Chapter 24
Amelia
The army stopped as they waited to see who’d survived the blast.
Amelia could wait no longer. She needed to know if he was missing. She urged her horse into a gallop and raced off towards the mine.
“Wait!” she heard Danae cry.
But she couldn’t.
Danae’s horse galloped after her. She would soon catch up. She rode until her lungs burned and the sign of the army finally came into sight. Dust rose in the distance, dark against the fiery cloud behind it.
The sky lightened with the approach of morning as she urged her horse forward, faster.
She sobbed as she saw Casyl at the front, leading his men.
He galloped straight towards her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, concerned. He looked behind her to see Danae approaching.
“I couldn’t wait. We felt the blast, and the scout said part of the army was missing. I had to know if you were okay.” She looked him up and down and noticed that he was injured.
The surviving fae soldiers bore the marks of the blast. Pieces of their armour had been torn away.
“We got as far away as we could before the explosion, but the rear ranks disappeared in the blast. We searched for them, but I suspect the earth entombed them.” His eyes were framed with dark circles against his pale skin.
They would become living ruins. Amelia shuddered.
He winced as he moved his arm towards her. That was when she saw the extent of his injuries.
His left side had suffered the most. Open wounds ran down his torso and arm with shrapnel embedded into his skin. He was missing some of his armour, too.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, noticing her concern.
“We’re fine too,” Ruven said, coming up behind Casyl.
“Where is Elthar?”
“He’s stopped near the mountain, waiting for your return.”
Casyl said something to Danae in fae before they galloped onwards to rejoin Elthar.
He sent out scouts. The blast and the remaining plume were sure to draw some attention.
Elthar and his army had waited where she’d left them.
She looked at Elthar sheepishly as he came to meet them.
“I’m sorry, Casyl. She left before I could stop her. Were you successful?” Elthar asked, clasping his hand. Casyl winced at the contact.
He nodded. “We lost some men, but the mine is sealed. The Lifesource is buried beneath it.”
Until humans found a way to reopen it, she thought. Their greed would not remain buried with the Lifesource. She could only hope enough time would pass and they would forget, although that seemed unlikely.
“The men need to rest, and so do you from the looks of it. We’ll camp here for a few hours before we continue,” Elthar said, and Casyl didn’t argue.
Amelia led him to the makeshift tent that had been erected for them. He lay down and allowed her to undress him and clean his wounds.
Debris covered his skin. She removed as much as she could, but some fragments remained embedded too deeply.
It reminded her of the time she’d shared his tent after the battle between them and Elthar’s forces, when they’d had to rescue Tharos from the enemy’s camp. He’d been injured then, and she’d wanted to touch him, to help him.
He flinched as she removed a large shard from his shoulder. His jaw tightened.
“Where else hurts?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Tell me,” she ordered.
He was silent for a moment and then gestured to a part of his back.
“I’m not used to admitting pain.”
“I can tell.”
“Visible weakness was something Tiryn used to mock or punish.”
She winced at the thought of Casyl being hurt as a child and having to conceal his pain.
“Will you stay here?” he asked.
She frowned, not wanting to think of their parting.
“I won’t ask you to abandon your world for me.”
She could not ask him the same. He could not remain here after what his people had done.
“If I do stay?” she asked.
“Then I’d have to let you go.”
“Just like that?”
“No.” His gaze held hers. “But I won’t make a prisoner of you again.”
He fell asleep, and she lay down next to him, careful not to touch his wounds. She must have dozed off, because when she woke up, his eyes opened to meet hers.
She looked down at his body and saw that his wounds had begun to heal, but she could see that they were healing over the shrapnel. His flesh was knitting around the fragments, trapping them beneath his skin. The fragments seemed to pulse with a blue tinge as she touched them.
He flinched.
“Does it still hurt?” she asked.
“Not as badly,” he said, a trace of mischief returning to his expression. He rolled towards her and cupped her waist, sliding his hand beneath her shirt as his mouth met hers.
They were in the middle of the camp, surrounded by men outside the tent. She could hear them talking and walking around, making ready, but she shut all of that out.
It could be their last moment together. She cared only for the warmth of his skin. His mouth remained on hers as he eased her trousers down.
He paused, bracing his weight above her.
“Tell me to stop.”
Amelia took his hand and placed it against her waist. She once feared his touch, but now she leaned into it. “Don’t stop.”
She kicked the trousers away as his hand slid back up to her chest, cupping her breast, teasing her as he pressed his body closer against her.
Amelia ran her fingers over his bare chest, tracing the intricate tattooed lines that followed the contours of his muscles, moving carefully around the buried fragments beneath his skin.
He seemed carved from something harder than flesh, yet here, with her, he had allowed himself to be unguarded.
He let her touch what he kept hidden from the world.
He searched her face once more.
She drew him closer, desire tightening low inside her, throbbing between her thighs. She pressed against him, and he moaned into her mouth before easing into her in one slow movement.
The length of him filled her, emptying her mind, leaving no room for anything else.
She clung to his back and wrapped her legs around his waist, drawing him deeper as she buried her face in his shoulder to stifle her cries.
With each thrust, the pleasure gathered inside her until a whimper slipped from her.
It was his undoing.
His rhythm faltered.
He pressed his forehead against hers. His dark, wavy hair fell across her face as their bodies arched together.
She felt him tense and pulse inside her, and the sensation carried her over with him.
Her fingertips dug into his back as pleasure swept through her.
She bit her lip, but a cry still escaped as he unearthed something in her she’d kept buried even from herself.
His hands held her as she came apart beneath him.
He lowered himself carefully against her as they both fought for breath.
The world had stood still for those moments of pleasure. She wished they could stay like this, but the reality of their situation dawned.
The sounds of the men outside the tent grew louder, and she knew they were preparing to move out.
“I think we need to get dressed,” she said.
Casyl kissed her again, slowly this time, his mouth lingering on hers.
He lifted his head. The rawness in his expression made her feel more exposed than her nakedness.
In that moment, she didn’t know whether she could give him up—whether she could watch him return to his world without knowing if she would ever see him again.
“I love you,” he said.
She was about to say it back when he put his finger to her lips.
“Don’t,” he said. “I know. Let’s not make this harder.”
Tears ran down her face. This couldn’t get any harder.
She gently moved his finger from her lips. He would not stop her from saying it.
“I love you.”
Outside the fabric walls, the activity in the camp grew louder, taunting her with its reality. Men called to one another as they gathered weapons and saddled their horses.
Casyl lay beside her, one hand resting against the small of her back. Neither of them said another word. She didn’t know how long they had left alone together.
Amelia listened to his heartbeat until the order to move came. Only then did they gather the clothes scattered around them.