.
Araes took her full weight, guiding her onto his cock. She groaned as he filled her—stretched her around himself. His steadying grip on her waist directed her movements as she rode his length, soaking his unlaced, open trousers.
“If you need, we can stop. Just say the word,” he said through strained breaths. Sweat beaded on his brow and she realized then that he held himself back.
“I’m okay, Lieutenant, please,” she moaned, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Fuck me like you love me.”
He gazed at her, his eyes scanning hers for any trace of caution, but her body felt strong, felt powerful, for the first time since awaking.
She offered a reassuring nod. “I’m okay.”
He sucked in a breath and Tethys swore his amber eyes glittered with savage lust.
Then, Araes didn’t withhold.
Araes lifted her again and again, filling her and withdrawing. He bit his lip, his eyes never leaving hers as Tethys’s pleasure soared, sending her higher and higher and higher into the cosmos.
She searched for love in nearly every relationship she’d ever have—in her friendships, in her family, even in the occasional midnight stranger, but nothing compared to what she felt for him—what tethered their souls and bodies together.
“Gods, it’s like you were made for me,” Araes’s growled. A breathy groan escaped his lips, and Tethys supposed he, too, felt this connection that far surpassed sex.
She clung to him, nails digging into the back of his neck as they danced beside one another at pleasure’s edge. Breathless and unraveled, they climbed higher and higher until everything outside of their intertwined bodies ceased to exist.
Araes squeezed her hips once more, thrusting himself deeper, up to her very core. Her body clenched around his twitching cock as she shattered for him—his name a raspy cry on her lips.
They found release together through panting breaths and sweat glazed brows, and as she descended from her climax, Tethys realized she’d never be alone again.