CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The world swam into focus, not with the gentle fade of dawn, but with a disorienting kaleidoscope of color and blurred scenery.
One moment there was nothing. The next, cold air filled my lungs, strong with the mineral scent of wet stone and iron.
I blinked slowly, forcing my vision to steady as obsidian walls rose around me. Their polished surfaces caught the cavern’s spectral glow, reflecting fractured, ghostly images of myself back at me.
Talon’s cave.
My chest tightened at the realization, hope and dread colliding so sharply, it had my hands clenching by my sides. Damp moss clung to my bare feet as I stood, the lush texture under my soles tickling me.
I walked forward, guided by the sound of the river, until I reached the bank.
Talon stood waist-deep in the water, strands of ink-black hair plastered against the planes of his face. He moved through the current with a quiet power that seemed to bend the very water toward his will.
When he lifted his head, droplets slid from his skin and vanished into the glow below, leaving trails of light in their wake.
I moved closer and lowered myself onto the stone at the river’s edge. The surface retained a faint warmth from some internal heat of the mountain, but it did nothing to stop the shiver that passed through me when my toes brushed the frigid water.
When Talon’s gaze lifted to mine, no surprise lingered there.
“Why did you invite me here, Talon?”
“You must know why, little flame.” His head tilted. “And, it was not very hard. You went to sleep with me heavy on your mind.”
I pursed my lips and fixed my eyes on the rocky bank behind him. “Are you in bed with me right now?”
Talon dipped his hands into the water thoughtlessly, his eyes darkening as he remained silent.
I bit down on my bottom lip in an attempt to stop it from trembling and blinked furiously to prevent any tears from falling.
He waded forward, leaving little glimmers of light in the disrupted stillness. When he was close enough that I could feel the warmth of his bare chest grazing my knees, his hands perched on the bank, on either side of my legs.
“I needed space,” he said softly. “I am preparing for an ambush at any moment.”
“I understand,” I nodded, my eyes still locked on a stone beyond his head. “But, you are also upset with me.”
Without warning, he bent forward and pressed his mouth to my knee briefly, before his lips traced upward along my thigh. Heat gathered low in my body at the feel of his damp lips trailing cool water on my skin.
“I am hurt, Kaelia.”
Hot grief flooded me, stinging the back of my throat.
He lifted his head, his hands slowly working the way under the hem of my nightgown “Why must you go against me?”
My fingers tangled in his wet hair, desperate for something that would ground me to him. He only stared until I managed to croak out the truth. “I only wanted to do what was right.”
“Right for whom?” His hands tightened on my thighs, not enough to bruise, but enough to remind me I could not pull away without his permission.
“That decision belonged to both of us. You have put my kin at risk. You have placed your family in danger. You may have forced a conflict neither side was prepared for.”
My hands clamped down on his wrists. “It was right by Xylos.”
His lips turned down, jealousy swimming through his irises. “Why must you feel so much for a man you do not know?”
“It is called empathy, Talon,” I bit out. “I cannot live here and act as though an innocent man is not dying right beneath my feet.”
Talon’s fingers loosened from around my legs, his nails dragging down the length of my thigh as he lowered his hands into the water.
“He lived in that cell many years before you came along,” he grumbled.
“That does not make it a sentence worth prolonging,” I said softly, watching my legs sway through the water absentmindedly. “He does not remember his crime.”
“Pardon me?”
I sighed and looked up at him. “He does not know who Thora is.”
His brows furrowed. “Well, he is lying to you.”
“How do you know that?” I snapped, my legs stilling in the water. “He was down there for a long time. Maybe his mind is protecting him from the truth.”
I paused for a heartbeat and at Talon’s silence, I kicked my leg out, sending a wave of water toward him. “Or maybe there is no truth?”
Talon’s nostrils flared as he moved closer. He flattened his palms against the wet stone, and lifted himself out of the water until his bare feet planted on either side of my hips and his flaccid length was level with my forehead.
I looked up at him with wide eyes, my gaze trailing down his corded, inked thighs dripping with water, before settling on his pubic bone that adorned a beautiful piece of ink.
A short breath of air escaped me at the sight of his shaft lengthening beneath my stare. The pink tip glistened in the glowing sheen of water and I subconsciously licked my lips at the thought of feeling him inside of me again.
“Do you believe I am the liar then, little flame?” he growled.
A drop of water slid off his hip bone and onto my parted lips. My tongue darted out, collecting the luminous bead.
“No,” I whispered, before shaking my head. “I am not sure what to believe anymore.”
His hand settled atop of my head, thick fingers weaving through the unruly locs. He roughly pulled the strands, causing a shocked gasp to escape me, and it allowed me to meet his eyes over the rigid length of him. “Thora exists, I can tell you that much.”
“Yeah?” I rasped. “Where is her body?”
“No more than a bunch of bones in a sealed off cell.”
I cringed at his nonchalant tone. “That is terrible.”
“It was not my decision,” he grunted. “She died long before I took reign over Umbral.”
I licked my lips and nodded, my nose bumping into the silken head of him with the motion.
His eyes pierced into me with a delicious heat, his hand trailing down the side of my face and softly tracing over the freckles on my cheekbone.
“I would never let a hand lay upon you,” he said firmly. “No matter the reason it is aimed toward you.”
My lips quivered, my eyelids almost falling shut as relief and guilt fought for dominance. I leant forward and pressed a tender kiss to his hip bone. “Thank you.”
Talon’s finger moved down the side of my face, until his index finger hooked under my jaw and lifted my head up. “I need to know that I can trust you, Kaelia.”
Without taking my eyes off of him, I scooted up the mossy bank.
My hands shook as I slowly peeled the night gown from my body, and once the cool air hit my chest, my skin raised in gooseflesh.
My nipples hardened, and whether it was from the cold or a dire want, I was not sure.
The satin fabric dropped into a silent heap by my legs.
“I will never go behind your back again, Talon,” I murmured, straightening slightly until my nipples grazed his shin bones. “I promise.”
Appreciation crossed his face, his brows dropping ever so slightly in relief. “Show me what you want.”
I swallowed, the sound loud in the humid silence of the cavern, and leaned forward. I pressed a lingering kiss to the velvet head of his shaft, the heat of him searing against my lips. Talon hissed, and his inked fingers wrapped firmly around the base, guiding him toward my waiting mouth.
I looked up at him through my lashes, seeing the navy starlight of his eyes darkened by a hunger that bordered on predatory. I opened for him, my tongue swirling around the crown before I took him deep, my throat tightening around the staggering length of him.
Talon groaned, his hips jerking in a reflexive twitch, his knuckles turning white where they gripped the root of his manhood.
After a few punishing strokes that had me gasping for air, he reached down and hauled me up by my underarms. He did not use the gentleness I was used to. He handled me with a rough, singular focus that made my blood sing with submission.
“Enough,” he rasped.
He pushed me back onto the mossy bank, my skin flushing as the cool air bit at my damp chest. I watched him move, a god of shadow and muscle, as he positioned himself between my knees.
He grabbed my ankles and shoved my legs back until my knees were pinned toward my shoulders, leaving me utterly exposed to his gaze.
“So desperate, little flame,” he murmured. “You are glistening for me.”
“Yes,” I moaned, my hands gripping at a chunk of moss.
His finger teased my slick entrance, tracing through the seam and collecting a string of arousal.
“I have never had a favorite color,” he mused, bringing his wet finger to his mouth and licking it clean. “But this shade of pink may change my mind.”
I could not answer, my breath hitching as he nudged his thick, weeping length against my entrance.
He did not wait. He drove forward in one deep, unrelenting surge.
A shocked cry tore from my throat as my body stretched to accommodate the sheer breadth of him.
The force of the impact jarred me upward, my bare back scraping against the rough earth.
Small twigs and shards of stone dug into my skin, the stinging pain only heightening the exquisite agony of the fullness between my thighs.
He did not give me time to settle. He withdrew almost entirely before slamming back into me with a force that made the world fracture.
“I would,” he grunted, his hips crashing against my pubic bone with a sound like a physical blow. He pulled back, then drove in deeper, his pelvis grinding into mine. “Do anything for you.”
I clawed at the bank, my fingers digging into the dirt as he began a punishing rhythm. Each time he lunged forward, he drove me further up the stone, the debris of the cavern floor marking my skin.
“No matter the betrayal,” he hissed, leaning down until his sweat-slicked chest pressed against my aching breasts. He caught my wrists and pinned them above my head with a single hand, his other hand sliding down to grip my jaw, forcing me to look into the storm of his eyes.