53. Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Three
Z ylah spent the following week working in shifts with Holt to evanesce the army into the tunnels, stealing a few hours’ sleep here and there, their friends shoving a brin fruit or a hunk of bread into their hands between trips to force them to eat. There had been few chances to be alone together. With Holt, or her friends, all of them focused on their task and the approaching blood moon, but Cirelle’s people still hadn’t shown up, and they couldn’t delay moving in on the palace any longer.
Despite the arrenium, Zylah had still suggested that all the soldiers drink water infused with baylock to give them every possible chance against the vampires. As she made her rounds through the dark tunnels to hand out a fresh supply of leaves, quiet grumbles and complaints followed her. But she would gladly take their dissent over their deaths. The merging of the armies hadn’t gone entirely smoothly down in the tunnels at such close proximity, but for the most part, humans and Fae were cooperating.
The plan was to rise to the surface as one, to overpower whatever vampires and thralls lurked the city and advance to the palace, and that had meant no skirmishes, no outings for the soldiers to blow off steam, though they were rather creative in coming up with other means for that.
On more than one occasion, Zylah had rounded a corner, threads wound in tight to conserve her magic, only to inadvertently come across two, sometimes three soldiers in compromising positions. Others chose to spar; many drank Kej’s never ending supply of stolen wine. Rumour had it he’d stashed half the city’s supplies down there somewhere.
The tunnels were stifling. Far too similar to Ranon’s maze for Zylah’s liking, the lack of air and light terrible for morale. Kopi was too easy a target, too tiny for Zylah to be worrying about him constantly, so she’d asked him to stay behind at the camp. But that didn’t mean he would remain there.
She rounded a corner, handing more baylock to a small group of human soldiers, a sensation that had become as familiar as breathing tugging at her bones. Her skin prickled and Zylah resisted the urge to stretch up onto her toes to see over the crowd of soldiers, to search for Holt. The need for him hadn’t relented, no matter how exhausted they’d been. The longing. The ache . Orblights cast long shadows over the stone, some of the soldiers napping in gloomy alcoves, and Holt’s presence grew the closer she came to the end of the tunnel.
She felt certain he could see her, even though she couldn’t see him yet, her body drawn to his body, her soul to his soul. Though her other sight was back to full strength, with her threads pulled in tight and the shadows in her eyes, Zylah’s vision was still limited. The thought afforded her another caress from Holt, and she bit back a smile when she finally located him, waiting for her behind a stack of supply crates.
The last of the baylock forgotten, she leaned against the opposite side of the stack, pulling off her apron and folding her arms across her chest, mirroring the pose she knew he’d be standing in. Anticipation had her pressing her back against the wood, no hope of hiding how much she craved the press of his body against hers. “Searching for Kej’s fabled wine stash?”
Holt hummed. “Something like that.” He rounded the crates, arms wrapping around her and his mouth finding hers, Zylah’s fingers knotting in his hair as her lips parted for him.
It wasn’t wine he thirsted for. Zylah echoed the sentiment, her tongue sliding against his before he nipped at her lower lip, a hand brushing down her body and resting over her core.
Holt’s affirmation slid down her spine. It’s you I need to taste.
And then they were moving through the aether, the kiss turning into something wilder, hungrier, neither of them pulling away when they reappeared wherever Holt had taken them to. It didn’t matter. She trusted him to take her anywhere. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were glazed, chest heaving, raw devotion written across his face. He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, his thumb tracing her cheek and her swollen lips, emotion thick in the air between them.
The pain of almost losing him was still too real, too raw for what she knew was coming. “Don’t,” Zylah whispered, her voice a rasp, her chest heaving just as much as his as she braced herself for whatever he was about to say. “Don’t make this a goodbye.” They’d had far too many of those already.
“I would never break one of our rules,” Holt told her, the corner of his mouth tipping up a fraction.
No dying on each other. Zylah punched him in the arm and was met with solid muscle against her fist. “Not funny.”
He took her hands in his, healing magic pouring from him to her as he kissed her knuckles, all traces of humour gone. A soft blue light made his hair seem inky black, his eyes almost navy as they scanned her face. “There’s so much I want for you, Zylah. So many experiences you deserve to have. So much living to be done.”
“Holt, please.” A lump formed in Zylah’s throat, but she shoved it down. She knew what he was doing. Why he was doing it. There was every possibility none of them would walk away from the palace, a thought that had followed Zylah day and night.
“This isn’t a goodbye,” he told her gently. “I think we’re long past those, anyway.” He took a step back, waving a hand at the little space they occupied; Zylah followed his gaze. They were in the bell tower above the tavern where they’d lived together, the blue tinge of the orblights that lit up the facade bleeding through the open archways, the Pedlar’s Charm far below. Chain ivy wove around the pillars holding up the tower, stitching itself through cracks in the stone. It looked like living lace, turning the tired old spire into something wild and beautiful.
“Perfect,” Zylah murmured, fingers reaching out reflexively to brush over the dark green foliage.
“I always wanted to bring you here, and on so many nights…” Holt said, following her as she trailed the chain ivy. She studied his face, the anguish written there. He thought he’d never get the chance. Because of Jesper’s compulsion. Because of the life he’d resigned himself to. Because of the vanquicite in her back.
A dip of his chin was all the confirmation he gave. “I never thought I’d see the other side of this. But then I met you.” Zylah pressed a hand over his heart as he spoke. “When I told you living here with you was the first time I felt like I had a home, I meant it.” His brows pinched together for a moment, his arms wrapping around her. “I didn’t think you’d want to go back to the tavern, but I wanted to give you something that’s just yours for a few hours before we have to face everything tomorrow brings. A night away from dark tunnels and soldiers and rations.”
“I thought you said this isn’t goodbye,” she whispered, tilting her face up to his.
“It isn’t.” But it was never about living forever, remember?
Just living free. Zylah hummed as he pressed a kiss to her lips.
I promise we’ll find each other, Zylah, no matter what happens. He deepened their kiss, his tongue finding hers, pulling her body flush against his, the strength of his love easing some of her apprehension. He was afraid too, but he didn’t try to hide it from her. And she knew whatever met them at the palace, they would face it. Together.
Holt backed her up against the parapet, nipping at her bottom lip and tracing kisses along her jaw to her ear, murmuring words of devotion against her skin, kissing her until her fear melted away. This was exactly what she’d needed, and he’d known it. The location, the space, the air, him. He couldn’t have chosen a more perfect place.
“Look,” he breathed against her lips and she turned in his arms, her body flush against his, their ragged breath clouding the air. Together they looked out across the city, dark and quiet in a way it never had been when they’d lived in the tavern. The sky was clear and bright with stars, and even the palace lights in the distance looked beautiful against the inky night. Only there was nothing beautiful about what lay within its walls.
A little of Zylah’s fear still lingered, but not as all-consuming as it was before, replaced instead by Holt’s steadfast resolve that whatever happened, they would find each other at the end of it, just as they always had. His magic rippled over her skin in response, her threads rising to meet it, her body arching into his at the sensation.
“Something that’s just mine,” she murmured, heat simmering beneath her skin.
Holt’s hands trailed her body, raw need in each of the kisses he traced against her neck, in every brush of his fingers over her centre, stroking, teasing.
I want all of you, she rasped in his thoughts, the last of her fear snuffed out and replaced with white-hot need as the thick, hard length of him pressed against her backside.
Here? he asked, one hand lifting her tunic, the other sliding inside her trousers and finding her wet and wanting. The low rumbling sound of approval he made had her pressing her thighs together, her breaths turning into pants as he slid two fingers inside her.
Now, she rasped in his thoughts, a whimper escaping her as he moved his thumb in slow circles over the most sensitive part of her, his fingers sliding in and out deliciously slowly as an aching pressure had her writhing against him for more.
“Hands on the wall,” he commanded. “And don’t let go.” Zylah did as he asked, the need to reach back and feel him warring with the desire to do as he asked. “Just for you,” he murmured in response to her thoughts, his other hand curling around her throat to hold her against him as his fingers and thumb moved faster.
He was rock hard behind her, hips rocking against her as he coaxed her pleasure from her, her body coiling tighter in his arms. Zylah would never tire of the way his body responded to hers, the way they drove each other deeper into a frenzy of scorching need and desire. The way his soul spoke to hers, their bond so taut between them it had tears pressing at the corners of her eyes.
The rough stone bit into her fingers, her breaths clouding in front of her with each of her broken gasps, that delicious pressure building and building until she came apart in his arms and he held her through all of it.
Zylah could hear him removing his belt with his other hand, felt the evening air nip at her skin as he slid her tunic higher, fingers easing out of her to pull her trousers down her legs. He nudged them apart with a knee, and she knew he was pausing to take in the view. Her fingers twitched with the aching necessity to take him in her hand, but he still hadn’t told her she could let go of the wall, and she loved being like this, being utterly and completely at his mercy.
“So fucking beautiful,” he murmured against her neck, his warm breath dancing over the shell of her ear. He eased into her slowly and they both groaned at the tight fit, both of them panting and trembling when he filled her to the hilt.
He moved slowly at first, his hands like a brand at her hip and throat, and she tilted her head up to kiss him, gasping into his mouth at the way it changed the angle of their hips. It snapped the last of his control, his hips moving faster, his thrusts harder until she couldn’t take not touching him for another second.
He pulled out only to spin her around and lift her into his arms, driving into her and pinning her against the wall, his mouth just as hungry and needy as hers. Zylah moaned as he moved, hands fisting into his shirt, his hair, her thumb brushing over the scar at his neck. But all she wanted him to feel was the depth of her love, the intense, unfiltered desire she felt for him; how she was his, his, his. All of it she sent down the bond, as bright and visceral and instinctual as the way he moved inside her.
She cried out when he dipped his hand between them, another orgasm creeping up on her quickly and leaving her limp and shaking in his arms, sparks coursing through every inch of her body. He swallowed every one of her moans, Zylah’s threads spiralling around them, his magic meeting every tentative press of hers, their bond bright and gleaming.
“All of you,” she murmured against his mouth and Holt groaned at her words, his thrusts raw and brutal and punishing as he finished inside her, both of them gasping and panting for breath.
He rested his head against hers, her palms flat against his chest to feel his heart, his arms banded tight around her until their breaths subsided. “I have loved every version of you,” he said against her lips, the exact words she’d said to him when she thought she’d lost him. She leaned back in his arms to look at his face. “And I will love every version of you to come. No matter what tomorrow brings.”
Zylah’s eyes burned, a tear escaping despite her best effort to prevent it, but Holt was quick to swipe it away. I love you , she told him.
Tell me what the perfect day looks like for you. After all of this is over, Holt asked her a little while later, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist. It was too cold to remove all their clothes, so they sat together against the parapet, Zylah straddling Holt’s lap, as they huddled in half a dozen blankets he’d summoned for them, neither of them in a hurry to return to the tunnels.
From this angle, a little of the blue light leaked through gaps in the wall, illuminating him in a soft halo of light. Zylah ran a hand through his hair, fingers curling in the ends as she studied his face. A kernel of apprehension surfaced, but she wouldn’t let it ruin this moment with him, the bliss she felt just sitting in his arms.
“I need to hear it,” he admitted, his thumb stroking her lower back. “It’s what I’ll be thinking about tomorrow.”
“The perfect day.”
He nodded, so much hope in his eyes it made her chest ache.
For the first time, she let herself think about what it might look like. Of how it would be to sit with their friends, with her brother, all of them together. Free. Nothing looming over them. No Ranon. No Aurelia. No vampires and monsters. Humans and Fae working to coexist peacefully, no deceits hiding Fae features, no living hidden and cut off from the world within their courts. And though she knew he’d seen the thoughts, she told him anyway, every last detail down to precisely how she wanted to end the day with him back in the bathtub at the Aquaris Court.
Something settled in him at her words, the last part of his resolve wrapping around them both like arrenium armour. His gratitude warmed her skin, his hands curling into her hair, thumbs caressing her face.
The moon hung bright and full above them, the sight of it bringing them back to everything that waited with the dawn. “It’s time to go, isn’t it?” Zylah whispered into the dark.
Holt pushed to his feet with her still in his arms, pressing a kiss into her hair when she steadied herself. He returned the blankets to wherever he’d summoned them from, no evidence remaining that they’d ever been there at all.
Zylah took one last look at the belltower, at the palace lights in the distance, and took Holt’s outstretched hand. But the moment they returned to the tunnels, her threads reaching out, testing, feeling, she froze.
Zylah? Holt asked, his hand tightening over hers.
She turned to her mate, bliss giving way to rage. Raif is here.