Chapter 3
ISLA
Isla parted the shade of the inn’s room with two fingers, watching the fat drops of rain pour over Abalys’s streets.
Lightning struck across the darkened sky in an amethyst whip, followed by a heavy crash of thunder that rattled the brick building’s foundations.
After speaking with Nefel, the father of the family who’d fled from Charon, she needed something to pacify the rage and guilt warring in her heart.
He hadn’t initially been open to talking, but Isla had come offering food and comfort, a listening ear, and a sturdy shoulder.
While their daughter was being soothed by his wife—the poor thing, afraid of the storm, even with all she’d just endured—Isla learned of what they’d gone through for the week it took them to trek the rogue lands to make it to Deimos.
The rogues they’d run from, who Nefel had needed to kill, the decline and instability of Charon, and the hell they’d endured in what was once their home.
Grimacing, Isla turned to where Kai lay in the small bed, blankets slouched low on his hips, his muscled body bare but for that fabric as he studied the ceiling.
His hair draped in loose waves over his forehead, drying from having been in the storm.
With his brow pinched and his jaw tensed, he was clearly deep in thought.
In his hand, he twirled her dagger with expert ease that shouldn’t have been as attractive as it was. The absent action served as a small reminder that even if he didn’t bear the mark as she did or the official title, he was a warrior by rite all the same.
As if he’d felt her stare, Kai’s focus shifted, the hard edges of his face smoothing as he took her in. His eyes drew up and down her body, clad in only her tunic skimming the tops of her thighs, the rest of her clothes left on the vanity.
He threw an arm across the covers, an invitation and request.
Isla gave him a soft smile.
The bed creaked as she joined him on the hard mattress, and when she leaned over to kiss him once, he threaded his fingers through her hair and kept her there for a few moments, lips gliding smoothly over hers. Not a fiery embrace but a grateful one.
I’m happy I have you. I’m happy you’re here—words he didn’t need to say for her to understand.
When he’d arrived at the inn alone and entirely drenched, she had known something had happened back at the borders.
She’d even felt it before she saw him, nearly leaving Nefel because of it.
But even without that otherworldly sense, she would’ve known from the way he’d embraced her when she met him in the lobby, the way he’d kissed her like he needed her to breathe.
Magnus, Thyra, and the concierge at the desk had been forgotten.
All that existed was her, his grounding force.
He hadn’t been ready to talk then. Not while they made their decision to spend the night here rather than trek for hours through the downpour to get back to the House.
And not while he started up a fire in the small wood stove in the room’s corner or stripped and left his clothes near its steady heat to dry.
So, Isla waited, accepting every gentle graze of his hands and soft wordless kiss he stole until he tucked into their bed, her knife in his hands, spinning and spinning like his mind must’ve been.
Shadows had clouded his eyes, but now, as she settled cross-legged beside him, she could see that the storm had cleared just enough.
So, with her voice so low it nearly got lost in the crackle and pop of the flames, she asked, “What happens now that they haven’t made it back?”
Not what happened, not what did you do. That would be too accusatory.
Kai let out a heavy breath, his hand drifting over her bare leg, mapping patterns over her skin.
“There are only so many options. We continue to wait, hoping they’ll make it back tomorrow, the next day…
maybe. Or we send out more scouts to track them, but given the circumstances, it could just be a suicide mission.
With Eli sneaking around here, and Locke with his own spies in rogue territory. ”
Isla jerked back. “Locke’s what?”
“Spies, bounty hunters. They’re setting up traps by our borders to either get their people back or find proof of ours drifting out.
Locke must know we’re taking members in, figures we’d send out people to monitor, and if he can prove it…
” Kai swallowed hard, darkness creeping over his face. “Goddess, I have a headache.”
“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Isla said, not wanting to push him. “Everything’s clearer when the sun’s up. I’m convinced our wolves take too much control at night.” She combed her fingers through his hair. “Tonight definitely didn’t go as planned.”
Kai scoffed. “I don’t think anything will ever ‘go as planned’ for us.”
Likely not.
“But I got to spend it with you. That’s all that matters.”
Isla laughed. “Such a damn charmer.”
With a sigh, she tucked herself beneath the covers, lying so she could face him. They needed something to banish this dark cloud hovering over them. And the answer always seemed to be each other.
She traced a line over his neck, his collarbone. “What did you have planned for after dinner?”
Kai’s breath caught, hearing the suggestion in her tone, the desire to play.
Leaving the knife on the side of the bed, he rolled to face her.
His hand found her thigh, skimming the skin not covered by her shirt.
“Well… while we were cooking dinner, all I wanted to do was bend you over the counter, but I knew once I got my hands on you, I wouldn’t be able to stop there.
” He continued his trail up, grazing the smooth skin of her stomach, reaching until his knuckle skimmed the underside of her breast. “I probably would’ve given you the option.
To either clear the table and take you right there, bring you to the couch in the living room, or carry you upstairs. ”
Isla shivered and arched up towards his touch as he palmed her breast, pinching her nipple between his fingers. “I think I would’ve picked the table.”
A grin spread across his face that silently said, “of course,” because he would have done the same.
Despite the loose fit, her shirt felt like too much. She rose to pull the garment over her head, and when she settled back onto her pillow, she tucked both her hands beneath her flushing cheek, purposely shielding her body from him. “What else?”
“Such a tease,” Kai lamented lowly.
Rolling her eyes, Isla moved her arm. Kai’s eyes took their time surveying every bend and curve of her body with an intensity and adoration that made her heart pound.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his.
Kai’s hand went up to cup her face, his fingers curling around her neck.
“You can do more than look,” she murmured over his mouth, taking his hand and dragging it down her body, over her breasts, down her stomach, to the waistband of her panties, lower…
“Fuck.”
She wasn’t sure which one of them had said it.
Her breathing sharpened as Kai ran his fingers over the damp material of her underwear. “I was this wet for you when we were eating, too.”
“Were you now?” Pushing the fabric to the side, Kai dragged two fingers over her slickness, teasing her and making her grab his shoulders, digging her nails into them.
He easily slipped one inside her, making her arch and moan. She kissed him again, long and slow, her tongue slipping into his mouth to tangle with his as Kai added a second finger. He pumped them in and out of her once, twice as she ground her hips for more pressure, more friction.
“More,” she breathed the word.
Kai dragged his teeth over her bottom lip. “Lie back for me.”
Isla obeyed.
As she moved to her back, nearly falling off the too-small bed, Kai brought his fingers to his mouth, and she watched as he savored the taste of her, removing her underwear.
Kai chuckled. “So eager.”
“I could say the same.”
Kai moved atop her, kneeling between her parted legs, the blankets shifting and falling away completely and leaving them both bare to the room.
Isla greedily took him in, the way the shadows and firelight caressed his skin.
The muscles of his arms, his abs flexing with each heavy breath, his length jutting out between them, thick and powerful and so hers.
Goddess, she needed him.
“Kai.” A desperate, demanding plea. She stretched out a hand to touch him, the tips of her fingers grazing the smooth shaft and making him twitch, moisture already beading at the tip. She caught it on her finger, not breaking eye contact as she brought it to her mouth, sucking it away.
Kai’s eyes blazed, and he dropped to envelop her again.
They became nothing but carnal need and insatiable hunger. A clash of mouths and teeth, grabbing hands and heavy breaths. Her ache to have him inside her was unbearable.
“Kai.” A command this time.
“This bed’s too small for me to fuck you the way I want to,” he told her, his voice guttural in her ear.
“Then don’t fuck me on the bed,” Isla growled and pushed him.
They went crashing to the floor.
Their coughs and laughs filled the room as Isla fell atop him and braced her hands on either side of his head.
“Maybe a warning next time,” Kai suggested, his touch ghosting over her waist.
“Sorry,” Isla said, leaning down until she was pressed against him again. “Now, how did you want to take me?”
Kai smirked, and his hands held her hips as he leaned up to kiss her. He wrapped his arm around her as he lifted her, and she’d been so distracted by his lips, by his touch, that she hadn’t realized how much he twisted them until craning her neck was the only way to maintain their contact.
When they broke their kiss, Isla, now on her knees, faced forward, finding nothing but the hearth before her. She felt Kai running his touch over her back and lumerosi, mapping her etching of the moon. She gasped as his hardness pressed against her, and he flattened his hand, guiding her forward.
But before she bent too far, his breath was hot against her skin as he whispered, “On your hands and knees, beautiful.”
Isla ran a tongue over her bottom lip and obeyed, placing her hands on the warmed hardwood.
Her breaths sharpened as Kai nudged at her entrance, the tip of his cock running along her wetness.
He didn’t tease her long, bless the Goddess, before he pushed himself inside her.
Slowly. Letting her luxuriate in every inch of him as he filled her, stars bursting behind her vision.
Fuck, she loved him. Loved this.
“Goddess, I’ll never get enough of you,” Kai breathed, holding her hips as he waited for her to adjust to him. Or perhaps, to gather himself.
“Move.” Isla wriggled her hips, moaning at the subtle movement and its explosion of sensations.
Now, Kai listened, drawing back nearly to the tip before pressing back in.
Once. Twice.
Slow at first.
But then he gripped her tighter, his hands finding her hair. His name became a whimper on her lips as he drove in harder. Over and over.
Pleasure branched through every corner of Isla’s body, her muscles going limp as the night’s darkness and all their worries were dashed away in this stolen moment. In him.
Kai leaned forward until his chest was pressed to her back, his arms curling around her body until his fingers found her clit. “You take me so fucking well.” His teeth were a teasing graze against the skin of her neck as he circled the bud. “Come with me, beautiful.”
Isla’s body shuddered as she nodded, a wordless, yes, yes, on her lips.
She didn’t last much longer after that. Neither did he.
Her inner muscles clamped down on him as both found their release, Kai holding her steady as he spilled and spilled himself inside her.
The room became silent but for the crackling hearth and their spent breathing.
Then, beyond the inn’s window, thunder and lightning crashed.