Chapter Thirteen
A Shadow at the Window
I woke with my whole body alight, warmth at my back, and wrapped around me, and rushing in my veins.
The Captain’s slow, deep breath in my ear was the first thing I was aware of in those few foggy moments of half-consciousness.
The next thing was his embrace, one thick arm locked possessively around my waist, the other wedged beneath me with his hand splayed across my bare ribs.
Memories of last night dawned on me like the watery beams of early morning light.
Sex on the countertop. Caelan begging for my body, then begging me to let him stay.
The hours of slow, grateful worship he’d bestowed on me when I said yes.
My breath quickened at the thought of those long hours, and the swell of my lungs shifted his hand until his fingertips just barely brushed the underside of my breast. That sleepy, narrow awareness exploded outward.
I felt everything.
The warmth of his breath on the shell of my ear, the ruined sheets tangled around our legs, that frictious ache between my thighs that spoke of all we’d done last night and the punishing pace he’d made me beg for just as he’d begged for me.
Even now, my backside was so tight against his lap that I could feel that vague hardness cradled between my cheeks, as though he’d spent all night in a state of suspended arousal.
I gave one small, experimental roll of my hips just to hear the pattern of his breath change.
To feel his hips twitch in response and revel in the thrill it sent through me.
Another little roll, and the hand on my ribcage slipped lightening fast over my breast, pinching my nipple in the vee of two fingers as he cupped me.
“You’ve been doing that all night,” he murmured, voice so low and rough with sleep it was an effort to hear him over my own gasps. “D’you know how badly I wanted to wake you, every fucking time?”
He punctuated his frustration with another pinch of my nipple, rolling it between his fingertips this time until I cried out at the sweet, mounting pain and he relented with a soft caress of his thumb over the hurt.
“I’m awake now,” I panted.
“Mmm.”
The arm around my waist slid down until his hand curved over my hip, turning me in his arms before rolling us both and groaning as my full weight settled on him. I pushed off his chest, sitting up until I straddled his hips and we both exhaled at the perfect alignment of him between my thighs.
He’d barely cracked one eye open, the slightest slash of sleepy green peering up at me before he closed them again and leaned his head back into the pillows.
His hands found my sides and roamed until he cupped a generous handful of my ass in each palm, fingers curving at each round cheek and using that grip to glide himself through my slick centre.
When the thick head of his cock nudged my clitoris, my back arched, and his grip on me tightened, fingers biting into my skin as he gasped and did it again, used my body to tease us both in slow, sleepy strokes.
“Not sure I’m awake yet,” he breathed. “You feel like a fucking dream.”
“Anything I can do to convince you?”
I rolled my hips for emphasis, another slow tease of my slick centre over his cock that made my whole body tighten and his mouth fall open on a groan. He cracked that one eye again as he smirked up at me, and I grinned breathlessly back at him.
“As a matter of fact–”
A timid knock at the door turned my spine to stone. I stiffened, eyes flaring wide, and rose to my knees – but Caelan dragged me down against him again with a lazy grunt.
“I don’t think so,” he drawled to me, then to the intruder; “Who the fuck is it?”
A hesitant beat of silence, during which Caelan’s attention drifted between my legs and he slowly lifted his hips, watching his cock glide against me and emerge glistening with my wetness. I had to catch my lip between my teeth to keep from moaning aloud.
“It’s Brennan, sir.”
I didn’t realise I’d closed my eyes until a swift slap to my backside made me hiss and my head snapped up to meet his wicked, hooded gaze.
“Don’t. Fucking. Stop,” he said, low and harsh. “Want you good and ready for me the moment I’m done here.”
I gave a half-hearted scowl, but the heat that crashed through me at his suggestion was so overwhelming it made me a little dizzy.
Don’t stop. Just keep circling my wet, swollen bud over him, even with Brennan on the other side of the door.
Quietly tease and torment myself for his pleasure until he was ready to fuck me.
My Flame spiralled through every tensed muscle, trying to coax me into movement while I resisted as long as I could, but that resistance grew close to physical pain as the silence stretched.
I could hear Brennan shuffling around on the other side of the door, patiently awaiting his Captain, who was patiently awaiting me.
Only when my Flame was screaming within me to give Caelan what he wanted, when my core clenched and ached with the need to find friction, did I finally break with a pathetic little moan.
Caelan’s breath stuttered out of him, the only sign that his own control was anywhere close to fraying. He tucked an arm behind his head and fixed his eyes between my legs, nodding encouragingly.
“What d’you want, Brennan?”
“Well, it’s just – the platoon are awaiting orders.”
“Great.” His breath broke a little, and his eyes flicked up to hold my own as he spoke to Brennan. “That’s great. Tell them their orders are to wait until I’m ready. They’re off to a good start.”
I sensed the double meaning directed at me and when my Flame glowed at the praise, Caelan grinned, entirely too pleased with himself.
I narrowed my eyes — and slowed my hips, moving even higher, higher, until I was hovering almost over his taut stomach.
I paused with the head of his cock just barely notched against me, where it would take just the slightest thrust to take him deep.
Then I reached down and slid my fingers between my legs.
“Wicked little thing,” he breathed.
“Captain?”
“Fuck, Brennan, I’m trying to sleep.”
I bit my lip, fighting the swell of a giggle in my chest – then a moan when Caelan bucked his hips up, the tip of his cock pressing inside me for a split second.
“I’m sorry, Captain, but – they’re ready, sir. They’re packed, they’ve got the horses out front, and–”
“For fuck’s sake,” Caelan groaned. “Wait there.”
He withdrew, giving me no time to protest before he spun us again and deposited me on my back. Panic cut through the heady arousal, and I clung to his shoulder.
“You can’t leave yet!”
“I’ll be right back. Still have chores to see to, don’t I?”
“I can do all that–”
“Nope.”
He kissed my pout away, pulled the sheet up to cover my body, and climbed out of bed, still grumbling darkly to himself as he yanked on a shirt and trousers.
He paused with his hand on the door handle, then turned back and threw me my shift – I suppose, on the off chance that Brennan might catch an illicit glimpse of my bare shoulders beneath the sheets and expire of lust. I rolled my eyes at his possessiveness, but pulled it over my head all the same.
“Happy?”
He grinned, and finally opened the door. I waved over his shoulder, and Brennan’s face burned almost as bright as my own magic as he waggled his fingers back at me before Caelan shut the door behind him.
“I didn’t intend to interrupt your goodbyes.”
Brennan’s lowered voice was muffled through the door, Caelan’s response a little clearer.
“Plenty of time for goodbyes. I’m going to stay on a few hours.”
“But the King –”
“–Will be informed of my movements when I see him tomorrow morning. You’re well capable of leading the procession home, Bren. And I have business to wrap up here.”
I snorted quietly to myself, wondering idly if he was referring to the unfinished chores in my tavern or his unfinished business in my bed.
“Just have Nick do a last sweep of the borders, and other than that, we’re set.”
“If you’re sure, sir. Anything else before we head out?”
“Yes. Come help me do the dishes.”
???
Caelan came back to bed bearing a mug of tea, a slab of toast, and a declaration that he’d flipped the Closed sign on the front door and I was not to leave my bed for the day.
I had no complaints about the loss of business for once; there were more important things to worry about. Not that I spent a single moment of the next few hours feeling the slightest bit worried.
The day slid by in a sleepy, blissful haze until finally, reluctantly, I turned my face from Caelan’s kisses. Turned to peer out the window at the slowly shifting light – and groaned.
“It’s almost nightfall.”
My turned face didn’t stop him from trailing lazy kisses down my neck, from tugging my shift off one shoulder.
“I’m not due until tomorrow morning.”
I tugged my sleeve out of his grasp.
“And you’re not planning to sleep between now and then?”
He snorted. “Why would I waste a moment on sleep?”
I rolled into his embrace until I sat atop him, my shift pooling around his hips.
“Because the faster you’re done, the faster you can come home to me.”
His eyes were at once alight and their warmth resounded in my chest, stirring my Flame into showers of sparks.
“Home, eh?”
He tried to draw me down, but I grabbed the sheets from his chest and crawled off him, unveiling him to the cold and ignoring his laughing protests and half-hearted swipes for the covers.
He relented and sat up, and though the unreasonable number of muscles in his taut stomach flexed and bunched with the movement, I managed to hold fast both to the covers and my resolve. Even when he leaned in for a kiss.
“Home,” I said firmly, then kissed him back.
He dressed slowly; reluctantly. Got distracted by little things; a gust of leaves blowing past the window.
The half-ruined undergarments he’d torn off me the night before, which he slingshotted at me from across the room before collapsing with laughter.
He didn’t bother to duck when I flung them back at him and they hung off his head like a giant lacy earring.
“How old are you?” I asked, but I was laughing too.
“You’re going to miss me,” he grinned.
“Self-assured as ever,” I said, but when I was done rolling my eyes I added: “I will miss you.”
Caelan hesitated with his shirt halfway buttoned. Something flickered over his face, creasing his brow. “You’re going to be alright, aren’t you?”
“It’s just a few days, Caelan. I’ll be fine.”
I didn’t tell him I’d been alone for weeks before Sorcha showed up; I also didn’t tell him that it had nearly destroyed me, inside and out. I could do two days. I would be fine.
“Are you certain? I could send Brennan north,” he said, then huffed a breath like the very idea amused him. “I’m sure he’d take any excuse.”
“Excuse for what?”
“To go after Sorcha,” said Caelan, turning to the vanity again to pick up his belt. “She could come back now, couldn’t she? With the borders open, and the hunt over.”
I frowned at his back, puzzled.
“But Sorcha went east.”
Caelan still had his back turned to me as he threaded his belt through his trousers, but I caught his look of confusion in the mirror before him.
“She’s not headed back to the Isles? To the coven?”
“The Isles?” I matched his frown, but it gave way to a little laugh as the pieces slotted into place.
Of course – he knew Sorcha was my cousin, but I’d never told him on which side.
“No, not the Isles. That’s my father’s coven.
Gods, Sorcha’s the furthest thing from a firewitch – far too sweet-tempered. ”
Caelan didn’t laugh. His hands froze on his belt, his back still to me, but I glanced at the mirror to find his expression blank as though he’d fallen deep in thought for a moment.
Then his eyes found mine in the reflection – and his features flickered like a lantern in the breeze.
A frown creased his brow, lip jutting out thoughtfully above his beard.
“Oh, right,” he said evenly. “Must have gotten mixed up.”
He rolled his eyes at himself and the dazzling grin he shot at my reflection made heat spill through my chest. I saw my own dark eyes turn warm and gold in the mirror as I hugged my legs to my chest and watched him with my chin on my knees, the very picture of complete and utter adoration.
And for a moment, mesmerised by Caelan’s slow methodic movements as he dressed, by the magic swirling contentedly around my ribs, I was ready to let the moment slip past without a second thought.
But something within me writhed ominously.
Uncomfortably.
So much so that I shifted, then lay back on the pillows for relief. The feeling didn’t fade, and it took me a moment longer to realise it wasn’t physical. It was intangible, ineffable. Intuition.
When had I told Caelan about the Isles?
My Flame stilled so abruptly that for a moment I could have imagined it had never been there at all.
Might have believed it if it weren’t for that vague awareness of the little ember still nestled in Caelan’s chest, the piece of me I always struggled to call back.
I called for it now, tentatively, oddly afraid he’d feel the invasion like I was reaching between his ribs.
He didn’t glance around, but the ember in his chest called back to me and I closed my eyes to feel for it – only to find it flailing wildly in time with Caelan’s thundering, nervous pulse.
My eyes shot open at the same moment that realisation hit me full in the chest, heavy and dousing as a trough of icewater.
I hadn’t told him.
I had never told Caelan my father was from the Isles. I’d told Madame Bracken – someone passing for Madame Bracken. Someone who recognised my magic, and was recognised, in turn, by a Flame so very eager to be seen. Someone with vivid green eyes and a lilting tongue.
I had told the Serpent.