Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Stone
Stone was fucked.
Moonlight spilled over Aesira’s skin, highlighting the water droplets that clung to her hair and lashes. He didn’t mean to tell her he’d dreamt of her, but with the moon and her eyes…
He knew they were pretending for the sake of the trip, but he was so enraptured by her that the truth slipped out.
“You dreamt of me when we drank the tea?” She frowned, a tiny crease forming between her brows.
“Yes,” he said. Her legs were still wrapped around his waist, so he anchored his hands on her hips hoping she’d stay put. “I didn’t know how to tell you, so I made up the Ravki–”
“I dreamt of you too.” A smile crept over her lips and he wasn’t sure if she meant to, but her legs tightened around his middle.
She desired him and the thought alone had his skin scorching.
Was it reckless that they’d both lied about seeing visions of Ravki in their dreams? Maybe. Did it make his heart race and his stomach tighten knowing that she’d thought of him, possibly in the same depraved way he’d thought of her? Absolutely.
There was more he wasn’t saying. He wanted to tell her of all the times he’d dreamt of her, but he couldn’t find any words that didn’t make him sound so desperate.
“So who will we pretend to be tonight?” His fingers drifted over her skin, pebbled from the cold of the spring. Maybe he’d tell her one day, of all the dreams he’d had, but tonight this was enough. The fact that she was even in his arms, was enough.
“Hm.” Aesira scrunched her nose. “Maybe tonight I’m a free spirit. A drifter.” She laced her fingers behind his neck. “Wouldn’t it be easier to erase our last names?” she said. “Scratch them from the parchment. Start over. Be nobody.”
“Is that what you wish to be? No one?”
“Sometimes,” she said through a sigh. “Sometimes I wish I was brave enough to run away from the Order. I wish I never became the person they wanted me to be.”
He stroked a piece of hair from her face. “And what is wrong with this person? I see someone who is brave and cunning. Respected by her knights. Loved by her family.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Someone who is insanely beautiful.”
He’d hoped she’d smile but instead she frowned and a pit of worry grew in stomach, unfurling like a fresh sprout. “This person,” she said, “has made one too many mistakes. If I were no one, I could erase them.”
She couldn’t know it, but that was all Stone wanted too.
It’s why he was here. Why he was determined to find Ravki–find astra.
It was why he made the terms to get the others out of prison before they came.
All they wanted was to be somebody forgotten, erased from memory, so they could finally have a fresh start.
“So what do you say, tonight we’re no one?”
"Sure." He stroked his hand down her back, settling on the crook of her hip. “I could be nobody with you,” he said.
She smiled then and his heart, a wild thing he'd kept caged for a very long time, threatened to escape. Her eyes traced his lips, before she leaned in and met him with a soft kiss. It was brief, barely-there, but he felt it in every ounce of blood flowing in his body, electric.
Pretend with me. Lie to me. Let this desire consume us both.
She kissed him again, stealing his breath.
She tasted sweet like dates, her lips were cold, her tongue warm, her body still tangled around his.
He could get lost in this–in her. In the past, kissing and intimacy were simply nothing more than a task to be marked done but with Aesira, his heart raced and his overly loud mind quieted and it didn’t feel like something he had to do, but wanted to do.
Needed to do.
He cupped the back of her head, holding her tightly to him so he could kiss her deeper.
Her fingers tangled in his hair, her legs still around his middle.
A small voice in the back of his mind reminded him that they were pretending.
That she was somebody so far out of his reach. That this wasn’t real.
Then her lips met his neck and that voice inside his head went completely quiet and he focused on all the ways her lips moved against his skin, all the things her simple touch did to his body. How it made him feel alive.
There was movement under the water, rippling the surface and brushing against his leg, making him jolt away. “What happened?” Aesira’s eyes went wide and then without any warning, she was pulled under the water.
“Aesira!” Stone dropped below the surface, the icy spring water burning his eyes and nose. The dark was endless, only a few shards of moonlight piercing through the water’s surface.
Another slither against his leg. He spun, arms fanning around him.
Searching and failing. His lungs burned as he broke through the surface, took another large inhale, then dove back under where a serpentine body darted around him.
He planted his feet firmly to the bottom of the spring, mud and rocks scraping against his toes.
Thick scales were rough against his chest as the beast circled tighter and tighter. He thrashed in the water, kicking his feet up, up, letting his instincts take hold, until his face breached the surface, just long enough to take a precious inhale, before the monster yanked him back down.
Its snake-like body wrapped around him, its long, dark tongue darting out, pressing against his face, his neck. His head dizzied, his vision blurred. He wouldn’t last more than a few minutes, and Aesira…
He fought against the massive beast, finding its gills and punching straight into them, clawing with his nails at the tender flesh of its underbelly. All he needed to do was get away from the beast and stand, break through the surface, fill his lungs. Find her.
Move faster, Stone.
Hit harder.
Never let it go dark.
Dark.
It was so fucking dark, but through the murk and the pain of the water snake tightening around him, he could make out the blurry shape of the moon.
Stand up, Stone.
With new determination, his nails dug deeper until the beast thrashed around him, a gurgled screech leeching from its maw.
He gathered the last of his strength and when the beast opened its mouth, black tongue darting out, he caught it with his hand. Stone twisted the tongue around and around until the screeching bled into his ears and the beast let him go.
He crashed through the surface, a gnawing, endless pain spreading through his chest.
“Aesira!” He scanned the pool, it was eerily still. Calm. As if the water didn’t realize what it housed below its depths. The thought had him flying for the shore.
Clawing his way through the rocks, he laid on his back, steadying his breathing enough to jump to his feet. “Aesira!”
The trees groaned, wind curling through their branches, rippling the water across the spring.
“Stone!” His name caught on the wind, but it wasn’t her voice.
Birdie.
“Stone!” His bare feet slammed against the rocks, but he ran through the pain until he saw her on the distant shore. Aesira laid half in the water, half out, Birdie and Bee clutching her shoulders. Blood dripped from her nose, her curly hair spread out beneath her in a tangled mess.
He pulled her out of the water and wrapped her in his arms, covering her as best he could, rubbing his hands over her arms to warm her.
“Fuck.” He examined her face, her arms and legs. “Is she alive?” His pulse pounded up his throat, in his ears.
“Somehow, yes,” Bee said. “We heard you scream.” She tossed him Aesira’s shirt and he placed it over her.
“Aesira,” he whispered against her ear.
“She’s unconscious.” Birdie stood and toed the edge of the water. Stone nearly ripped her back in case the beast was lurking just beneath but Aesira coughed and grabbed all of their attention.
“Commander.” He pushed her hair from her forehead. “A rough go?”
A half-hearted smile split across her lips, then she held up a tiny blade, vile green ooze dripping from its edge. “Good thing I had Kamari's pathetic blade.”
“Where were you possibly hiding that?” Bee scanned over Aesira’s almost naked body, save for her undergarments.
She shrugged then sat up with another wet cough. “Always be prepared.”
“I wasn’t.” Stone’s body ached, his lungs still reeling from exertion.
“But you’re both alive, that’s what matters.” Bee offered her jacket to Aesira which she took and draped over her shoulders.
She closed her eyes, her breathing deep so Stone guided her back down until her head rested in his lap. He brushed her hair from her face. “Hey,” she said. “Looks like us nobodies have cheated death, again.”
Aesira was still asleep as the first beams of sunlight bled through the treetops.
Stone was grateful he’d woken up early enough to start packing the camp and still get to steal a few minutes of unbridled staring.
Orange light kissed her skin, highlighting the shape of her strong nose and full lips.
Small bits of dried blood still lined her nose, making his stomach wretch.
Fuck.
Last night.
They’d been so close to doing something that they'd never be able to take back. If they hadn’t been interrupted, who knows how far things would have gone. Who knows how it would have changed things between them.
He’d walked away from her once before, before he really knew her because even then he knew there could never be a future between someone like him and someone like her. She came from a family of power. Royalty. Money.
And he was a rat on the street people like her family were constantly attempting to get rid of.
An insect under pristine boots.
“Good morning,” Aesira groaned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Morning.”
She sat up and stretched. Stone joined her. His muscles were stiff from the last several days of travel but the ache reminded him of how far they’d come, how little time they had left until they found Ravki.
“I’m starving.” Aesira smiled as Stone handed her a few handfuls of dried meat. “Where are Birdie and Bee?”