59 #2
The world spreads out beneath us like something dreamed into existence—tiny houses and neat gardens, vineyards and rice fields stitched together in careful patterns.
Horse-drawn carriages winding along pale roads.
Villages tucked against rivers where people bathe and fish, unaware of the angel and the girl passing silently above them.
When we finally land on a mountaintop, he lowers me carefully to my feet, his hands lingering just long enough to remind me they were there at all. The air hums with magic, a low vibration that settles under my skin, buzzing like a living thing.
“Here,” he says, his voice darker now. “The holes are mainly here.”
I swallow, forcing my feet to stay planted as my head still spins—not from the flight, but from everything else. I nod, staring at the invisible line before me, something I can sense with unsettling clarity but cannot see.
“I…I’m not sure I’m strong enough,” I admit quietly.
I keep my eyes down. Not because I don’t want to look at him, but because I’m afraid of what he might see in me if I do.
“You aren’t,” he says, holding out his hand again. “That’s why I’m going to share my magic with you. If you…allow it.”
My eyes widen, and now I do look at him. Was that an actual question? Did Caryan just ask me for permission for something?
He regards me coolly, but deep down, I know that it was some kind of offer. For what, I don’t know. Peace? Or something far more dangerous. Why does he even care?
I look down at his strong, large hand, blue-veined and beautiful as the rest of him.
I remember far too clearly how it felt to let Caryan’s magic into my body in his bedroom—the surrender, the loss of control, the intoxicating high that followed. How easily I’d given in. How much pleasure I’d let myself take from him.
And the worst part is that some treacherous part of me still wants it, even though I keep telling myself that that hunger doesn’t belong to Caryan.
That it never did. That it belongs to someone else entirely—someone I don’t get to want, someone whose absence still aches.
The shame of feeling that pull here, now, in Caryan’s presence, makes my stomach knot.
Yes, I let Caryan in once, but power-sharing is something else entirely. Deeper. More intimate. More dangerous.
If it feels anything like it did with Riven, I know it would sweep me away.
No. I can’t do this.
But I can’t let Avandal down either. I need to repair the wards. I need to protect them—my friends, their families, the town. And if this is what it takes to keep them safe, then I can do it.
“Alright,” I say quietly, before I can talk myself out of it, and place my hand in his.
The jolt at the contact is immediate, and he hasn’t even pushed his power into me yet. But touching him always feels like ecstasy in my veins. I draw in a steadying breath. I could do this…right?
His fingers close around mine, firm but also careful.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
No. “Yes,” I breathe.
“Good,” he murmurs, and his thumb brushes my knuckles. “Close your eyes.”
He closes his eyes, and for a heartbeat I can’t resist studying his face while he feels unobserved.
For a split second, the usual severity in his expression fades into something softer, almost boyish—and it does something to me.
I quickly mash my eyes shut, too, trying to will my shields down when I feel his magic brushing up against mine.
But nothing could have prepared me for this.
As soon as the barriers between us fall, his power surges beneath my skin—a living, fire-breathing beast—and my magic races to meet it.
They clash in the space between us like two dragons dancing through the sky, jubilant in their reunion, as though they were never meant to be apart for so long.
My back arches involuntarily as flaming ecstasy consumes me, setting every cell in my body on fire. Gods, if I thought what we did in his bedroom was good, then this is the hells-cursed epitome of it.
I risk a glance at him and tense when I find him watching me, his irises molten—an alloy of gold and silver—as my magic pours into him and his flows into me in return. So fucking beautiful.
“Sense the rips in the fabric of the wards,” he commands. “With your talent, you should be able to.”
I frown, sending my magic outward, letting it hunt for inconsistencies in the invisible structure before me. “Who made them?” I breathe when I stumble upon the most intricate patterns I’ve ever sensed—neatly interwoven, layered thick with spells.
“I did. Once,” he says quietly. “When this kingdom didn’t yet bear the name Avandal.”
“Why?” The question slips out before I can stop it. Creating something like this must have taken months. Years. Draining him day after day.
“Because I was its king once,” he answers darkly.
My heart picks up speed. Do the others know? Does anyone? I’ve found nothing like this in the archives.
“What happened to all the older books?” I ask. “There’s barely anything older than five hundred years.”
“They were destroyed.”
“By who?”
He snarls, irritation flashing, then forces the name out. “Kirachat.”
The word hangs between us, sharp and dangerous. Like a blade suspended overhead, ready to fall.
“The same one who hunted down the silver elves,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says, his face tense, his jaw a hard line. “Now concentrate.”
“I think I found one,” I say, my voice coming unsteady. “A rip. Right here. What now?”
He moves behind me.
He never breaks contact, careful not to sever the flow of our magic, but he lets go of my hand—and I gasp as his body replaces it. His palms settle on my waist, firm, unyielding, tightening when I instinctively try to shift away.
The effect is immediate.
Power surges through me, clawing at the inside of my skin, desperate for release.
Where Riven’s magic had been a cold, glittering, smoke-laced fire, Caryan’s is lava threaded with lightning and wrapped in silk—overwhelming, commanding, intimate in its force.
“You’ll need your hands to repair the wards,” he murmurs close to my ear, his breath brushing my neck.
I try to throw every inch of my focus on his words and the magic, tugging at his, while willing it to flow out of my hands, and not on the feeling of his hands on my body when he pushes my shirt up to touch my bare flesh.
My magic straight-out explodes at him being so close, at the feeling of skin on skin.
And oh my hells, I let it. My fingers weave the magic, threading silvery patterns as I focus on what the magic wants, my strange talent working all on its own to weave them, before working them into the fabric of the wall.
I press back against him without meaning to, needing—aching—for him to channel more into me.
His body molds to mine, solid and unyielding, his heat, his scent, his power everywhere .
A breathy moan tears from me when I feel him hardening against my ass.
Good gods. I bite down on my lip as I register just how hard he is, pressed shamelessly against me.
He drags me closer as I tug on his magic, his arms locking around my body, and before I can stop myself, I grind back against him.
He growls low in his throat, the sound feral and unrestrained, and it sends a thrill detonating through me—glittering through my veins, sharpening every sense, setting my flesh alight in that aching, brimming way only he can evoke.
Abyss. I can feel every inch of his desire pressed against me. It amplifies my talent tenfold, and the rush of it is intoxicating—too much, not nearly enough, all at once.
I force myself toward the next damaged stretch of the wall just as his fingers skim the waistband of my pants, nearly derailing me. I suck in a sharp breath, my entire world narrowing to the promise of his touch.
He snarls when he finds me already wet. I bite down on my tongue as he slips beneath my panties and pushes a finger inside me.
His other hand closes over my breast, rough and possessive, as he grinds me back against him, winding me tighter and tighter until I’m stretched so thin I’m shaking, strung to the breaking point.
But he doesn’t let me fall.
Just as I’m about to tip over the edge, he slows, drawing his finger out. He drags two fingers languidly along my slit, teasing, deliberate. He laughs softly when I move against him, desperate for more friction, for anything .
Then he threads a sliver of his unholy magic straight into my core.
Dear gods. No—
Every nerve there ignites—hot, aching, overwhelming—right as his finger slides back into me, and I shatter with a cry.
He grabs my chin and turns my head to him the very same moment, his lips swallowing my orgasm when he kisses me hard, his tongue sliding into my mouth, claiming me.
And it feels like a heatwave flaring up in my body, erupting in silvery light through my palms and fingertips.
I’m glowing now, my skin alight with magic that rushes underneath it, as if I’m a burning, silvery star on the horizon.
His magic wraps around me gently as it pours from him, dripping over my exposed flesh like black, molten wax.
I come again and again and again against his hand. Each time he wrenches another orgasm from me, I’m sure it has to be the last. It never is. My desire flares back to life, wild and insatiable.
His power fills me in a never-ending flow. His magic is endless. The well never empty.
It’s him who finally stops me—because I know I’d burn out eventually if we went on. His arms loosen gently around me, his erection still stone-hard against my pants. He lets me go, and I stagger a few steps back, reeling from the sudden loss of skin contact. From the strain. From all of it.
And then—standing in that meadow, surrounded by night and crickets—reality rushes back in. My skin is only faintly glowing now, competing with the fireflies whirling through the tall grass like glistening, lost snowflakes. Night has long since fallen.
What did I do?
What did I allow him to do?
Again, I can’t make myself meet Caryan’s gaze. Again, I remind myself that this is not the man I want. Not really. Not with my heart.
He’s been so cruel with me. So cold. So condescending.
But my treacherous body tells an entirely different story.
I ache for him with every inch of me. Every part. I ache for more than just this—more than his hand, his magic. And the most devastating truth—that I want him raw and sweat-slicked and brutal. I want him to ravage me. Possess me. Own me. Fuck me into submission.
I lift a hand to my forehead, only to find my skin damp with sweat.
“Let’s head back,” he says—and then he scoops me up into his arms again.