Chapter Twenty-Seven
The room held four cots pushed against opposite walls, a washstand wedged in the corner, and barely enough floor to stand without turning sideways. The ceiling sat low. A single candle half gone burned on the table in the back.
Minha and Jina claimed the far cots. Fraya and I took what was left.
I slipped off my boots and lay back, staring at the ceiling.
The mattress smelled of someone else’s sleep.
I’d slept in tighter spaces—the cavern floor, Minha on one side, Jina pressed close on the other.
But on the cot, I had some cushion, some support beneath me.
I wondered how my family fared. The guilt of being free sat heavier than the walls ever had.
Sleep didn’t come.
The tavern below went quiet—no voices, no scrape of chairs. Just the creak of the building settling for the night and the distant pull of the sea.
I counted the knots in the ceiling planks. Lost count. Started again.
My mind went where it had no business going—to Theron and Selene. The way she’d greeted him, warm and too friendly. The two of them somewhere, doing things that sent unwanted heat through my stomach.
I’d seen them together once on his ship. The way he’d kissed her like she was the only thing that mattered. The way his hands had moved like he knew every inch of her. The way he made her moan and arch her back.
I didn’t want to imagine this. And yet I couldn’t stop.
Oh, gods. I pressed the back of my hand to my cheek. Too hot.
Stop.
Where had Theron even gone? What business was urgent enough to leave at this hour? Track down the carriage driver who’d sold us out? Meet with his rebel contacts? Plan whatever came next now that the Seelie queen knew where we were? Or was he making another woman at a different tavern feel good.
It didn’t matter.
It wasn’t my concern.
He could do whatever—whoever—he wanted.
Ugh. Stop thinking about him.
A woman’s laugh, low and soft, escaped through the wall. Then a murmur, too muffled to catch words. Then another laugh.
My jaw tightened. I told myself it was none of my concern what Theron did with other women. Told myself a couple of times for good measure. What little good that did.
I was out of bed and into the hall before the third attempt convinced me. I had no idea what I would say to him, only to tell him being loud was rude. Yes, that’s it.
The hallway stretched dim, one wall lantern burning low at the far end.
Two pirates spilled out from one of the rooms, a man and a woman both flushed and laughing, nearly colliding with me before catching themselves. The woman clapped a hand over her mouth. The man blinked. They exchanged a look and moved around me down the hall, still laughing.
Then a door across from mine swung open.
Oh my!
Theron filled the frame, shirtless, hair loose, jaw clenched.
His gaze cut past me down the hall, tracking the pirates until they rounded the corner.
Candlelight caught the lines of him, the breadth of his shoulders, the lean muscle across his chest and stomach, the faint map of scars along his ribs that told me he’d left his guard down before.
When his eyes settled on me, that smirk appeared. My face burned.
I meant to turn back to my chamber, but I made the mistake of looking at his chest again. The questions I’d pushed down all night climbed back up—the humming, the slip he’d made and covered, what he knew about the stones and the gods.
He glanced down the hall once more, checking both directions before catching my wrist and pulling me inside, the door closing behind us in one quiet motion.
The room held four cots like ours.
He stood by the bed looking at me, making no move toward a shirt, while I remained by the door.
“What are you doing at this hour, Little Star? Curious about where I’d gone?”
That smirk. That tone. That… Him. I didn’t understand why he stirred feelings in me.
“I have no care of what you think, Theron. How do I know you’re not simply telling me what I want to hear?”
“Do I seem like a man who tells people what they want to hear?”
“You seem like a man who does exactly what serves him.”
His features hardened to dangerous. He took one step toward me, then another.
I licked my lips, thinking of intelligent words, but his closeness burned every thought clean.
“You shouldn’t lick your lips, Little Star.” His voice dropped to a growl, low and rough against my ear. “You have no idea what it does to me.”
Gods, I wanted to know exactly what he meant.
He moved so fast I had no time to register it.
His arms wrapped around my waist and he pinned me to the wall, jaw tight, eyes dropping to my mouth.
“We’ve had this conversation, Little Star.
” His thumb brushed the curve of my waist, barely a touch but I felt it everywhere.
“Do you not remember? Shall I remind you?”
My breath came out unsteady. “I remember.”
“Do you?” He didn’t believe me. The smirk said so.
“You said—” But what had he said? His closeness was dismantling every thought I’d had. I could feel the warmth radiating off his bare skin, and it was deeply unfair that he stood there looking like that while expecting me to form words.
“Take your time,” he murmured, pleased with himself. “While I distract you.”
His lips brushed the curve of my jaw. Then lower, slower, tracing a path down my neck. What was he doing to me?
My hands found his chest, to push him away. I loved the feel of his skin too much to move them.
He drew me closer until there was nothing between us but the fabric of my shirt and whatever remained of my resolve—dissolving fast.
“Theron.” His name came too soft.
He stilled. His mouth hovered just below my ear, breath warm against my skin. “Say it again.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I managed.
Don’t stop. Kiss me. Show me what it feels like to be wanted.
I felt him smile against my neck, his hands going higher.
“Little Star.” His voice was barely a whisper now, rough at the edges. “You are going to be the end of me.”
“No.” The word came out quiet but certain. “I think I’m going to be the beginning of you.”
I had no idea why I said that. It simply came out of me, like something I’d always known.
His eyes widened—surprised, stunned, I couldn’t tell which.
Then he kissed me.
Slow. Soft. Tender in a way I hadn’t expected from him. His kiss and the gentleness undid me. My hands found his hair and I pulled him closer, pressing into the kiss with a certainty that surprised me. It felt natural. Like a memory. Like my body had always known.
His hands roamed the curve of my waist, my ribs, mapping me like the way a pirate does on a mission.
“Gods.” His voice came out rough against my mouth. “You taste even better than I imagined. I want you under me, Little Star. I want to explore every part of you.”
My breath came heavy. I didn’t let go of his hair.
He lifted my leg, hooking it at his hip, and I felt him—all of him—and the sound that escaped me was a sound I’d never made before.
He pressed me harder into the wall, rocking against me in a rhythm that dissolved every thought I’d ever had. His mouth never left mine, the kiss deepening until I forgot where I ended and he began.
Something built low and bright inside me, tightening with every movement until it broke— warmth crashing through me in waves, pleasure so unfamiliar and complete that I gasped against his lips.
He pulled back just enough to look at me, chest heaving, eyes dark. Not the cool blue of moments ago.
“Don’t stop.” I kissed the curve of his neck, my hands roaming the planes of his bare chest. When I touched his hardness, he groaned and felt emboldened.
I had him.
I, who had been bought, sold, and commanded—I had him undone. It felt like power. Like a language my body had never been given permission to use. But I wasn’t ready to give him everything. Not yet. Not when trust still sat unfinished between us.
I should pull away.
I didn’t. Not when my back met the mattress and he settled over me, not when the ache between my legs became urgent and throbbing, needing to be fulfilled.
“I’ve wanted you since the day I saw you at the auction.” His voice came rough against my ear. “I don’t understand what spell you’ve cast on me, Little Star. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
I felt the same but I didn’t tell him.
The more he spoke, the more his words worked their way through my defenses.
“I’m not going to do anything you’re not ready for.” He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, his own still dark. “But I will give you something to think about every time you look at me.”
His mouth went lower. He didn’t remove my pants, but he might as well have. His fingers moved between my legs in slow strokes and I fisted the blanket, hips rocking into his hand, matching his rhythm.
“You know,” he murmured against my skin, his fingers moving faster while his other arm snaked beneath my neck, “you still owe me that dagger.”
“I — I —” What had he just said?
My back arched off the mattress, pleasure crashing through every nerve, toes curling as wave after wave broke through me. Then he lowered himself and his mouth replaced his fingers while his hands cupped my breasts.
His mouth—gods, that mouth—did things I never thought impossible. I gripped his hair, then his broad shoulders, fingers raking down his back taking in the pleasure he gave.
And then I wasn’t in his chamber anymore.
We were somewhere else. Somewhere that felt like a distant memory that didn’t belong to me.
The sea and a cavern mouth open to the sky.
The rocky walls were slick with spray, the air thick with salt.
And Theron, wearing dark wings folded at his back.
Our bodies tangled just like this, only nothing between us.
Skin and starlight and the sound of the sea.
I called his name but it didn’t sound familiar. What just happened?
Then the pure stone in my pocket hummed. Low. Mournful. Impossible to ignore.
I froze. So did he.
What a way to kill the mood, but I was glad it had. Nothing good could come out of whatever would have been us.
Theron pulled back sharply, raking a hand through his hair, eyes cutting to every corner of the room—alert, scanning, all heat replaced by icy chills.
“You hear that too?” I asked, still catching my breath.
I reached into my pocket and drew out the stones. The hum continued, quiet and insistent.
“What do you know about the gods?” I needed answers now.
He was quiet for a long moment. Whatever remained on his face was harder to read. He sat next to me, feet on the ground.
“There were seven gods,” he said finally. “The Seelie queen killed them during a dinner party set in the cavern where you took the stones, well at least she thought she did. She delayed the earth god’s death that day because he was her lover.”
He told me everything I already learned from the drawings. But a question I’d never thought of popped in my mind when he said her lover.
“Who is her son’s father?”
“God of earth.”
“Her sons are half deity?”
He nodded, pushed back his hair. “But their powers were stripped of divinity by their mother.” He glanced at the stone on my palm.
“Can the gods be reborn somehow?” I asked, the thought sounding possible in my mind but ridiculous out loud. “Can we do... I don’t know... anything to restore them, so they can defeat the queen and set things right?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“How?”
“There are alchemists.” He shifted, elbows on his knees. “Deep in the forest. They’ve studied the old magic for generations. If answers exist, they’ll have them.”
The forest. I thought of Nam and her sister.
“I want to go with you,” I said.
“No.”
“Theron—”
“It’s too dangerous.” His voice was final. “There are wild animals. Bandits. The queen’s soldiers will move through the same forest. It’s not a journey for—”
“We’re all going after the children are safe.” I held his gaze. “There’s no time to argue about this.”
His features softened. Not quite surrender.
“Fine.” He exhaled. “Selene takes the children to safety. You stay close and do exactly as I say.”
“We go with my friends,” I said. “That’s the only version of this I’m agreeing to.”
He looked at me while biting his lower lip. Damn it. Did he have to do that when he’d kissed me not too long ago.
“Together,” he said, his gaze lowering to my legs.
If he didn’t stop smirking, stop his eyes darkening, I was going to beg him to do the things he’d done earlier. And this time I might just rip off his clothes and mine.
Before I acted on my thoughts, I rushed toward the door, then pointed a finger at him. “Nothing happened tonight.”
I straightened my shirt and smoothed my hair. I hoped my friends were still fast asleep. I had no explanation for my disappearance and even less for the state of me.
“Agreed.” He smirked, humor dancing in those deep blue eyes.
I lowered my gaze. He made no move to hide the length of him, still hard beneath the fabric. I already knew his size from touching him, but seeing it was something else. Heat flooded through me all over again.
Gods. He was beautiful even clothed. Unfairly, insufferably beautiful. Cocky asshole. But I wouldn’t want him to be any other way.
“Sleep well, Little Star.” His voice was low. “Try not to think about what I did to you.”
Ugh!
I slammed the door and inhaled a deep breath in the dark hallway, knowing full well I was going to think about nothing else, and I was certain he would invade my dream.