Chapter 36 Lara #3
She flinched as the door slammed a second time. Above the house, thunder boomed and rain hammered the windows. The room grew darker as the servants hurried to close the exterior shutters to protect the glass, and it felt like a shadow was falling over all that Lara held dear.
For a long moment, she debated what to do, but it was a short debate. Aren was her heart, and she would always put him before reason. Lara flung open the door, only to stop in her tracks as she discovered Nana standing outside, hand outstretched as though she’d been about to open it.
Except gone was Aren’s irritating, harridan of a grandmother, and in her place stood Amelie, former spy and harem wife, dressed in swaths of green and gold silk. “Delia is with her nurse,” she said. “Jor is with them. I’ll smooth the Maridrinians’ ruffled feathers—you go.”
But before Lara could move, Amelie’s hand closed on her arm. “You fought hard for Ithicana once before, girl. Fight for us again.”
Lara nodded once, then broke into a sprint through the halls of her house and stepped out into the storm.
Wind lashed across her face, the rain it carried hitting her with such force it was like being pelted by rocks, but Lara ignored the pain in favor of scanning the ground for clues to where Aren had gone.
The ground was covered with puddles, torrents of water running downhill toward the sea, but she caught sight of a fading boot print in the mud and instantly knew what direction he’d gone.
Hiking up her skirts, Lara broke into a run. Mud flooded into her sandals and squished between her toes, rain gluing the blue silk of her dress to her skin as she headed in the direction of Midwatch’s tower.
Covered with fallen branches and debris, the trail was more river than pathway.
The trees themselves were shredded, leaves everywhere, and it felt as though she were running through a battlefield, fear as much as exertion causing her heart to thunder.
A branch tore loose from above and fell right in front of her.
Too close to stop, so she jumped, her dress catching and tearing.
She nearly lost her footing, her ankle twisting, but panic Lara couldn’t quite justify refused to allow her to slow her pace.
Or perhaps it was justifiable, given everything they’d fought and bled for was slipping through her fingers.
The wind grew worse the higher she climbed, and Lara winced as debris whipped into her, leaving scratches across her arm. But through the rain and dark shadows, the thick stone tower reared ahead of her. “Aren!”
No response came, but it might be because he couldn’t hear her over the storm. She stumbled into the tower, sodden sandals slapping against the stone steps as she circled around and around, exploding out onto the top.
To find her husband sitting on the rough stone, staring at crude drawings some Maridrinian soldier had carved into the wall.
“I told Lia to have this fixed,” he said, staring at the drawings. “Twice.”
There were countless such reminders of the endless months Maridrina had held Ithicana in its grasp, and erasing them had not been a priority.
Scraping mud off her sandal, Lara walked to the wall and smeared it across the drawings, hiding them from view.
A stupid and impermanent gesture, but the tension in Aren’s shoulders released and his eyes moved to her.
“You’re bleeding.” He was on his feet in a flash, reaching for her.
“It’s nothing, just a few scratches.” Her pulse was roaring in her chest, and Lara shoved away the fears trying to drown her, because she’d found him. He wasn’t lost to her.
Not yet.
He bent to examine her arm, rain turning her blood watery and pink. “You shouldn’t be out in this storm. It’s getting vicious.”
“You shouldn’t have left me.”
Aren lifted his face to meet her gaze, rivulets of rain running down his cheeks and his hair whipping in the wind. “I’m sorry. I felt like I couldn’t breathe in there.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Standing on her tiptoes, she wrapped her arms around his neck, her hair swirling and sticking to her face. “We are all at our limits.”
Aren slid a hand down over her backside, then lifted her into his arms. Holding her close, he carried her over to sit next to the wall of the tower so that the worst of the wind was blocked.
Together they sat and listened to Ithicana’s tempests scream and rage, the blackened sky crisscrossed with endless lightning.
“Is he right?” Aren finally asked. “Is refusing to concede to Harendell benefiting only my own pride? Am I just another variation of Silas or Petra, flush with my own importance?”
“No.” Lara twisted in his arms so that her knees were to either side of him.
She cupped his cheeks, feeling the roughness of stubble against her palms. “You are nothing like either of them, and none of what you have chosen to do in this situation is a matter of pride, because all of it is about preservation. Preservation of Ithicana, its people, and our way of life.”
“Is it, though?” His eyes searched hers. “Is fighting a war we are likely to lose the right choice for our people? Or is it better if I give it all up to Harendell? Let them rule, let them protect the bridge, let them protect the people?”
Lara drew in a steadying breath. “Except they only care for two of those things. All Alexandra wants is the bridge and the income that will come with controlling it. All she cares about is commerce and satisfying the ruling class who stand to benefit from it. She won’t use that revenue to support Ithicanians.
At best, she’ll hire them at a pittance to work for the crown, but it will be endless toil with people cast away when they can no longer serve.
We live life differently here, and it will be our people who are forced to change and adapt, not Harendell.
Not Alexandra. If she takes control, our people will lose everything they’ve worked to build and become little better than slaves to a foreign monarchy, because where can they go?
To flee to Maridrina or Valcotta means starting over with no wealth and all the wrong skills, and if you think that won’t cost countless lives, you are deluded, my love. ”
Aren closed his eyes, nodding slightly.
“It’s never been about the bridge. It’s just a structure, a tool.
” She stroked his cheek. “It’s always been about the people, and that is who we must fight for.
Who we must die for, if need be.” Her breath caught.
“Delia’s legacy isn’t a crown. It’s the people around her who have cared for her and the children she’ll grow up with to fight alongside.
To run to Valcotta would mean stealing that from her. ”
“But it will be safe.”
Lara shook her head, for though there was an allure to that dream, she knew better. “Ask Keris how safe it is. There is danger everywhere, Aren. We can spend our lives running toward a sanctuary that doesn’t exist or we can stand our ground and fight for our home.”
“But how can we win?” He leaned his head back against the rough stone. “Sarhina has given up all her power to help us, and we’ve heard nothing from Zarrah. It feels like we stand alone in a way we never have before.”
Lara smoothed his hair off his face, wishing there was a solution she could offer him but knowing that platitudes and false hopes would only make them both feel worse.
The voice of a man she hadn’t thought of in a very long time rose in her thoughts. Ice and fire might ravage the world, but still the cockroach survives, Erik said, her old weapons master visible in her mind’s eye. Just like you.
And just like Ithicana.
“We will win this,” Lara said, a sudden rush of determination filling her, fueling her. “I swear it.”
“When you say it, I believe it.” Aren tangled his fingers in her sodden hair with one hand, then traced a finger down the line of her cleavage to the plunging neckline of her gown. “This is what you were wearing when I first saw you. What you were wearing when I married you.”
Her breath quickened beneath his touch, and Lara rocked against him, feeling his cock hardening where it pressed against her. “I didn’t think you remembered. I’ve worn it many times before, and you’ve never said anything.”
“It might be because you’re as wet as you were that day.” His finger moved from the tiny blue beads embroidered on the neckline, tracing over the wet silk to circle her nipple, and a soft whimper pulled from her lips, an ache forming between her thighs. “Wetter, I think,” Lara murmured.
Aren made a noise low in his throat, and then bent his head to kiss her.
“If I live to be an old man, I’ll still be able to close my eyes and see you walking toward me, this goddamned dress clinging to every curve like a second skin.
The most beautiful woman alive, and I wanted you like I wanted breath. ”
“Whereas all I got to see was that awful helmet. Where did that thing go? Perhaps you can wear it for me later.”
Aren laughed into her throat, then bit at her collarbone. “Dissolving into rust somewhere, so you’ll have to let that fantasy go.”
She smirked. “Find another way to satisfy me, and I’ll banish it from my thoughts.”
“Gladly,” he murmured, pulling the narrow straps of her dress over her shoulders to reveal her breasts. Rain pelted against them but all she felt was the heat of his mouth as he closed his lips over her nipple, a fierce need to be filled by him consuming her soul.
Rocking against him, she unfastened his belt, weapons clattering to the stone beneath them as she caught hold of his soaked tunic and pulled it over his head.
Beneath was all hard muscle and suntanned skin, and Lara traced her fingers over his shoulders and back, every inch of him familiar and yet as thrilling as the first time.
Dragging Aren’s face up from her breasts, she kissed him, his tongue delving into her mouth and claiming her.
“I want you in me,” she growled, dragging her lacquered nails down his back, then reached between them, sliding her hand into his trousers.
She closed it around his thick cock, stroking him hard, the feel of him against her palm almost pushing her over the edge. “I want to fuck you now.”
He groaned her name and pushed her onto her back, but Lara caught hold of his leg with her ankle and flipped him onto his.
Straddling her husband, she let the tempest tear her hair this way and that as she looked down at him, then slowly drew his trousers over his hips.
She took hold of her ruined dress and lifted it over her own head, so that all that she wore were two thigh sheaths and a long knife strapped to the small of her back.
“You are the storm,” he breathed, his fingers tracing up her thighs, his thumb finding her clit and circling it until she moaned. “Beautiful and terrifying and mine.”
“Yours.” She tilted her face back, rain sluicing down her cheeks and her breasts as she mounted him, her body taking in the hard length of his cock. “Till my last breath.”
Lightning cracked overhead and thunder boomed as she rode her husband, the wind lashing them with violent ferocity that Lara barely felt, because all that mattered was the taste of him. The feel of him. The hold he had on her heart and her soul.
As Lara crested, she pulled him over with her, screaming Aren’s name at the sky, every part of her raging in defiance at those who sought to take from them.
She’d fought for Ithicana before and won, and little cockroach that she was, she’d do it again.