Chapter 22 Truth Laid Bare #2
This time, Resh couldn’t stop the laughter from escaping. It welled up from his chest in a way it hadn’t in decades, melting through his senses, moving through his body like a wave of relaxation and peace.
Auryn stared at him. “I like it when you laugh like that.” She stepped closer. “It’s quite…well, it makes my chest ache. But it’s pleasant.”
He smiled. “You truly are unknowable, Auryn.”
“Clothing is a curse,” she muttered. “Like shoes. Always pulling, always clinging. Like trying to wear skin on top of skin.”
“You speak as though modesty is an affliction.”
“I don’t know why I should be modest. If I don’t want to wear clothes or shoes, then why should I?”
She wrapped the towel around herself, fastened it, then flopped back onto the cot beside him, damp and fragrant, her limbs curling beneath the folds of the towel.
Resh clenched his hand into a fist.
The warmth of laughter passed.
Suddenly, he was too aware of her again.
Her shoulder brushed his, and he tensed. Enough for her to notice the motion. She peeked up at him, then glanced toward the tub, where petals floated lazily in the remnants of her bathwater.
“The herbs were pleasant,” she murmured.
“Is that why you decided to drown yourself in the tub?”
“I wasn’t drowning. You worry too much.”
A beat.
“The note said they were gifts,” she said sleepily. “From the warriors.”
He turned to look at her fully now, brows furrowing.
“What note?”
“Someone left the bottles on your war table. The herbs, the oils. Said they were for the Sokar.”
Her voice caught on that title. She didn’t say it with pride, nor shame—just fact. As though she was still trying it on.
“It felt like a waste not to try them,” she added with a small shrug. “Their gifts smelled kind.”
Resh stared at her for a long moment. “You cast the warming glyph yourself.”
“I watched you do it. Several times. You always shape the rune in the air with your right hand, then press the charge through the second and fourth fingers. I…tried it that way.”
“It could have burned you.”
She shook her head. “I was careful.”
“And then you fell asleep in scalding herbs.”
She smiled. “I was very relaxed. Definitely simmering.”
He looked at her. Just looked. She did not understand the cost, the danger. And the words he wanted to say stung against the back of his throat like smoke. You make me afraid. Because you don’t see how much of my soul you carry.
Instead, all he managed was, “Next time, call for me.”
He took her hand. Just that. Fingers curled over hers. Warmth shared in the quiet.
She blinked up at him, drowsy, confused.
“Call for you?” she echoed. “But…you were far away.”
He looked down at their joined hands. Her fingers were so much smaller than his. Fragile, but not weak. The shimmer of mana veined beneath her skin, stable now. Humming.
“Far,” he murmured, “doesn’t mean gone. Not to me.”
Her eyes stayed on his face.
He added, quieter now. “If you call, I will come. No matter where I am.”
She shifted, facing him directly now. “Even if I don’t know the words for what I need?”
Resh steadied himself. Swallowed. Met her eyes.
“You don’t need words. Only want.”
She stood, the towel slipping as she moved around him, bare feet quiet against the woven floor mat. Her hand trailed across the edge of the cot as she stepped close and reached for him.
“Just call your name?” she asked, lingering in doubt, in the unproven.
He didn’t quite meet her eyes. His throat bobbed.
But he nodded.
Her fingertips brushed his cheek, the touch lingering in trembling warmth.
“Kailorien,” she whispered.
Gods, the way she said it—like it meant safety, like it summoned him.
She stepped even closer. He didn’t move, but the lines of his body went taut.
His knuckles whitened where he clutched the edge of the cot.
Not yet, his heart screamed. She’s still healing. Recovering. This isn’t the time.
But she didn’t stop.
Didn’t falter.
The quiet wrapped around them like a woven spell.
A pause.
A breath.
Her voice dropped—aching, stripped of all the boldness she so often wore like armor.
“I’ve called your name,” she said. “With want…and need. But you—you haven’t touched me since that night.”
He flinched.
Something shifted in her gaze. From fire to trepidation.
Her lips thinned, then parted.
“Do you not want me anymore?”
There it was.
Not accusation.
Not plea.
Just her truth.
Laid bare.
Her words echoed in the hush between them. Soft. Wounded.
“Auryn,” he rasped. Just her name. A tether. The air between them thinned. His hands hovered in the space just beside her shoulders. “You believe I don’t want you?” His voice cracked around the edges.
He touched her then. One hand to her cheek. The other sliding around to cradle the back of her neck. His thumb brushed just beneath her jaw.
“I want you so much I don’t know how to hold it in my hands without breaking it.”
She blinked, eyes wide.
“You gave yourself to me,” he whispered. “That night. Without hesitation. Without fear. And since then, I haven’t returned…”
His forehead came to rest against hers.
“Because I’m afraid.”
“Afraid?” she breathed.
He nodded.
“Of going too far. Of hurting you. Of forgetting I’m not meant to take, but to protect.”
His breath ghosted over her lips.
“Even now. You stand before me like this. Beautiful. Glowing. I have never harbored a desire as deep as the one that runs in my blood for you.”
She took a shaky breath.
He mirrored it.
“But you are healing. You are fragile. And I—” his voice dropped. “I want you so badly I dream of your scent. Of your hair. Of your skin on mine.”
Her lips parted. “Then why—”
“Because if I lose control,” he whispered, “I will not forgive myself.”
“But I trust you.”
“I don’t trust myself. Not yet.”
“So…even now, you won’t…?” She took a step back, a vulnerable curve tightening around her mouth like she wasn’t sure if she should’ve spoken.
He frowned. Caught her hand, fingers threading through hers with quiet insistence, and guided her until she stood right in front of him. He drew her in, closing the distance between them.
He kissed her. A single brush of his lips against hers. Tentative. Tender.
When he pulled back, her eyes were still closed.
“Kailorien…” she breathed.
“Hmm?” He smiled, his voice husky.
He kissed her again. Longer this time. A fraction more certain. A fraction more lost.
When he drew back again, she opened her eyes—luminous, full of wonder.
“Kailorien,” she whispered again, her voice softening with a hint of shyness.
“What is it?” he asked, though he never let the words fully finish.
His mouth found hers before she could answer.
Urgent now. Fierce. This time, the kiss was deeper.
Slower. As though the need he’d buried beneath command and restraint had started to melt, spilling up from places even he couldn’t reach.
She parted her lips with a sound that pierced his chest. Let him in, sighed as his tongue laved over hers. Her hand drifted up to his cheek. When he pulled himself back, breathing harder than before, she just stood there blinking, dazed.
“What…” Her voice trembled. “What was that?”
He leaned in again, pressing a lingering kiss against her forehead.
“Me,” he sighed, “surrendering.”
In that quiet space between them—still wrapped in steam, silence, and the faint smell of herbs—Resh finally understood why all the other kisses he’d ever experienced had never been enough.
They weren’t hers.
“The Resh’Agar surrendering?” she teased. “To me?”
Her breath didn’t settle. Neither had his.
They hovered—forehead to forehead—held in that liminal hush between heartbeats, between choices, between what had been and what could be.
Then, softly, she whispered, “Have you been thinking about doing that for a while?”
Without answering, he dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her sternum—right above her heart. Her breath caught, fingers twitching where they still laced with his. He kissed her lips again, slower now, deeper, as though savoring her response.
“Ever since the river,” he said. “I’ve thought about this since then.”
Another kiss.
And another. Then lower, tracing reverence across her chest—searing it into her velvet skin with lips and breath and longing. Not taking. Worshiping.
She gasped, her hands rising to his shoulders, hesitancy melting by the moment.
“That…long?”
He hummed, his fingers squeezing her waist, wrenching another gasp from her.
“Why—” she began, faltering when his mouth brushed just beside the swell of her breast, “why haven’t you done this before?”
He looked up at her then, dazed by the soft, languid swell of her lips. The flush on her cheeks. The way her damp hair curled against her neck.
“You’re quite curious today, starlight,” he said, brushing his nose against her skin playfully.
She laughed—flustered and breathless all at once—and buried her face into the crown of his head, clutching him closer.
And gods, he didn’t deserve that sound. Not after pushing her away. But he’d take it. He’d earn it. With every kiss. Every touch.
Her hands fluttered up, tentative, then bolder, until her fingers threaded into his hair—gently at first, then more firm when he moved to kiss along the slope of her neck.
She still smelled like those Voids-damned bath oils.
Florals and spice, something sweet and sharp, like citrus and feverroot.
Someone had broken into the sealed inventory to offer them as a tribute.
He’d scold them for it later. Or thank them. He quite liked this smell on her.
Her hair was a silken whisper across the back of his hand when he cupped her head again, and her skin—stars, her skin—was too smooth, too soft, like the promise of everything he’d spent years trying to forget he wanted.