32. Asha
Asha
Istare at Leith.
“That is the worst plan I’ve heard since six immortal idiots decided killing me would solve their problems.”
“It isn’t a plan yet,” Leith says. “It’s a principle.”
“A terrible principle.”
Tobin’s attention sharpens. He looks from Leith to the empty patch of ground where Yseld vanished. “No. He may be right.”
“Don’t encourage him.”
“The ritual requires four currents. Death is one of them.” Tobin gestures towards Leith. “That can’t be incidental.”
Hale steps closer to me, fire still burning over his fingers. “We aren’t killing her.”
“I said fake,” Leith replies.
“You said enough to convince an ancient ritual.”
“Which is different.”
“Not different enough.”
I drag both hands through my wet hair and squeeze out more water. It runs down my back, adding to the growing list of reasons I want to destroy SilverGate.
“We need the book,” I say. “Not theories about murdering me cleverly.”
“We don’t know where the book is.”
“Then we find it.” A pulse hits beneath my marked skin. Gold and purple light flares up my forearm, bright enough to illuminate the wet fabric clinging to me.
The mark burns again.
This time, power pulls beneath my feet.
I stagger. Hale catches me around the waist before I hit the ground, hauling me against his chest. Heat rolls through his soaked clothes. His grip stays firm while the world shifts under me.
The academy grounds vanish.
For one sharp second, I see black towers beneath a raging sky. Lightning tears across the clouds. My throne room burns with purple fire, and a figure stands before the sealed gate with one hand pressed to its surface.
Then SilverGate crashes back into place.
“You have got to stop teasing me,” I grit out. “It’s cruel.”
I see the irony in that and loftily ignore it. I glance around the area we were shunted out onto. “Where exactly are we?”
“The north side,” Leith says.
I turn my head sharply. “Where the book said the gate was.”
He nods.
“We can’t do this without the book,” Tobin points out.
“We can’t do anything if she dies,” Hale argues.
“We need order,” I say, feeling my old authority seeping back. “Book first, figure out ritual second, and lastly, how Leith plans to fool the gate long enough to let me pass.”
“And when you do pass?” Hale asks. “What then?”
“I reclaim my body, my throne, punish everyone who betrayed me, and restore my realm to proper order.”
His green-gold eyes hold mine. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
The burning under my skin eases, leaving the marks dim again. Hale’s arm remains around my waist. He isn’t asking what happens to StormGate. He’s asking what happens to them.
That answer requires feelings, and I’ve already endured enough today.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know whether the gate will let you through. I don’t know what will happen once I’m back in my own body. I don’t even know how much time has passed there.”
Hale’s grip shifts. “Would you leave us here?”
The question strikes me hard.
“No,” I say. “Not if you don’t want to stay.”
It’s a loaded question and throws the flame right back at them. I’m not making that decision for them. That’s up to them to figure out.
I start walking back to the main campus. “I need a shower, food and sleep. Tomorrow, we will figure out how to find that book. The rest can wait.”
“The rest will have to wait,” Tobin mutters, but I hear him anyway.
I ignore it and increase my pace, hitting the courtyard and getting lost in the students milling around. I aim for the residence tower and find relief when I slip up the stairs to my room with the guys silent but still attached to me.
“You can go now,” I state.
Hale glares at me. “We are going to shower and change in record time, and then we will all go to the dining hall. Agree?”
“Fine,” I say and slam the door. I have no intention of going to eat alone.
But they don’t need to know I’m desperate for their company.
I strip off my soggy clothes and dump them in the laundry basket, which appears to have been emptied.
I frown and look around to see that my clothes have been washed, dried, folded, and stacked neatly on the end of my bed.
“Nice,” I murmur and move to the en-suite.
Turning on the shower, I wait for it to heat up, and as soon as I see steam, I step under with a groan.
Hot water pounds over my head and shoulders, washing away black water, blood and whatever filth lived in that chamber.
I scrub every inch of myself twice. It still doesn’t feel like enough.
I died in that water.
My hands stop against my hair.
The knowledge sits differently now. Z-man and the others didn’t weaken me before casting me out.
They killed me. SilverGate caught my soul or whatever the fuck I possess and created this body for me to land in.
It fucking caught me because those three idiots are here and probably also Yseld. And maybe Blackridge as well.
“Fate,” I mutter, pissed off. “I hate you.”
The water changes temperature without warning, turning viciously cold.
I jump back with a curse and glare at the showerhead. “Not you,” I hiss.
It warms up again. I smile. “In fact, you are probably the best thing about this place.”
It heats up some more, and I sigh blissfully as the water takes on a jet-like quality and massages my aching shoulders. “I love you.”
“Talking to the shower?” Hales asks, suddenly appearing.
“Breaking and entering?” I respond.
“Entering I’ll admit to. Breaking is a false accusation. The door was unlocked. You really should lock it, you know. Especially if you’re in the shower.”
“Yes, sir,” I mutter.
Wrong words. It seems to light a fire in him, and despite his fresh, dry clothes, he shoves the shower door aside and steps in. Water drenches him instantly, darkening his auburn hair and soaking through his shirt.
His hand closes around my jaw, tipping my face up. The fire in his eyes burns hotter than anything the shower can manage. “You scared me.”
The blunt confession stills me.
I put my palms against his chest. The aggression is there. Hale doesn’t know how to exist without it. “I came back.”
He doesn’t speak; he kisses me, his hands going to my waist to lift me against the cold tiles.
My legs lock around his waist on instinct. His clothes scrape against my bare skin, wet and heavy, while the shower beats down over both of us.
I kiss him back with equal force and fist one hand in his hair. He needs this. I can feel it in the violence he keeps restrained, in the tension running through every muscle, in the way his fingers press into my waist.
I fumble for his belt, undoing it quickly and then slide his zip down. I want his cock. I want it more than anything.
Gripping his cock in my hand, I moan into his mouth and scramble to get higher so I can slide over it.
He helps me, guiding his thick length into my pussy with one thrust.
“Fuck, yes,” I moan. “More.”
He drives into me hard enough to knock the breath out of my chest, tiles cold at my back and his body scalding everywhere else.
Water sluices between us, but nothing washes away the desperate edge in the way he holds me, like I might slip through his hands again if he loosens his grip for even a second.
“Say it again,” he growls against my throat.
“More,” I gasp, and he gives it to me, thrusting deep and fast.
I claw at his back through his soaked shirt, wanting it gone, wanting nothing between us. He must feel the same because he tears at it one-handed, ripping the seam, and flings the ruined fabric over the shower door, where it lands with a wet slap on the floor.
“Better,” I pant.
He grins against my mouth, feral and pleased. He hitches me higher against the tiles, and the new angle drags a rough sound out of both of us. His skin is furnace-hot even under the hot spray, and I press my palms flat against his chest just to feel his heart slamming under my hands.
He fucks me like he’s trying to prove something to himself, hard and unrelenting, one hand braced against the tile beside my head, the other gripping my hip hard enough to bruise. I don’t care. I want the marks.
“Hale.” His name comes out sharper than I mean it to.
His eyes snap to mine, green-gold and furious and deep with lust. “Say it again.”
“Hale.” I drag my nails down his spine.
He groans, low and rough, and drives into me harder, chasing that sound like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered. His mouth finds my throat, teeth scraping without breaking skin, a promise more than a bite.
“Again,” he growls.
“Hale,” I gasp, and this time it cracks in the middle because he’s hit something deep and perfect, and I lose the thread of my thoughts.
His grip on my hip tightens. He fucks me like he’s furious at the universe for taking me under that water, like every thrust is an argument he intends to win. I meet him for it, rolling my hips, dragging my nails down his back again just to feel him shudder.
The water turns lukewarm, then hot again, sluicing down over both of us in unpredictable waves that neither of us bothers to complain about.
He pins me harder against the tiles, and I feel the exact moment his control finally snaps all the way.
His thrusts turn ragged, less calculated, more instinct, and I welcome every bit of it.
This is what I wanted. Not the arrogant hellhound who thinks he owns me.
Just him, stripped down to the parts that scare him.
It brings my climax crashing over me hard enough that my vision whites out at the edges. My body locks around him, and he swears against my throat, thrusting once, twice more, before he follows me over with a rough groan that vibrates through his chest and into mine.
“Now we can eat,” he says with a smirk that makes me roll my eyes. He drops me lightly to the floor.
“And then sleep. Alone,” I say before he can decide he’s joining me.
“You can sleep alone in the bed. We will be here to protect you.”
I sigh inwardly and leave it. It’s like fighting a mountain.
I turn off the water and watch with amusement as Hale peels the rest of his wet clothes off. “Back you go to your own room, and take your clothes with you. I’ll see you in five minutes.”
He grabs his shirt off the floor, wrings it out with one hard twist in the sink, and gives me a look that says he’s already planning to argue about the five minutes.
“Four,” he says.
“Five.”
“You’re wasting time negotiating.”
“You’re wasting time standing here naked, dripping on my bathroom floor.”
He grins, unbothered, and finally stalks out, leaving a trail of water. I towel off before pulling on fresh clothes from the neatly folded stack on my bed. Dark jeans, dark tee, that matches my mood.
I towel dry my hair and pull my brush through it, scraping it back into a bun that I stab pins into with a viciousness that my stupid hair doesn’t deserve.