Chapter 59
Isca
I was scooped up once again. Before I could even take my next breath, the world turned into blurs of black, green, and starlight as the world streaked past us.
A prickle of fear slid into my chest. Had some of Maelric’s men followed us? Emrys had been so careful. Yet even the most careful could be hunted.
Unlike when Emrys had carried me in a fit of fear, this time, there was no sudden jolt when we came to a stop. Despite his racing heart, he lowered me onto the bedding like I was made of glass. And when I looked up at his face, his eyes were still half-lidded, not looking for enemies.
Impatience then.
And gods, I felt the same way. Though some small uncertainty had crept in due to my inexperience.
More light filtered into our campsite than had made it through the trees by the river, so I was able to see him better now as he crouched above me. He was, in a word, male perfection.
Yes, Emrys was covered in scars. But those crisscrossed a body honed for survival, for the protection of everything he held dear. My eyes drank in every taut line of his muscles, and his gaze mirrored my own.
Except his held the blue fire of his curse. And, gods, I loved it. My breathing picked up as my heart beat out pulses of aching want in my breasts and between my legs.
Emrys had been so tentative, so hesitant to push anything between us forward that I’d expected to be the one to act first, to pull him into another kiss. But he surprised me by lying down on one arm beside me.
He bent and nuzzled in close to my ear again. “Isca, my Isca. You test my composure at every turn. Command me, cariad.”
The low rumble of his voice sent shivers from the shell of my ear straight down to my core, stoking the heat building there to vibrant life.
Where I was all soft flesh, he was unyielding muscle.
Every inch of his hard masculinity throbbed against my side.
I longed to feel it again so I decided to be bold.
He sucked in a shaky breath, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to control his response to my touch.
I hadn’t expected it to be so soft yet so unrelenting—just like Emrys.
“I suppose it can be your turn now,” I said, smiling wickedly. “Touch me.”
I felt the smile in his kiss as one warm, lightly calloused hand reached out and tenderly cupped my breast. The pad of his thumb worked my nipple in lazy circles before he bent down and sucked the tip.
“Oh gods.” My hand flew up to his hair, holding him there. My breasts felt heavy, nipples pebbled, aching for more. Every pull of his mouth pulled me even further under the spell he was so thoroughly weaving over my body.
He let out a small growl, and warmth flooded my core, heating me from the inside. I became something soft, pliable, molded by his hands. The curse’s dark magic skated over my bare skin, coaxing goosebumps wherever its claws lightly raked.
It was so much pleasure, all at once, that I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I thought I’d understood desire, but those earlier ideas were mere fragments. The desire he stoked in me now was enough to corrupt the soul. To drag a person down into the suffocating darkness and cause them to abandon all shame, leaving only the relentless hunger for more.
Even breathing felt different, shallower, as though my lungs were now solely meant to accommodate the yearning that consumed me. The scent of him—aged leather, hearth smoke, and something wild—wrapped around me and sank into my skin. I wanted to smell him always, to feel him.
I hadn’t even realized my hand was still on the back of his head until he moved, trailing kisses down my belly in a line of fire. He only stopped when he reached the apex of my thighs, laving across the seam there with a slow swipe of his tongue.
The spike of pure, unadulterated euphoria it sent through my core made my entire body shudder. I whimpered, high and unexpected. Thank the gods we weren’t near any houses.
He looked up at me with storm clouds and blue lightning swirling in his eyes. So much so that I almost missed the question in them.
“Yes,” I said, without needing it asked aloud. I didn’t know what he had planned, but I didn’t care. Because I trusted him. Because I wanted him. “Don’t make me wait.”
“Anything you command.”
Still on his knees, he nudged my thighs apart with his own. Open, bared for him, I watched as he licked his lips.
His single-minded attention erased any shame or worry I might’ve had about my body. I’d been dressed and treated like a princess since arriving in Darreth. And still, I’d never felt as lovely as I did then.
He rubbed his nose in the spot his tongue had just vacated. “Did you like that?” he whispered against my overheated skin.
“Uh huh.” I’d slipped past coherence again, reduced to happy, breathless scraps and tumbling fragments of words.
And then I learned that a kiss didn’t necessarily have to be on the lips.
Within minutes, I was climbing back toward that peak only he had brought me to. He used his fingers and his mouth—circling, teasing, coaxing. He devoured me with a mix of tenderness and desperation, reminding me of our first kiss after the cave-in.
The world shrank until it was only the two of us.
“The taste I had before wasn’t enough,” he growled against me, vibrating my skin in the best way.
The pleasure that shot through my core was so intense that I bucked involuntarily.
This set him to purring again and I leaped right over the edge into ecstasy.
Shielding myself as a reflex, I reined in my magic to keep it from flaring outward.
As I shattered, body clenching around his fingers, at the mercy of his tongue and lips, I could only breathe one word, “Emrys.”
When I finally reopened my eyes, his gaze was a burning blue flame between my thighs. I tried to press them slightly together, to quell the rising ache that had blossomed in his absence, but his hands stopped me.
“Consider me available whenever you want that again. Every day, multiple times a day. I can’t get enough.”
I laughed, still giddy from my climax. “I hope you really mean that, because I absolutely will.”
He reached out and massaged the sensitive place where arousal had slicked my thighs, gathering up the dampness in his palm. Rising to his knees, his manhood jutted out, allowing me my first good look at it.
I knew women’s bodies could make room, but looking at how big he was, I still had my secret reservations.
Then, his hand slick with my arousal, he stroked it, once, twice, barely holding back a snarl. My delicate skin quivered in time with the movement of his hand. It stoked the fire of my desire even higher, the heat melting away every last reservation.
Inching forward, holding himself up to keep his weight off me, he reached down and adjusted his sex at my entrance. “The pain though, Isca…”
Sweetly tormenting, he moved it up and down through my slick folds. I shivered beneath him as his entire frame practically vibrated just so he could hold himself steady between my legs.
“The pain of waiting is probably worse,” I said, impatient. “I want this, Emrys. I want you.”
His hard body covered mine, sweat beading at his forehead from the strain of control. His words were a low murmur, a rumbling in my chest as he slowly, so slowly, eased into me. “Ignore anything you might hear outside these walls.”
I moaned from the sensation of being filled, but there was some pain, despite my earlier assurances. The next sound was a crack of branches, followed by the rustling of leaves and something deeper, and much larger, shifting in the distance.
Small surprises were simply part of being with Emrys, so I did my best to ignore the sounds as he’d suggested.
He crowned me with kisses as he worked himself slightly deeper with each careful thrust. I felt stretched and filled, almost beyond endurance—until my body gave way.
And suddenly, he was free to move without impediment. Relief tangled with fresh exhilaration as heat and something else stirred within me.
Magic.
His magic wrapped around mine again. This time not in a dance, but in something more like an embrace.
Emrys had taught me to pull my magic up from my heart like a cloak to shield my mind.
Now his magic wrapped around mine with the quiet closeness of a body curling around another in the dark.
It wanted to keep me but not to possess. To protect.
Against all expectations, the darkness within him was drawn to the vulnerable thing within me that felt far too much. I was made all bolder by his presence. And somehow, the terrifying power within him was made more human by mine.
Another resounding crack echoed outside, but his movements held as steady as a drumbeat. I drifted away on the music our bodies created.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered as his mouth found mine again.
“I could never fear you.” I gasped, just beginning to succumb to the feeling of need rising within me.
The feeling built as his rough fingers tilted my chin to meet his eyes, body still moving, still building that delicious friction. “Isca, you have all of me. Have since the day we met. And, cursed gods, you’ll have me until the day I die if I have my way. Never doubt that.”
My response caught in my throat as he hit a place with every thrust that wrung a moan from me.
"Come for me,” he panted, barely holding back the snarl I knew he wanted to unleash. “Say you’re mine, Isca. Say you’ll be mine, always.”
Like a tide, the truth swelled in me, threatening to drown everything else. My lips trembled with the risk. Then, the inevitable surrender. “I’m yours.”
Even through the haze of lust, I could feel how much he wanted it to be true. I did too. How could I even think about saying goodbye to this secretly sweet man who’d shown time and time again how much he cared for me?
I savored every moment as the invisible claws of his magic raked across my skin. And we were finally, blessedly, alone. I could release the shackles I’d been placing upon myself every time we were together. I wanted to show him exactly how he made me feel.
I repeated the words, binding them onto my soul with every syllable, “I’m yours. I’m yours. I’m yours.” My world burst into pulsing waves of ecstasy that my magic rode outward.
The waning tremors of my release met the first pulses of his, further drawing out the bliss I was riding. Except my gift of showing Emrys exactly how he made me feel with magic didn’t come without consequences.
The earth shook beneath us, and there was a deafening clamor as he held me tighter, his arms a secure shield. Waves of magic were surging from him, directed away from us. Had I not been held there before, safe against the rain of boulders and stones from the heavens, I might’ve been afraid.
But there was no place safer for me than with Emrys.
The world grew utterly quiet as Emrys stilled above me. As I came back down to earth, my muscles gave way entirely. I could only manage a desperate gasp of air. He took my mouth once more in a heartbreakingly deep kiss that made the place between my thighs pulse all over again.
Propping himself up on his elbows, he rubbed his nose to mine in a touch so tender it nearly broke me. “Are you okay, cariad?”
“Always so worried.” I kissed the tip of his nose, just because I could. “I think I just proved exactly how okay I am.”
He grinned down at me, voice rumbling, “Yes, that was… I may never recover from that.”
I smiled up at him with a streak of mischief as he rolled off me. “So, what did you destroy?”
He laughed, a full-throated, rising-from-the-depths-of-his-lungs laugh. I’d heard his chuckle before, but this—this was the sound of a man who’d forgotten the weight of the world for a heartbeat. And it made something inside me lift, setting my soul to soar once again.
“We’ll see the damage at dawn,” he murmured, eyes glinting like we’d just committed a glorious crime together.
“We’ll have to figure out a way to contain that back in the castle,” I suggested.
The smoldering look was already back in his eyes. “Considering how you’ll use me once we return home?”
“Yes,” I said simply.
His smile was as bright as the moonbeams piercing the tent. “Fast way back to the river? Then I need to hold you.”
I marveled at the many sides of this man I’d fallen in love with, but nodded, ready to be back in Emrys’s arms once again.