Chapter 21 #3
His lips press into a line before he finally steps closer. “I needed to see you,” he admits quietly. “Without the Flight. Without the others.”
The vulnerability in his tone takes me off guard, but I recover quickly, leaning against the doorframe of the bathing room, determined to keep the barrier between us intact. “What for?”
Raven’s eyes lock on to mine, intense and searching. “You always do this, El. You deflect. Avoid. Pretend like none of it fazes you.” He takes another step forward, his voice dropping. “But it does. I saw it in your face this morning.”
My heart flutters, then beats like wild wings in a storm, and it takes all my strength not to retreat. He’s too close now. The air between us tightens, heavy and tense, like the stillness before a hawk’s descent. “Maybe stop watching so closely.”
He exhales, shaking his head. “You don’t make it easy.”
I scoff, clutching the towel tighter against my chest as I cross the room to the nightstand and take out the small velvet bag holding the vial of Titaia’s blood.
Straightening my spine, I turn to face him, holding the bag out while locking eyes with him, feigning indifference to the conversation I’m trying to avoid—just as he predicted I would.
“I am not your mission here, Raven. Perhaps you should focus on what is.”
He flinches at my words, and I can’t say I’m surprised—they came out colder than I intended. But hopefully that means he won’t notice how much of an effect his presence is having on me right now.
Raven steps closer still, until he’s only inches away. When he reaches out, his fingers graze mine as he takes the bag. He opens it and finally tears his eyes away from mine to look down. “Titaia’s blood?”
“Yes.” My breath hitches over the word as he leans into me, the soft rustle and clink of glass telling me he’s placed the bag down on the nightstand. He straightens without pulling away, his intoxicating scent enveloping me, saturating the air I breathe until I’m certain I can taste him.
“Swooping in to save the mission again.” The words are almost soft, roughened only by the weight of whatever he’s bracing himself to say next.
“Do you even know what it’s like, El?” he murmurs.
His hand lifts, hovering just over my collarbone like he can’t quite bring himself to close the distance.
“To watch you risk everything over and over again? It’s maddening. You’re maddening.”
My head screams at me to retreat, to keep the fragile wall I’ve built intact. But my body—my heart—refuses to obey. Was it his concern this morning? Or the way he has made me believe I’m more than just a piece in this game we’re playing? I can’t tell anymore, and maybe I don’t want to. Not tonight.
As if reading the decision in my eyes, his hand moves, cradling my face, as though waiting to see if I’ll pull away. I don’t.
Instead, with everything unspoken between us coiled so tightly I feel like I might snap, I step forward, bringing the space between us down to nothing.
His forehead rests against mine, the two of us suspended in the fragile stillness before the inevitable fall—balanced on the edge between certainty and reckless uncertainty.
He doesn’t kiss me. Not yet. But the weight of his gaze, the ghostly brush of his thumb along my jaw…it’s enough to unravel everything I thought I had locked away.
I hate him for it. And I don’t.
“It’s forbidden,” I whisper, the words trembling and thin, stripped of the resolve they should carry. A distant echo of words he said to me years ago.
“In the Aviary.” My eyes lock with his. “But we’re not there now.”
“Semantics,” I murmur.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for wordplay.” Slowly, he drops his head toward the base of my neck and kisses me. His lips trail a path up my neck, and then he nips at the corner of my jawline when he reaches it. “Tell me to stop.”
I say nothing. My hands tangle in my towel, clutching at the fabric as he grazes the tip of his nose up my cheek.
“Tell me to stop, princess,” he tries again, “and I’ll take you at your word.”
And I should. I know I should. There is no way we could work together—no foreseeable future with a happily ever after like the books I would read late into the night.
He is going to steal the weapon, and I am going to win these trials. Soon, he will head home, and I will stay. I may never see him again. And yet…
Fuck it.
I jerk out of his grip. My heart thunders in my chest as I watch him closely, noting the feathering of the muscles in his jaw, the tightness of his posture as he holds himself back. As though he’s preparing himself for my rejection once again.
But I will not turn him away now.
Not after staring death in the face countless times. Not when the chance of ever seeing him again feels like an impossibility. And certainly not now, when I’ve finally decided to claim something for myself.
The towel falls from my grasp, gliding down my body to pool at my feet, and I stand before him, completely bare. But my eyes never leave his—wanting him to see the truth of my words within them. “I will never tell you to stop again.”
The darkening of his gaze is the only warning I get before he lunges for me, that fragile hold finally snapping.
One arm folds around my waist while his other hand grips my ass and lifts me.
I wrap my legs around his hips and bury my hands in his hair as his lips claim mine.
His tongue caresses the seam of my mouth, begging for permission, and I give it.
Raw hunger awakens at the sweet taste of him, dragging a deep moan from the depths of my chest. His heat and his hardness are driving me to the edge of sanity, and before I know it, we’re devouring each other.
I’m so consumed by him, I don’t realize he’s moved us until my back collides with the soft mattress. We come apart for a moment, and I gasp for breath. Raven kneels to pull off his tunic, and then he settles his body between my thighs, grinding his hips into mine.
We fall into each other, all fevered mouths and searching hands, a tangle of heat and hunger that leaves no space for hesitation.
I map out every inch of his broad shoulders and the flexing muscles of his back while his palms set fire to the sensitive skin of my stomach and breasts.
He rolls the peak of one hard nipple between his rough fingers, and I moan, writhing with need beneath him at the fluttering sensation that ignites deep in my core.
“Raven,” I say with a desperate gasp.
“Gods, El.”
If only it were my true name falling from his lips. I would give anything to hear it.
I want him to say it a thousand times—to never call me by another. I want to hear him chanting it like a prayer to the gods while he’s buried deep inside me.
“Please,” I pant out, my hands pushing at the waistband of the pants he still wears. “I need you.”
Raven pulls back at my words, hovering over me as he pushes his pants down over muscled thighs.
Desire burns through me as I finally see him in all his glory again.
Hair tousled from my wandering hands, broad chest rising and falling with short breaths, defined abdominal muscles leading down to the thick, hard length of his arousal.
He’s a vision pulled from the depths of my memory—stitched from yearning, sculpted by heartache, and burning with the kind of desire that never truly fades.
My breath hitches, and my heart pounds so loud I’m sure he can hear it.
Every fiber of my being is alight with anticipation, every overwhelming sensation hammering against the walls of my mind.
It’s not unfamiliar ground—but it’s been over a year since we stood at the edge of it like this, since we let ourselves want this openly, completely.
My body trembles with equal parts nervousness and longing, my thoughts a whirlwind of want, uncertainty, and need.
Yet, deep within, there’s a flicker of something more—a sense that once I cross this line again, it won’t be something I can ever redraw.
At this moment, I can’t find it within me to care.
Raven’s heated gaze burns a path over my skin, completing a study of my body. Like he, too, is committing every detail to memory once more.
“So fucking beautiful,” he rasps.
The sound of his voice, so full of want, is my undoing. I grip his wrist and pull him forward until he’s bracing over me. With my other hand, I grip his thick cock and line it up at my entrance as he pushes forward, entering me in one hard thrust.
I cry out, but his lips slam down on mine, smothering the sound. My body clamps around him like it remembers—like some part of me never forgot the way he fits, the way it feels to be full of him. But I’m desperate for him to move.
When my body adjusts to him, he finally does, pulling back before plunging in deep again. We both moan with the sensation.
Raven tears his mouth away, leaning his forehead against mine as he continues to move within me. “You feel like a dream, El.”
I bite my lip, pulling him closer, his words dissolving into the haze of sensation clouding my mind.
The only response I’m capable of is another moan as he angles his hips and strokes against a sensitive part inside me.
Raven kisses down my neck and chest, taking my left nipple into his mouth and watching me as he flicks his tongue over the peak.
I cry out when he bites down gently before making his way to the other.
The hot and cold sensations wreak havoc on my mind as he relentlessly thrusts into me, and I drop my head back to the mattress.
Raven starts to move harder, deeper, murmuring my name in my ear like a benediction.
Everywhere he touches aches, burns. A sweet pressure builds up beneath my skin and deep in my core.
He moves one hand between us, finding the tight bundle of nerves at my center and rubbing in small, torturous circles.
I groan and arch up into his touch, demanding more, and he obliges.
“Come for me,” he commands. “Let me feel you.”
And I obey.
Pleasure bursts through me, filling my veins with liquid fire.
I cry out, closing my eyes as stars flash in my vision and I shudder around him.
Raven keeps up the roll of his hips, dragging out my ecstasy with each stroke.
When my body finally stops trembling, he pushes himself up onto his knees, lifting my legs over his shoulders.
I whimper as the position allows him deeper, clutching at the silk sheets as euphoria starts to build once more.
My desire burns white-hot as I watch him, his muscles tensing and flexing.
He drops one hand back to my center and starts circling the pad of his thumb over the sensitive nub as his pace quickens.
Raven’s fingers bite into my thigh and he tips his head back with a deep moan.
The sight and sound combined push me over the edge once more, and I clamp down around him, pulling him over with me.
His hips stutter, a strained curse falling from his lips as he fills me with his release.
When the pleasure finally relinquishes us both, Raven collapses on top of me. I wrap my arms around him, welcoming the weight of his body on mine.
We lie together, cradled in each other’s arms, until our ragged breathing slows and silence fills the room. As the quiet moment stretches, memories surge like a gentle tide, filling my mind with echoes from our past.
I shift beneath him, my question slipping out before I can stop it. “Why didn’t you say goodbye?”
Raven’s body tenses, his arms tighten around me before he rolls over, repositioning our bodies so I’m sprawled across his chest. His eyes find mine, and I swear I could drown in the warm depths of them forever. But I can’t fall into them. I need him to answer.
“When they assigned you to Alpha Flight,” I whisper, “you just…left. No note. No message. Nothing.”
“I know,” he says, his voice rough, laced with something I can’t quite name. “That was the point.”
“What does that even mean, Raven?” My chest aches, and I push away, only for him to pull me back right back.
“If I had said goodbye, it would have been final.” He takes my hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing the tips of my fingers. His gaze locks onto mine, raw and unguarded. “And I needed something unfinished—a reason to return.”
The words hit me harder than I expected. My throat tightens as the memories resurface—how I’d kept waiting, kept hoping. How the silence, as brutal as it was, had left room to believe he still might return.
I press my forehead to his, eyes shut tight. “You’re a fool.”
He exhales a quiet laugh, barely there. “I am,” he murmurs, the hand not holding my own tracing a slow line down my spine. “But I came back, didn’t I?”
I can’t bring myself to answer, so I lay my head on his chest and hold him tighter.
Is that what we’re doing now? Skipping goodbyes, pretending silence makes it easier?
That if we don’t say the words, we won’t have to face what they mean?
Maybe it’s easier that way. Easier to pretend we’ll always return.
Easier to believe that if we never say farewell, the door never truly closes.
Raven kisses my fingers again, and I melt at the tenderness, until he strokes his thumb across the ring on my finger.
“You’re always wearing this,” he says.
“Just something I picked up in the markets at home.” I pull my hand away, ignoring the guilt that tightens my chest at the lie as I hide my hand and the simple gold band beneath the sheets. “It makes me feel like I always have a piece of the Sorrows with me.”
Raven’s hand strokes up my back once more, tangling in my hair. “Perhaps I’ll have to get you something to remember me by.”
I smile up at him, trying to pretend those words don’t fracture my heart. The silence returns, but this time it’s filled with the steady rhythm of his breathing and the calming beat of his heart against my ear.
I memorize this moment—the warmth of his skin, the security of his arms around me, the faint scent of him lingering in the air.
An answer I never thought I would hold settles quietly into place. He never said goodbye back then, and now, I see it for what it was—a silent promise that he’d find his way back.
And for the first time, I understand. Because I don’t want to say goodbye either. Not now. Not ever.