Chapter 37
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE DAWN
The campfire crackled and spat as if in disgust at our efforts. I barely tasted the meat handed to me, but I ate it regardless, filling my belly in the hopes of fueling my mind to come up with a solution to our stalemate.
We’d retreated to the upper ring. To the fields that lay between the palace and the guest house. The light vortex was gone, disrupted by the unraveling. Now the only way to get here was by wing or transference. Thank goodness for the thunderbirds and remaining chaysavar and their riders.
Tents had been erected, more fires lit, more meat roasted. Groups had gathered. There was a Danava camp to my left. The demigods and drohi who’d awakened after their anchor nests were destroyed by the unraveling had gathered somewhere to my right.
Around me, my comrades talked in hushed voices.
I ate in silence, and no one attempted to engage me in conversation, which I was glad for. No one brought up the predicament we were in, and I was glad for that too.
I needed a moment. A few moments of quiet. Of food and fire and the buzz of conversation where I could pretend that everything was going to be all right.
Right now, surrounded by the people I cared for the most, Araz at my side and Blue asleep in my lap, life was as perfect as it was going to get.
But as soon as someone asked the dreaded question—the question that I wanted to avoid for as long as possible—the fake peace would shatter, and reality would come rushing in.
So I held to the silence. Because the silence held life. It held possibility and hope. Things that the conversation would destroy.
“So what now?” Joe asked.
I closed my eyes and exhaled shakily. There it was. The question. Now it would begin. The speculation and the planning, and the what ifs, when we all knew there was no hope. Not any longer.
Every attack had resulted in an unraveling.
So many troops dead. Bhartina, several of the djinn from Shantivan.
Jasha and his troop, Arpita and many of her Danava kin, and Keyton…
vanished. I’d thought on his disappearance from the battlefield a lot.
According to Chaya, he didn’t possess the ability of transference.
So someone would have had to remove him from the path of danger.
I couldn’t imagine Mizikiel using his power to save one drohi, but I knew a force that might have intervened.
Priti.
She was Death. She had the power to intervene if she wanted to. And yes, there were rules and all that, but Priti…she’d find a way to bend them for the people she loved.
But if she had taken him, did it mean that he was dead?
I set aside the contemplation to focus on the matter at hand.
Getting into the mountain.
I’d run the situation over and over in my mind, but there was only one conclusion.
Mizikiel had won.
Our numbers were a fraction of what they should be, and with the unraveling activating every time we attempted to get close to the mountain, there was no hope of reaching him.
He’d taken sanctuary in his realm while he finished off our world, and his failsafe meant that he no longer needed an army to fend us off.
We were fucked. It was that simple.
So what now? Joe had asked.
There was only one thing to do. “We have fun.”
“What?” Joe said.
I looked each of them in the eyes. “We have fun. We spend the night with our friends and our loved ones. We make love, laugh, sing, dance, whatever. We celebrate this life, and tomorrow we attack the mountain in waves, so hard and fast that maybe…maybe we find a way through. And if we don’t, then we die trying.
Better than sitting here and waiting to be unraveled. We go out on our own terms.”
Silence reigned for several moments, and then Bina stood and reached out a hand to Thanil. “Take me to bed,” she said.
Blue joined the anchors in a tent we’d set up just for them.
Araz and I stayed. We circulated among the troops, stopping to join the various campfires and listen to their stories, to know who they were and honor them.
Every time our paths crossed, I saw the sorrow and impotence in his eyes.
He was a god, and yet he was powerless against Mizikiel, against the power of destruction that he wielded.
Powerless to get though the barrier of unmaking using transference.
I’d asked myself why it was taking so long to end this world. Surely he had the power to take us out in a blink? Surely this wasn’t the usual method of ending a world. Bit by bit, instilling fear, pain and panic? So why?
If I could get to him, look in in the eyes, face-to-face, I’d ask him.
If…
My stomach ached, nausea a steady pulse in my chest. I wanted this night to last forever. For time to stop still right now.
Stragglers joined the camp the later it got.
Unknown faces. Survivors from other parts of Prashikshan, drawn to the royal domain, to this small camp in the upper most layer of Shahee Kshetra.
I searched their faces looking for Erabi, Ravi, Kalani, or Pashim.
I couldn’t staunch the hope that maybe they were alive, that maybe they’d avoided the unraveling at the camp. But every face was a new one.
A male figure stepped out of a tent to my left, seven feet tall, dark hair threaded with crimson. He finished tying a cloth around his waist for modesty and looked up at me with bright yellow eyes.
My chest warmed, and a true smile curled my lips. “Pakshiraj, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing you in this form.”
A smile touched his lips before falling away, and I realized my words carried the implication that we’d have time for me to try.
“The Vaayu Raaja domain is gone,” he said softly.
I exhaled sharply. His home…the tree. Gone. “Gods…I’m so sorry.”
He inclined his head. “We will attack tomorrow with all that we have left.”
“You heard the plan?”
“It is a good plan, Leela.”
“It’s the only plan.”
He reached out to cup my shoulder. “It has been an honor having you as my rider.”
My throat grew tight because we’d had barely any time at all. But I nodded mutely, blinking back tears.
“Now go. Be with your twin flame. Do not waste this night walking the camp hoping to ease the pain of others. There is nothing more to be done here. Take the time you have left to connect with your soul mate.” He looked over my head, and I turned to follow his gaze, spotting Araz standing several feet away, his arms loose at his sides as he watched me.
I felt Pakshiraj retreat and crossed the camp to Araz. He took my hand in his, reaching up with the other to wipe at my cheek. Yeah, I was covered in grime from the battle, but so was he.
“I want to be alone with you,” he said softly.
“Then let’s go to our tent.”
“No. I want to be truly alone. Will you let me take you somewhere? I may not be able to use my godly power around the mountain, but I can use it to transport us to a sanctuary for a while.”
I nodded. “I’d like that.”
He wrapped an arm around my waist, and the world misted away.
We materialized in the cavern beneath the lake, and my heart lifted. “Your place…”
“Our place.” He released me and began to strip. “And there’s water to bathe.”
My breath hitched as he exposed taut golden skin. I ran my gaze over the flat planes of his chest and the cobbled ridges of his abdomen, down to that part of him that made me ache so deep I had to stifle a moan.
I licked my lips, and a soft vibration emanated from him.
He moved closer, his body heat lapping at my skin. “Keep looking at me like that and I’ll forgo the bathing and take you right here on the ground.”
I met his smoldering gaze with one of my own, the tightness low in my belly begging me to say yes. But I was gross and sweaty, and the thought of being intimate like this made me balk.
I stepped away, a smile on my lips, and began peeling off my clothes. The air was warm here, but it heated more as Araz took me in. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, his chest rising and falling faster.
I walked past him, naked, and climbed down the stone steps into the pool.
The water was warm. Blissful against my skin.
I turned to watch Araz as he stepped in behind me.
I dipped under the surface, running my hands through my hair and over my body.
No soap, but it would have to do. I surfaced to find him leaning up against the side of the pool, the water lapping at his chest.
He held out his hand, and I joined him. Our bodies met, slick and wet, as he wrapped an arm around me.
“Better?”
I rested my cheek on his chest. “Much.”
He stroked my hair, running his fingers through the wet strands to untangle them, then twisted them into a knot on my head. “I’ll dry it for you later,” he said against my ear before dropping a soft kiss below it.
A shiver of anticipation lanced through me. “Later? After what?”
He kissed down my throat to my collar bones, hands slipping to my waist. “After I get my fill.” He lifted me out of the water and set me on the ledge. “After I taste you.” He gripped my knees and parted my thighs.
My pulse spiked as he lowered his head to my pussy. I gasped as he parted me with his tongue, biting back a cry when he sucked on my clit.
“Araz…” I gripped his hair, holding on as he kissed me there. His tongue pushed deep into me, teeth softly grazing my clit then sucking hard.
My hips bucked, and he held me firm, taking control as he devoured me. The sounds he made, hungry, wet, suckling sounds, mingled with my ragged breaths and soft cries until the world spiraled to that one point of contact, to his mouth on me and the cold fire gathering there.
I came with a shudder, years blinding me as my body rolled against his mouth, milking the orgasm. He lapped at me, groaning softly, and my heart felt as if it would explode.
The aftershocks rippled through me, too much. “Too fucking much. Please…”
He lifted me into his arms and carried me away from the pool, lowering me onto ground covered in moss.
“Look at you,” he said. “So fucking beautiful.” He undid the knot on my head, and this time when he ran his fingers through it, heat rose around us, the water evaporating and leaving us dry and warm.
He looked down at me, bathed in soft crystal light, his eyes dark with want and hunger.
I reached up and ran my thumb over his lips, a fresh wave of desire washing over me, the need to consume him. He gripped my wrist, sucking my thumb into his mouth, then leaned down to claim my lips, soft at first, then deep and hungry.
I opened for him, meeting my tongue with his in slow-burn kisses that stole my breath.
I slid my hands up his biceps, squeezing his shoulders, then sliding down his muscled back, wanting to feel him all over.
Wanting to memorize the taste of him. His jaw, his throat, the pulse that beat rapidly beneath his ear.
I licked it, then closed my mouth on it and sucked.
A low groan rumbled against my chest, and his hands tangled in my hair, holding me tightly as I marked him with teeth and tongue.
Mine.
I flipped us, and he let me, his mouth fused to mine, tongue to tongue until I was breathing him in, my head fuzzy from sensation.
I pulled away, pushing up so I could look at him spread out beneath me, his hips snug between my thighs. His length pressed to me, hot and pulsing. I ran my hands over his chest, mapping every inch of his beautiful flesh.
“Leela…” He gently gripped my wrists. “Tell me how you want me.”
My throat pinched as reality set in. This might be our last time together. I swallowed past the lump of sorrow in my throat, allowing myself to surrender completely to this moment. “Tomorrow we may get unraveled, but tonight, I want to watch you come undone with me.”
I lifted my hips, reaching between us to find his heat. He sucked in a breath as I gripped him and positioned him at my entrance.
“Fuck…” Araz grasped my hips tighter, his fingers pinching, and I could feel his restraint, feel that he wanted to push his hips up and pull me down.
To bury himself in me to the hilt. But he waited, jaw tight, eyes burning a path down my body, lingering on my breasts before drooping to the place we were about to be joined.
I rocked back and forth, feeling him there. The delicious thickness. The slight friction.
“Leela…” His hips twitched, and I sank onto him, crying out as he filled me.
He rocked up into me, a slow grind that made us both groan. I set the rhythm, my palms on his chest, my gaze locked with his, emotions expanding in my chest. I wanted to become one. To merge. To stay. My hips stuttered as emotions threatened to overwhelm me, tears blurring my vision.
“Araz, I need you…please.”
He flipped us. I cried out as my back hit the ground, sucking in a breath as he spread me wider, burying himself deeper. He rocked against me, his forehead falling to mine. “Leela…I can’t…I need—”
“I know. I need to too. No pretty words. No softness. Please…”
He let out a growl, rising above me, lifting and angling my hips before dragging himself almost all the way out, leaving me empty and bereft, before slamming into me, hard enough to jolt. “Fuck.” He growled, holding himself there, hips grinding against me.
A sob twisted in my chest. “Don’t…don’t stop.”
His eyes blazed. “I won’t.”
We joined in a brutal rhythm. His thrusts were harder, deeper.
Claiming me, breaking me, and giving me everything that I needed.
To be in this moment acutely. Nothing but the moss beneath me, the pinch of his hands on my flesh, tempered by the drag of his cock against my walls.
Nothing but the heat of our bond swelling behind my sternum, brighter, hotter until there was nothing but us.
The bond, the connection, and our merging.
He lifted my hips higher, drawing my legs over his shoulders.
Angling deeper, finding the core of me, the spot that could undo me, and hitting it over and over until I shattered, thighs trembling, body quaking.
Vision whiting out, only then did he meet me there, spilling into me hot and very much wanted.
“Leela, Leela. Fuck. I love you. I love you. I love you.” His mouth crashed into mine, teeth clashing, tongue deep, swallowing the sounds that attempted to tear from me.
Gold light bloomed around us, cocooning us both as we finally consummated what should have been a long time ago.
He was my twin flame, and even if we didn’t survive tomorrow, I’d find him again. In another life. No matter how long it took.