Chapter 11
Allie
Weeks ago, perhaps I would have insisted on us retreating to my room.
My territory–even a borrowed one.
My upper hand.
But tonight, all I wanted to do was lounge in Ryker’s dark sheets and have his scent envelop me.
Logical? No.
But that’s what my body craved and, for once, I let it take the reins.
The flutters in my stomach began the moment he guided me inside. One look at his massive bed was all it took for sweaty, whispered memories to take control of my thoughts. From the way his fingers had tightened around mine, I wasn’t the only one whose fantasies had sprung back to life.
The man had managed to tame my wildness and make me scream all in one night. Remembering just how he’d molded himself to me wasn’t surprising.
What I hadn’t expected was his washroom.
While Ryker’s bedroom was sparse, furnished for efficiency, this room was the pinnacle of luxury. The walls had been crafted out of dark granite slabs, with golden mortar veins spidering between them. I felt like I was stepping into a dragon’s lair.
“You love your dark colors,” I muttered.
“I see enough snow when I walk outside,” he said, as the flutter of clothes hitting the ground echoed around us, drying my throat. “This is my refuge.”
And what a refuge it was.
One of the most dangerous men in Malhaven had a bath carved out of a single amethyst rock, jagged and glittering at the edges, smooth and translucent inside.
It could also fit at least five bodies. Large, northern ones, too.
“Hmm.” I placed my hands on my hips, back turned to him, because a wet Ryker was tempting. A naked one was dangerous. “It’s much better than mine.”
Ryker’s laugh bounced off the golden veins, drumming straight into my chest. “You can use it whenever you like. Your room–”
The rustle of clothes behind me stopped.
My ears quirked. “Yes?”
“Your room,” he said at last, sounding reluctant even then. “Was built while I was growing up. As an alternative.”
“For?”
“When couples don’t get along,” was all he said, and I didn’t press.
I already knew Ryker had no love for his father. From the few details he’d shared about the man, always with a disgusted curl to his lip, I didn’t like him, either.
“So your room’s the main one,” I teased to break the sudden tension. “Such a selfish host.”
“That’s the room my mother preferred. I thought you might like it more,” he murmured.
Something in the way his voice hitched melted the teasing right out of me. I finally turned, only to see him watching me in that same way he’d held my hand. Like he was afraid I’d vanish.
He was also gloriously, temptingly shirtless, the sharp lines of him accentuated to the extreme by the strain of the past few days. Solkar might have split the earth in two to create the crater, but this man must have been carved by a much more benevolent god.
“I do,” I said. Easier than admitting that what mattered most was that he’d considered what I would have liked back when I’d been nothing but the enemy to him.
I took a hesitant step forward. He reached out for me, but his hands lacked the urgency of before as they wrapped around my wrists, pulling me into him. His thumbs lingered on my pulse, trying to sear its rhythm into him.
He rested his forehead against mine once more, another sigh caving his shoulders.
I pressed my nose against his, nuzzling it, as our breaths mingled. Such a simple, familiar gesture, but it felt momentous.
The heat which had been stirring inside of me when we’d stepped inside his room softened into something richer and more rare, flowing through me like honey.
Comfort.
We both needed peace, not passion tonight.
It was a strange sensation, my mind quieting down not because the issue pressing it had vanished, but because I knew I wouldn’t have to face and resolve it alone.
“I missed you,” he murmured. “Strange, because we’d only been apart less than two days. But I missed you.”
“You know what’s even stranger?” Honestly, it was. “I did, too.”
He gave a low, satisfied murmur. “The big, bad Huntress missed me, did she?”
“The same way the cold Commander did–and admitted it first.”
He chuckled and brought my hand to his lips, kissing my wrist. “May that fire in you never die.”
“I hope so,” I whispered. What I’d wanted to say was how I hoped he’d never have a hand in putting it out.
A shiver raced down my spine at the simple thought of it. One more betrayal would have surely turned the shards of my heart into steel, once and for all.
“Let’s get you into that warm bath,” he said.
I blinked up at him. “Just me?”
“Gods, no.” His gaze turned hooded as his hands snaked up my back, leaving goosebumps behind. “Can’t leave you alone in a vulnerable, undressed state, can I?”
My cheeks reddened; I blamed it on the steam slowly rising from the bubbles. “Your motives are purely chivalrous, I’m sure.”
“I have a gentlemanly code to uphold.”
“Obviously. There’s also safety in numbers.”
“See?” He tapped his temples, happiness dancing between the sparks in his eyes. “Smart plan.”
Our small laughs dissolved as Ryker’s hands finally found the collar of my coat and pushed it down my arms. We shed the rest of our frosty layers slowly, trading glances that promised more than a few furtive touches.
But not tonight.
Tonight was for unspoken promises and closeness.
The passion hummed underneath it like another heartbeat, but only as a reminder of more to come.
Despite our fate clashing together, we hadn’t truly had unhurried moments like this. The rest of the world always seemed to chase the calm away from between us. Even now, it threatened to distract my thoughts away, simmering at the edges of my mind.
But that outside murmur instantly stopped as he kneeled down, quick fingers untying my boots. My lips parted in surprise. Such a simple, unassuming gesture, but one that made my heart leap in ways I hadn’t truly thought possible.
He didn’t make a show of it.
Didn’t look up at me waiting to be congratulated or wanting anything in return.
I’d told him my feet were cold, and he wanted to take care of it.
“Still ten toes,” he said and finally looked up, thumbs tracing soothing circles around my bare ankles, as laughter danced in his eyes. “These wet pants need to go, however. Wouldn’t want them freezing those amazing legs of yours off.”
“Yes, gods forbid.”
He rose, towering over me. “How would you be able to do your daring leaps if you lose them?”
I frowned. I hadn’t leaped in the passage and he’d barely caught glimpses of me at the wedding. “How–”
“Nadya talks. She was quite impressed. Though she complained you tricked her.”
“To be fair, she’s always complaining. That sounds like she’s warming up to me.
” And not because I’d saved her back in the crater’s bowels.
I’d noticed the shift before we’d even left the city.
Her gaze hadn’t lingered on me with open hostility in weeks–though her odd habit of questioning my choices had reared its head today at the worst time.
A different kind of warmth bloomed in my chest.
Nadya and Geryll were important to Ryker, right at the cusp between wards and younger siblings. It mattered to me that they no longer scowled or avoided me.
“Maybe…” He licked his lips. “If they want to and you want to, you can join us for our evening tea sometime.”
I blinked up at him. My heart did that little strange flip once more as my breaths came out stuttered.
I hadn’t truly felt this way since that blasted day on Sanctua Sirena, when everything had gone so wrong.
Perhaps long before that.
I felt like I belonged.
The sensation blasted through my veins, swelling with each passing moment and making me feel bigger. More hopeful.
“I’d love to,” I murmured. “If they’re alright with it. It’s your nightly tradition.”
He nodded, a slow smile lifting his lips, as the opportunity for more opened right in front of us.
Yes, Nadya was still prickly, and Dax was…well, Dax, but here we were, stitching our lives together.
I was so caught up in the bubble of happiness that I barely noticed Ryker kept helping me undress until I only wore my slip, wet and clinging to every curve I’d regained under Mrs. Thornbrew’s watchful eye and amazing cooking.
Ryker didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to when his hands told all the tales of longing I needed. They took their time mapping out my back and shoulders, barely caressing the straps of my slip before gliding down my arms.
Finally, he took my hand in his and led me to the steaming bath. While we’d been busy drinking each other in, the water had settled into a quiet, steaming surface, lavender pods floating between the bubbles.
“Ladies first,” he said gently.
Perhaps it was the fact that it had sounded almost like a question.
Or that no pressure or tension lingered in the air.
Maybe I was just damn happy we were all alive.
Whatever the motive, that reckless part of me breathed back to life. It only happened when I was around him, like my tight, organized self could finally relax and let the other parts of me shine.
With careful, unhurried movements, I grabbed the hem of the silk, a little reminder of our first night together.
In one flurry of fabric and laughter, I pulled it off me and threw it at his face.
He caught it before it could cover his eyes, but I was already slowly descending in the warm water, bubbles covering all those curves.
I didn’t stop until the water reached my chin, soothing the day’s strain from me.
“Got you.” I chuckled when he pursed his lips at me.
“Mean.” He gripped the slip in his hands for a moment before folding it gently and setting it on the nearest surface.
“Clever.” I tapped my own temple and jutted my chin at him, wiggling my eyebrows. “Your turn.”
I should have known from the knowing smirk on his face I had not, in fact, gotten him. His hands descended to his own leather pants, and I found myself tracking every inch of movement, breath caught somewhere between the water’s surface.
But then he used that damn speed of his.
Before the pants had dropped to the floor, he was in the bath, settling right behind me with a tired groan.
He hadn’t even disturbed the water when he submerged his large body next to mine. The amethyst bath was so large, we didn’t even touch.
“Hey!” I turned around, suddenly hyper aware we were both wet, naked, and very, very close.
“Fair’s fair.” He shrugged, looking and sounding smug.
I narrowed my eyes playfully at him. “It’s cheating.”
“It’s a skill.”
“Doesn’t it hurt when you do it?”
“Not for very short bursts like this. My bones…” He tilted his head. “They’ve become malleable, if I want them to, let’s say.”
“I wish I could do that.” I bit my lower lip again. “If you hadn’t been there tonight when Dax fell into the lake…”
The thought was too heinous to even finish, but it didn’t change the reality.
Dax would have died if Ryker hadn’t been so strong.
“But I was there. And I always will be.”
My heart beat faster. I wanted to believe. Wanted to bask in those promises and let them cradle the shadows in me.
Another day. Another time.
“I want to move like you do,” I said.
He leaned against the crystal, strong arms resting on the rim. With the golden veins on the wall reflecting on his skin, and the steam rising up around him, he looked like a god. A god who kept staring at me with a curious, calculating glint in his eyes.
“Now I can feel you thinking.” I slid closer to him, my long dark hair a flowing curtain behind me. “What’s making you frown like that?”
He exhaled, running his thumb against his lower lip. “With you, I find myself in two minds.”
I rolled my eyes jokingly. “So you can blame me if you go insane. Great.”
He huffed a laugh, smile spreading.
“I love seeing you like this,” he whispered, shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe the view.
“Wet and naked?”
“Giddy. Pouting. Playful. Free.” His hand dropped into the water and found mine, intertwining our fingers. He brought it up and kissed a line down my wrist, turning serious. “The Dragon’s the only outsider who’s ever survived the bone-breaking ritual. You’re strong–”
“–and stubborn.”
“So very, very stubborn.” He grinned. “If anyone else has a chance of surviving it, it’s you. But the thought of putting you in danger hollows me.”
“Hence the two minds,” I said softly.
“Diametrically opposed. The ritual is painful. Pain I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy, let alone–” He licked his lips. “I know there’s no use trying to convince you otherwise if you have already decided.”
“Truly a smart man.”
“But I want you strong and happy and alive.”
“I want that too, shockingly.”
That ritual sounded brutal.
Dangerous.
But I kept seeing flashes of Dax vanishing underneath the ice.
My father, murdered perhaps mere seconds before I’d found him.
Tanthe Issa’s lifeless eyes, the poisoned arrow in her back.
Moving faster than the wind was an advantage I couldn’t ignore, especially with a war coming.
“I’ll think about it. Really think about it. And I might decide that I want to risk the ritual,” I said. “This is your formal warning.”
He exhaled loudly, resigned, but nodded all the same. “Good. This is not a decision to be made lightly.”
And I believed him. Because I had no reason not to, despite the weird shadows which still crowded his gaze.
“You’ll need to prepare for it. Your mind and body need to be completely relaxed and there’s no reason not to start now.” He pulled on my wrist, bringing my lips so close to his that we almost kissed. “Turn around.”