Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Aela awoke in her dreamscape. Whatever Tala had given her worked against the crystal bands and allowed her to sleep. The landscape of her dream shifted from Solara to Aries to her cave in The Spine on Prente, as if, for once, her dream didn’t know which place she needed most.
Too tired and relieved to be sleeping at all to recognize a dream from memory, Aela rolled on the hard pallet of blankets in her cave inside The Spine.
Groggily, she asked into her old hewn home, “How do I know this isn’t real?”
“Because if it were, we’d be on a much more comfortable bed.”
Jaelin. Eros?
Aela’s head whipped to the side, and she tugged her thin blanket farther over her naked body.
A memory. This is just a normal dream.
Yet the memory shifted from what she remembered with Jaelin into a different fantasy, one she always awoke from before her dream had a chance to run wild.
Her dream rippled around her, forming her bedroom in Neser.
Aela’s face grew slack when Jaelin’s bluff features morphed into Eros’ rugged beauty.
A pinch of salt was halfway to her mouth from the saltbox Eros had left on her bedside table. Eros then brought her hand to his mouth, wrapped his warm lips around her fingers, and sucked the salt clean. Aela surrendered to the dream she never allowed herself to have.
It’s just a dream, she assured herself.
She had been at a slow simmer for a while now.
If his words were true, that every male she ever took as a lover was him, then this dream was inevitable.
It made every extended glance, every time the air seemed to charge when she got close to him make sense.
Aela dragged her fingers slick from his tongue to her lips where their kiss from the asteroid still lingered.
What do I want?
In the safety of her dreams, she could admit that she wanted him.
Flicker.
Aela’s desire clouded over any lingering self-doubt. Though her plans involved returning to Avarice eventually, she had not intended to get captured again. With her future uncertain, she’d give herself this moment with Eros, tucked away in her dreamscape.
Her dream flickered them from her canopied bed in Neser into the sunken pool within her asteroid. Eros sat on an outcropping within the pool while Aela straddled his lap. His bronze skin was hot beneath her hands that rested on his chest.
“Timora,” he murmured. “Are you sure?”
Aela’s lips quirked. “Even here you call me that. Yes, I’m sure.
” Taking her time, she slid both hands to rest on either side of his neck.
“I’m still angry at you for not telling me you’ve been him, them…
But I keep coming back to you. What was it you said to me in my dreams? That you were sure we’d meet again?”
Eros’ hands slid to her hips, adjusting her seat on his thighs. “Something like that,” he ground out.
“I don’t know what the future holds for us, but I want this moment with you,” Aela confessed and leaned forward and placed a featherlight kiss on his jaw.
His fingers flexed on her hips.
“You want this?” he asked her again.
“Yes,” she breathed.
Their desire latched onto each other. Eros’ mouth collided with hers, devouring anything she’d give him.
Her mouth parted instantly, needing him everywhere at once.
His hard length strained against her thigh, and she undulated her hips, eliciting a groan from him.
He skimmed his hands up her sides, bracketing her ribcage.
His thumbs trailed the underside of her breasts, and she tore her lips from his on a ragged breath.
Eros pulled away to watch her face tighten with pleasure.
“Give me your eyes,” he commanded.
Aela obeyed, though her lids were heavy as she continued to move on him, staring into his golden depths.
“There she is,” he smirked as he adjusted his seat and nudged her entrance with his length. Aela moaned as he slid in, throwing her head back again at the fullness that stretched her from the inside.
Gods, I’ve been denying myself this?
They stilled their movements, allowing each other a moment to adjust. Eros’ breath was blazing on her skin.
He nuzzled her neck, licking and sucking as if he wanted to taste every piece of her that he could, like he also knew they only had this fleeting moment together.
Aela dragged her hands from where they had been resting on his shoulders to thread into his thick black hair at the back of his head, then resumed swiveling her hips.
The buoyancy of the water aided her movements, not that she needed it as Eros’ hands cupped her ass, and he worked in tandem with her, lifting her up and down on his cock.
Their bodies slick from the warm water and sweat came together, creating gentle ripples in the water.
The illicit sounds beneath the pool were muted, so only their breaths and gasps filled the cavernous air.
Aela slanted her lips over his, claiming his mouth, and Eros released her hips.
He wrapped a muscular arm around her back, and with his other hand, dipped it between them, seeking the area she needed to unravel from.
With expert fingers, Eros worked her clit in slow, tortuous circles. Like those fatesdamned apple stems.
Aela cried out, but he wasn’t done.
He looped his fingers through the long tresses of her hair before wrapping the full length around his fist. He pulled on her hair as he thrust deeper into her, keeping his fingers steady on her clit.
Aela shook her head from side to side as her release coiled tighter and tighter, burning a path down her spine and pooling low between her thighs.
She chased after her orgasm, riding his cock and rubbing herself against his fingers.
Eros brought her head closer and enveloped her mouth with his, darting his tongue inside her mouth.
He thickened inside her, pursuing his own release. He was everywhere, his arm behind her, hand between her thighs, and his length hitting the deepest part of her. Aela tore her face away from his and clenched around him, her eyes squeezing shut as her climax stormed out of her.
The surface of the pool rushed up, soaking their already slick bodies with warm water as it washed over them. Eros jerked his hips as his release jolted through her. Lightning flickered in her eyes.
When she could see again, Eros was a vision to behold. He was arguably the most powerful being in the realm, and she straddled his lap. His own undoing was evident on his face as he gazed at her like she was the only thing that mattered in existence.
As they came down from their highs, Aela knew something had shifted between them.
Even though this was a dream, she knew she couldn’t run from her brewing feelings.
Not after this. Not after knowing all they had shared together and how he had been there for her.
Her dream released him, though his body faded slowly, as if her dreamscape didn’t want him to leave.
With the Primary of Aries no longer under her, Aela sank to the bottom of the pool and replenished her magic with the crystals cradled in its depths.
Eros opened his eyes, finding himself in his bedroom in Neser.
He jolted in bed, the black sheets pooling around his hips as he took a shuddering breath.
He raked a hand through his wet hair and flung droplets of water onto the ground.
He set his feet on the intricate rug and leaned his elbows on his knees as he stared at his hands.
Hands that had been around Aela’s thighs, her back, anywhere he could reach and that she would allow him to touch.
Burn me without name.
He should be ecstatic. She was listening to her intuition, letting her Need pull at the tapestry of the realm and time and creating her own pattern. Yet the thought of her being near the Gods, even in a dream state, was too close. If his revenge was at hand, why did it fill him with such dread?
He shouldn’t have involved her at all.
I couldn’t stay away. I can’t stay away.
Perhaps it wasn’t too late to take her somewhere safe. But Eros knew that for the lie it was.
There is no safe place in Khemaida. Not until they are dealt with.
Eros cursed and shot to his feet. Darkness blew out of him as he lunged at the large chest supporting priceless artifacts of his successor and swiped a hand across the surface.
Crystals, carvings, weapons, and other trinkets shattered in the path his hand carved.
His chest heaved, and with the blackness consuming the light of his room, he felt like he was trapped again.
Imprisoned within his own realm, beating helplessly at his cage crafted from his own essence.
Seba slithered off his arm, offering what comfort a serpent could as he coiled around his arm and shoulders.
“This is unavoidable. You need her,” Seba said.
“I need her safe! They almost took her from me! If I hadn’t broken out in time, she would have been lost. We might never have been. Now I know I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve Khemaida. If I did, Fate wouldn’t have let them take it from me.” Eros panted into the dark.
“You don’t believe that. While Fate is many things, it maintains a balance above all.
The Fates spun you into existence for a reason.
The Gods can’t stand against you, and they know it.
That’s why they imprisoned you before you fully formed.
Aela is your match in every way. She is your anchor.
Each of you brings balance to the realm that must be corrected by defeating the Gods, freeing you, and setting Khemaida free. ”
She is my weakness. Eros thought.
With a swirl of magic, the havoc he had unleashed righted itself, whisking away the shattered crystal and broken artifacts. He summoned a fresh tactical suit, then opened the glass doors from his suite onto the balcony.
“She is your salvation and a true partner. Not a weakness. She will never forgive you if you set her to the side. That’s what so many have tried to do. They have tried to protect her by hiding her and keeping secrets from her.”
Eros considered his epoc’s words as he stared out over the waterfall and lake at the foot of the castle.
“Trust that she will do the right thing, as she trusts you to do as well.”
You’re saying I need to tell her.
“I know you won’t, but yes. The more you keep from her, the farther away she’ll slip, and the greater danger you pose to the realm. She is the key to your prison. You saw how the river slowed. The farther she is from you, the worse it will get.”
She can’t get near them, Seba.
Sebaserpens waited, knowing there was more Eros hadn’t admitted.
I already lost my realm. I can’t lose her too.