28. Kyros
Chapter twenty-eight
Kyros
I’ve come to realize nothing ever really goes to plan when it comes to Astraea.
This was certainly no different. When I brought her here, I didn't have much of a plan to begin with.
I wanted to help get her mind on something else, but as usual, I am powerless when it comes to her.
Whether she knows it or not, she has become my beginning and my end. Perhaps even the beginning of my end…
I had intended to bring her to The Pit to show her one of the few places where Mavros and I could blow off steam; eventually, Zinya and Viltarin too.
Adolescents with responsibilities far greater than one should have.
We used this place to escape the watchful eyes that were always trained on us.
Now, it makes me wonder just what they were watching for.
Even though we came here for respite, we oftentimes still found ourselves sparring in the center of this place, either under the unrelenting sun or a cold moon.
It didn’t matter, so long as we were together and not under scrutiny.
I had thought it was cold rage that I saw freezing Astraea’s features as she mourned a woman she didn’t know.
I could almost feel her pain as she saw it as a result of her father’s cruelty once again.
I'm not sure yet if what happened here was Connard’s or Phaedra’s doing.
Regardless, I thought she needed to get away like we often did.
Other people likely only saw her benevolence to another soul, but I saw the storm of smoke and raging heat in her searing blue eyes; felt the reflection of her soul within mine.
I thought maybe she needed an outlet for her anger, a release of violence she otherwise keeps trapped.
I don’t even know how many times I had needed just that, and I would always find myself here.
But when I pressed my hand to the delicate skin of her neck…
and once I felt that fluttering pulse under the palm—it begged for a different sort of release.
So now, I lead her through the dark tunnels beneath the woodlands that border Aithne with nothing but debased thoughts, causing my blood to roar.
I take her to a place that I never thought I would bring anyone else.
Somewhere that I never told anyone I’d ever found.
This cenote was hidden away from the world and had felt sacred and untouched.
I had always thought it should stay that way.
The first few times I stumbled upon this place, I did so by accident.
It seemed to call to me when I was feeling at my lowest. Perhaps that is what was beckoning me to come to The Pit now—to bring Astraea here.
To claim what I covet most in a place that feels as sacred as she does.
“Not too much further.” My words bounce off of the stone walls in the narrow passage as we make our way with only the torch to light our path.
My gaze drifts over my shoulder to catch sight of her expression when she says nothing, running my thumb back and forth across her knuckles as I keep hold of her hand.
Her cheeks are still tinted pink from my words before I pulled her into these tunnels.
She casts rounded eyes around the tunnel, taking in the high-arched-rocky ceilings.
The firelight flickers into the shadows and reveals glittering stalactites along the expanse.
Their long forms reflect like hot coals from a fire, hanging from the dark stone ceiling in deadly spears.
“This is incredible.” She says in a hushed yet astonished tone. I don’t think she's actually talking to me, as much as she is just thinking out loud, and I squint into the darkness between us as a smile slowly spreads across my face.
“You haven’t seen the best part.” I finally say just before we get to the entrance of the cenote.
I toss the torch I was carrying to the ground and kick dirt over the flames to quickly snuff the light out.
She gasps at the sudden darkness, and her grasp tightens on my hand, nearing pain.
I can’t help but smile wickedly as I use our connection to reel her into my body.
Wrapping my arms around her middle from behind, I slowly shuffle us a few steps further, through the natural archway that opens the tunnel up to the pool.
Only letting her go once she sees the magickal sight before us.
She takes a few steps before I thread my fingers through hers and take my place at her side.
Silver moonlight glints through the window created in the earth.
It illuminates the aquamarine waters like it holds its very own magick source beneath its depths.
My eyes adjust to the low luster of the moonlit alcove with just a few blinks, and I search only for the silver moons that are her eyes, to once again watch the ethereal splendor dance in her gaze.
“Kyros,” her lips part, my name tumbling out, and the sound of it does something to me on a primal level.
It makes everything in me come alive, fire flaring in my chest. My veins.
Heat encapsulates every dark inch of my foul soul.
A noise somewhere between a grunt and a growl comes from the back of my throat, and she turns toward the sound. Our eyes lock and we both lean in.
“Careful, Shula, the gods may think there is another deity you wish to worship with the way you just said my name.” Our mouths brush ever so slightly, and our breath mingles between our parted lips as I whisper a truth I have never voiced aloud.
“When I lost everything, I felt that the control I was always taught as a future king was ripped away from me. I had no say in the situation I was forced into. So suddenly, everything I knew changed. I felt that I had no power to command how my future was shaped.” She slides her dainty hands up my chest as I talk and brings her arms to wrap around my neck.
My hands easily find her waist, and we pull each other closer with every breath, each word whispered, and caress between us.
The way we fit together is so natural—so right.
I feel my heart thundering, my fingers trembling in a way that only she causes.
Regardless of the fact, I want more. I need more.
She is like a drug. The urge to have her is insatiable, and my resilience only seems to waver more quickly the more time I spend with her.
“Since then, and even more so since my magick manifested, control is all I have ever wanted to keep.”
Our breaths come quickened and tangle with each other just as we have in each other’s embrace. The cenote is forgotten as the fire in our souls blazes. She pulls at my nape, bringing my lips down to meet hers. The kiss is almost hesitant at first, our eyes barely leaving each other for a second.
“You make me powerless again, Shula. But with you, that lack of control, it feels—” But when she whimpers into my mouth, I lose all convictions.
My hands slip down her sides and over her hips, and I growl, lifting her with ease.
She wraps her legs around my waist as her nails dig into my shoulders.
“—it feels like freedom.” I breathe the words into the shell of her ear, then lean back and allow myself to watch as her pupils pulse and eat away all of the silvery blue of her eyes.
Her tongue takes complete control as she crushes her mouth to mine.
Her hands rake through my hair as I roughly press her into the jagged earthen wall of the cenote.
As soon as her back touches the surface, it feels as though she is finally giving up her control too.
Her walls crumble as she becomes as feral for me as I am for her.
I push back so I can look at her. Her eyes are dizzying in the way the storm churns within them, like silver smoke surrounding a pool of shadow at the center.
“Fuck.” I shake my head and give into the urge to consume everything about her.
I lift her chin with my thumb. My fingers dig into the curve of her neck as I suck and lick my way down to her collar bone.
My hands explore every curve of her body, all over her divine-dammed leathers.
My fingers knead her breast through the protective vest she wears like a man possessed.
The barrier between our skin needs to be gone.
With nothing but my hips pinning her to the wall, I use both hands to rip apart the straps that bind her into the garment.
She gasps as I free her heavy breasts only to quickly ravish them with my mouth.
My teeth scrape across her hardened nipple, and her moans echo around the stone chamber as the leather slaps the stone floor and the handles of her blades clang against the unyielding surface.
“I’ve never been truly in control of anything. I’ve never been allowed control.” She admits through heaving breaths.
“Shula, you control me in every sense of the word. Viscerally. Irrevocably. Endlessly.” Every movement becomes shaky at our mingling confessions.
Heat radiates through our skin, and suddenly every scrap of fabric is being tugged off.
She pulls at the strings of my trousers as I reach back and pull my tunic over my head in one fluid motion.
Our boots and every other piece of fabric are kicked off into a heap until we are finally bared to one another.
In the low lighting, I search every inch of her exposed skin.
Every part of her that is still covered in soot.
Her hair is still stuck to her neck with the sweat and blood from our encounter with the burning city.
I want to wash it all away from her body.
Just as I did in the bathhouse in Elysia…
Just as I did in the cottage at Kaeleith’s.
Carrying her to the edge of the pool, I kiss her tenderly.
Tasting every intoxicating sound she wants to provide, neither of us moves to pull away as I ease us into warm glass-like water.
“I’ve never wanted to control you—or anyone.
I only ever wanted to be enough. Seen for who I really am and accepted despite my flaws.
” She finally admits, and my heart swells as I stare at her.
Of course she wouldn’t want control. I’ve already determined she’s everything I’m not.
The water ripples around our shoulders. Steam curls around us in swirling white mist as the moon watches from above.
“I see you now. Every day I see your strength in the way that you push back. It’s unlike anyone I’ve ever come across.
The courage you’ve continued to show despite everything that’s attempted to hold you back.
” A half laugh pushes past my lips, and she looks away, biting down on her bottom lip.
“I was worried that every bad part of me would only damage your soul, but that was before I knew the way it had already been ravaged by those before me. You’ve taught me, whether or not you’ve meant to or not, that it’s those flaws that give us strength.
They tore you down, but you built yourself back up.
Those who aimed to destroy you are the ones who have strengthened you most.” I cup the side of her face, guiding her eyes back to mine.
“You’ve taught me to look at my past differently.
They created scars on the fabric of my soul, but those scars didn’t weaken either of us. We are stronger because of them.”
“You are far better than you allow people to see.” She says, covering my hand with hers where it rests on her cheek.
“You make me better. Believe me, Shula, there is more darkness buried deep within me I can’t escape.
I will let it out. As much as I want to be a good man and claim that everything I’ve done has been for the greater good, my reasons have always been mostly selfish.
” She shakes her head to try to deny my words, but I refuse to delve deeper than we already have.
I take her lips and, in turn, her words with my mouth pressed to hers.
I wrap my arms around her and push us deeper into the pool, forcing her to cling to my body as she can no longer touch the bottom.
So much has changed in so little time. Even now, naked and eager to bury myself in her, I choose to hold her close.
I look into those reflective blue eyes and see the exhaustion rimming them and refuse to use her body in that way now.
Instead, I slowly urge her head back and work the crystalline waters through the strands with a gentle caress.
Each stroke of my hand across her skin seems to cause her eyes to grow even more hooded with the need for sleep.
“You seem to hold me in this higher regard, but that darkness lives inside of me too, Kyros.” She looks down at her arms and the shadows that now mark them before raising her gaze back to mine.
“I don’t want to be good, not anymore. I want the answers that have been kept from me.
I’m done running from my fears. It’s time I claim what is mine, and if that’s selfish, then I want to be selfish.
” Hearing her speak of claiming anything sets my skin on fire.
“Then be selfish, Shula. They deserve a return of the darkness they have unleashed on this world tenfold.”