27. Chapter 27
Isuck in a deep breath and look around. The safehouse is bathed in so much gold and grandeur that it’s leaking from the walls and spilling from the floor, soaking the vases of glittering baubles in myrrh and immersing the troves of trinkets in splendor.
Unsurprisingly, by the time Bella and I reach the dining room, Maxine and Lily are already scarfing down all sorts of interesting cuisines, such as crab, oysters, and caviar.
I leave the seafood for them to pick at, choosing to migrate over to the dessert table instead to check out the chocolate fountain, which is encircled by a platter of candied mints.
Bella hovers near the pasta table, which features every type of sauce imaginable, along with garlic bread sticks and peppered chicken, and pasta in all shapes and sizes.
My stomach howls at the sight of it. I don’t remember the last time I properly ate something.
Trisda’s soup, maybe? Which I’m not sure I’d classify as edible.
Bella must read my mind, because she hands me a bowl, and we both start indulging in everything in sight.
A heaping helpful of alfredo noodles, two pan-seared turkey meatballs still steaming with heat, and a few orange slices as relishes—which remind me, oranges make Eric itchy.
I grab another orange slice just for the hell of it.
Then I sit down at the enormous wooden slab for a table in the dining room—which looks like it belongs in Heaven with the Great Mothers themselves—and begin annihilating everything on my plate until my stomach threatens to burst at the seams. The others slide down across from me and immediately dig into their entrees.
There is a traitor in your midst.
But who is it?
“What time is it, do you think?” I ask, setting down my fork with a clink. Bella hands me a glass of water, which I gulp down gratefully.
“Two in the morning, maybe?” she guesses, her brows tugging together. “It’s hard to tell. There isn’t a clock in here.”
“Who cares what time it is?” Lily asks, patting her lips with a napkin.
“This place is grand. We can do whatever we want! Like read for hours on end with no interruptions. Did you see the bookshelves lining the walls in the foyer? I could get lost in them for days.” She scoops up a breadstick and takes a mouth-watering bite, adding, “The gods have practically handed us a hide-away on a silver platter. Which means we’re safe here until… ”
“The queen comes back,” I finish her thought.
She swallows down a bite of breadstick and then drops the remainder of it on her plate.
“This was a trap,” I add quietly.
“I suppose it’s better than being blasted to bits by bombs,” Maxine remarks, twirling her pasta around on her fork. “Speaking of… what will happen to us, do you think, if the Valenorians are successful in annihilating the gods? Given how there’s no way out of here unless the queen shows up?”
“Priestess Seraphina will come get us, surely,” Lily says, sounding as if she’s reassuring herself more than anyone else. The rest of us stare at her blankly. “And if not… at least the food refills itself?” she adds helpfully. “So we won’t starve?”
I run my hands over my face. “This was a terrible mistake.”
“It’s not like we had much of a choice,” Bella quietly whispers. “The priestess was prepared to tell the queen what we know about the rings.” She glances over at Lily’s ring, which is shimmering like a blush-colored diamond.
Lily sweeps a strand of hair out of her eye, and the ring glints with her movement. “I, for one, would like to get some rest. I’m exhausted.” She stretches out her arms and yawns. “We can discuss my ring in the morning, yeah?”
“Lily’s right. I’m tired. And that bed back there had my name on it,” Maxine agrees, standing from the table and scooping up her plate, which she sets in the kitchen sink through the arched doorway. “Goodnight, all. We will reconvene in the morning!” she throws over her shoulder.
“I agree that sleep would do us all well,” Bella sighs, glancing down at her folded hands.
She sneaks a peek up at me, and then adds, “Get some rest, Shay. We’ll scour this place in the morning for a way out.
I promise. We’re no good to anyone if we’re exhausted.
” She reaches out and squeezes my hand before following Maxine and Lily through the doorway.
As much as I hate to admit it, I too am suddenly overcome by a wave of exhaustion. Bed… I need a bed. Now. Swayed by the pallet of silk and fur that I imagine awaits me in the adjacent room, I plod down the hall in search of an available bedroom, praying my friends didn’t claim them all.
I pass by three rooms, each occupied, until pausing before a final room at the end of the hall.
It’s perfect. I peel off my sword and its sheathe, set them both on the bedside table, and then collapse like a broken doll.
The bed’s softness entices me like a siren’s song, dragging me to the depths of my soul, to a place where my dreams are so damn vivid, they force my eyelids to flutter shut.
The God of Dreams is woven from night and ecstasy, with dark curls that fall in a perfect disarray around his impossibly luminescent eyes.
His protective hands graze the pebbled skin beneath my blouse as he gently pushes my body up against a wall, worshipping me with his hitched breath, his soft lips, and his wandering eyes.
Moonlight pours in between the rustling curtains above—which is weird, because I could’ve sworn the safehouse doesn’t have any windows—painting his bearded jaw in streaks of gold.
Gods, he is beautiful.
“You are mine, Raven Shadowborne. Now and forevermore,” he says, his lips meeting mine in a frenzy of fire as the weight of his armor melts away, seeming to dissolve into nothingness.
I peel off his chest plate, his chainmail, and his leathers, revealing an abdomen of rippling muscle beneath, carved by a frenzy of golden spellmarks.
He’s magnificent. He’s universe-defying.
He’s the power of the gods in human form.
“I will never let you go again,” he avows, his kiss deepening against my tongue.
“I will follow you through every lifetime until you remember who you are. The owner of my heart.”
I slink my hands into his soft hair. “They will punish us for this,” I gasp between star-crossed kisses, my voice feeling foreign on my tongue. Every nerve ending in my body feels swollen, sensitive, aching for his touch.
They will punish us for what?
“Let them try,” he grumbles back as his lips trail down the length of my neck.
His hands caress my breasts from the outside of my dress, his movements soft and gentle, exactly as I’d imagined since the moment we met.
I hitch a breath, because suddenly, I feel every inch of him between my legs.
I ache for him, yearn for him, beg for him.
My whole body vibrates against his, desperate to feel him plunging inside my depths.
“They will try to kill you,” I protest between enthusiastic gasps, my hot breath quivering beneath his eager touch. “They detest the gods almost as much as they detest those monsters out there. Your presence will not be welcome in the Skaldrathian court. They will have your head.”
Am I losing my ever-loving mind?
In response, his hands tread lower… lower… lower… to a place where my mind unravels in ribbons of desire and want. I have no idea what I am talking about… but that is fine. This is fine. Actually, this is more than fine. Please, fuck. Don’t stop.
“I do not fear the Dragonblood,” he groans as he falls to his knees before me.
I hear the ripping of a stitch somewhere, followed by the movement of his greedy hands.
Finally, he greets my bare stomach with the warmth of his lips and begins trailing lower, pausing at my mound.
He tears off my lace panties with a sweep of his hand, and then groans, “Nor do I fear the wrath of the gods.” He sweeps his tongue onto my clit.
I buckle upon impact.
He begins feverously sucking and licking, unleashing a wave of fluid from my folds, his movements washing away the confusion clouding my thoughts as he curls his fingers inside of me next, hitting the exact spot that makes my entire pelvis squirm against his hand.
“Oh gods,” I gasp.
He reaches his opposite arm up to my waist to support my quivering torso and moans, “What I fear is a lifetime without you.” He pulls me into an unexpected wave of ecstasy as his fingers curl deeper into my core.
Then he returns to licking, flicking his tongue over my tender spot until I’m on the brink of an orgasm.
“I will save you from this fate, I swear it,” he adds, pausing to look up at me, his cheeks a well-worked flush.
“I will bring you the Sentinel Key, my dearest. With it, we shall destroy them all.”
Destroy who, exactly?
Wait. Fuck. Go back to what you were doing.
But instead of destroying whoever they are, I wake up in a puddle of my own drool, only to realize that I’ve gnawed my bottom lip to oblivion and my panties are soaked to the brim.
Gods-fucking-dammnit, Augustine. I sit up and shudder, only to realize it was just a dream.
Augustine is out busy fighting the Valenorians with his siblings.
Plus, our conversation had been nonsensical.
So it only makes sense that I’d conjured it up on my own volition.
You cannot fall in love with him, Shadow.
Gods, I am such an idiot.
Thankfully, my humiliation doesn’t last long.
It’s warped by blatant disbelief upon realizing that Lily is hovering over me.
Her neck tendons are straining, her eyes are flooding with red streaks.
Her attempt to jam a ring onto my finger fails as I flail backward, nailing my skull against the headboard.
A throbbing pain engulfs my entire occipital lobe as I cry out in agony. “What the fuck!"