Chapter 36 #4
Kieran swore my name. And above us, every star fell. The entire false sky gave way at once. Gold came down through the silver-blue in a silent storm. Hundreds of stars tore loose.
They struck the stone and disappeared into the cracks.
They caught in Kieran’s Shadow and burst silver-white.
Some landed against his back, melting over the runes and sinking into his skin until gold glowed briefly beneath the black markings.
Others broke against my breasts, my stomach, my thighs, vanishing beneath my skin in little pulses of heat that my Shadow chased as soon as they disappeared.
One struck directly over the rune at my hip. Gold flooded through the black lines. For a heartbeat the entire rune blazed beneath the Shadow, every curve down toward my pelvis illuminated before black swallowed the color again. My Shadow answered so violently it wrapped around Kieran’s body.
His came for mine. Everywhere they met, silver erupted. The entire ring became Light and Shadow and falling stars, the ruined walls appearing and disappearing behind the storm until I couldn’t tell whether the magic was surrounding us anymore or moving through us.
Kieran looked up once.
Then back at me. Whatever he saw ended the last of his restraint.
He rolled me beneath him again, caught my thigh and drove into me hard enough to tear another cry from my throat.
My Shadow wrapped around his shoulders. His tangled through mine.
Silver flooded the space between us. He fucked me through the fading aftershocks, rough and losing rhythm now, face buried against my neck.
I held on.
His scars shifted beneath my hands, the runes between them burning black beneath the falling Light. “Kieran.”
He lifted his head. I wanted his eyes again. Nothing else. His forehead pressed against mine. His hips drove into me once more, then again, and his rhythm changed. He started to pull back.
I caught his hip before he could. His eyes opened. “I took my vesperroot.” For one second he just stared at me. The monthly herb was so ordinary at the Sanctum that I had swallowed mine six nights ago without thinking twice about it, grimacing through the same bitter taste as every other month.
Kieran’s hand tightened around my thigh. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Whatever restraint that answer might have restored disappeared immediately.
His mouth found mine and his next thrust drove deep enough to drag a broken sound out of both of us.
The rhythm lasted only a few more strokes before it fell apart completely.
Kieran came inside me with my name rough against my mouth.
The sensation of him pulsing deep inside me sent another aftershock through me, sharp enough that my nails dug into his back. For several seconds neither of us moved. We were breathing too hard for anything useful anyway.
The starfall had stopped.
A handful of silver-blue lights remained trapped in the thinning Shadow overhead.
Gold glowed faintly among them, quieter now.
Kieran stayed over me for a few breaths, neither of us moving while our breathing slowly settled.
Then he shifted onto his side beside me, one arm beneath his head while the other remained over my hip.
For a minute I stared upward. My ribs ached.
My shoulder hurt. There was sweat cooling along my skin and my hair was everywhere.
I had destroyed what remained of my dignity somewhere between the column and the training platform.
Eventually he shifted far enough away that cold air found the places where he had been.
I looked at him.
He looked as ruined as I felt—hair disordered, mouth swollen, sweat shining between the black runes crossing his chest. A scratch from my nails marked one shoulder. When he turned slightly, the scars over his back caught the remaining Starlight.
I saw them again.
The pale lines beneath the ink, some crossing one another, some faded, others thick enough that the skin had never quite smoothed again.
I still didn’t ask. Kieran caught me looking anyway.
Whatever he thought he saw in my face, he left it alone.
The remaining Shadow overhead had begun opening in uneven gaps.
Through one of them I could see the real moon.
For some reason that felt stranger than the dome had.
Kieran looked up too. “You filled it with stars.”
“It was beautiful.”
“It was.” This time he was looking at me.
His thumb moved once along my hip and stopped at the edge of the Shadow rune.
Then he traced the line slowly enough that I felt the touch everywhere.
One final star loosened from the dome. Silver-blue this time.
It drifted down between us and touched the center of Kieran’s chest. The Light spread over one of his runes, sank through his skin, and disappeared.
His Shadow stirred beneath my hand. Mine answered faintly at my hip.
The darkness above us opened wider. Moonlight returned to the broken ring in pieces, falling across his shoulder, my bare skin, the cloak tangled beneath us.
Kieran’s hand stayed over the rune at my hip. I didn’t move it.