Chapter 38
Carmine rolled me over. His focus locked on my gaze. Run, his voice echoed in my mind. Please run.
I rested a hand on his cheek, yearning for the day when I could do so outside of a dream.
The dreams had been a precious gift, but to only touch here was a pain in itself.
We couldn’t talk aloud in this space either.
What would it be like to hear Carmine’s voice?
His actual voice, uncontrolled by Tyran?
What would it be like to exist in a world where we could touch in waking hours and share a smile?
I thought back at him, Run where?
Anywhere but here. Defeat was evident in his voice and in the slump of his shoulders.
I shook my head. The moment is here now. We are going to meet it.
It’s the “we” I object to.
In him, I saw the shame of so many past kings.
The shame of a victim. The hollowness that Tyran described to me at dinner last night, that was where shame was born—when the fight in kings had given way due to sheer exhaustion.
But every king had misconstrued that loss of fight.
They’d seen that part as failure. From the outside, I saw that exhaustion as inevitable.
How long could a person fight before their minds switched to survival mode?
I’d felt a similar weariness several times since entering Tiers. Over years and decades and centuries? Was there a single being in existence who could continue the fight against that abuse?
No king could have beaten Tyran alone, I told him. We face this together because that’s the only way.
If he controls you, I don’t know how I’ll bear it. I would rather go on as I have been.
It won’t come to that, I told him. We will beat Tyran and live, or we will beat Tyran and die. Those helping us won’t allow Tyran to live.
Carmine closed his eyes. I wish that our time knowing each other had been different. I wish so many things, enamai.
I kissed him gently. If I have anything to say about it, then those wishes will come true.
One already came true, he admitted. I wished for so long for the chance to explain everything and to help you understand that I’ve never wished to harm you.
We got that much, I acknowledged. I’m sorry that I didn’t figure this out quicker. We could have had more time. More dreams.
I regret that you had to figure anything of this out, he said.
There was so much to say that we might never get a chance to say, but… This moment is not for regrets.
This was a dream for a goodbye, yet I wasn’t strong enough to speak those words, even in my mind. If Carmine had thought as much, then he wasn’t strong enough to speak them either.
He touched his lips to mine, and I angled my head to deepen the kiss. His uncontrolled thoughts rippled through my mind. She’s perfect. All mine. Forever.
Tears slipped from my eyes. I love you, Carmine.
He captured my chin. I love you, Syera. More than I could have ever expected. Mate.
Mate, I agreed.
I traced the first marking of our mating on his chest, and his skin rippled at my touch. The tortured look in his gray eyes was painful to witness.
Carmine lifted my legs over his shoulders until my back was against his chest. One of his favorite tricks to get his face between my thighs. His gaze never left mine as he pressed the flat of his tongue against my clit.
I arched, and though my eyelids fluttered at the intensity of my mate’s touch, I opened them again to lock sights with him.
He circled his tongue, and my thighs shook. His moan echoed in my mind. Her hands are always so warm.
The urge to smile was swept away by his quickening kisses and strokes. I locked my ankles around the back of his neck, but I should have known better.
Carmine gripped my ankles and forced my legs wide. I covered my mouth against a scream from the vulnerable exposure to every movement on his mouth.
And then warmth settled over my mind like a blanket growing heavier with every swipe of his tongue. A haze stole across my vision, and I couldn’t react to the satisfied rumble of his thoughts, or the proud curve of his mouth against my core.
The spark ignited deep within, and with impossible, soul-shattering speed, the spark exploded.
Fragments of me scattered through the world.
Then the very thing that had destroyed me, remade me, and I became aware of Carmine’s mouth again. He was sucking on my clit, drawing out my pleasure. One of his fingers was inside me in pursuit of the same goal.
Between one suck and the next, my pleasure turned to pain, and I writhed on the mattress. Carmine released me, fury in his gaze as he set his erection at my entrance.
Hurry, I urged.
My shriek blasted through our mind speak as he slid inside.
A few pulses, and he was able to bury his full length.
The urgency. I’d never felt urgency like whatever this was. The urgency to chase the end with another. The desperation to feel there was a tomorrow, and a next day too.
If this was all we had left, then I had to feel it with him too. The end.
Carmine drove into me, and lowered onto his elbows. I stared into his eyes, our foreheads touching as he ground into me. Not fast. Not with the pounding pace we usually preferred.
Fresh tears entered my eyes, and they sparked in his too.
Our bodies moved together. Mine rising to his, and his sinking to mine, and in that despair and fear of this final goodbye, all the rituals we’d shared ignited until our shared smoke swirled higher, and the bond between our hearts made it impossible for me to tell my feelings from his.
There was just us, with so much left unsaid, but nothing left unfelt. No words necessary, even in our minds. Into the depths of our mating, to the place where no one could exist but us.