CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
EMMERY
“Idon’t want to sleep,” Emmery murmured into Dez’s shoulder. They lay in his bed, his silky sheets draped over their naked waists, and her legs tangled with his. His soft breath warmed her hair as he chuckled.
“There’s that stubbornness I adore,” he whispered hoarsely into the top of her head. “You’re tired, angel. I can hear it in your voice.”
She pressed a kiss to his throat. “But you won’t be here when I wake up.”
He tightened his arms around her and tucked her under his chin.
“I hope you know how much it pains me to leave you. Especially since our bonds haven’t settled.
If there was any way I could take you along I would, but I can’t.
” He stroked his fingers down her spine and a shiver pebbled her skin.
She playfully bit down on the junction of his neck and shoulder, careful to avoid his healing wounds.
He groaned and urged, “Sleep, Emmery. We have the rest of our lives ahead. Forever.”
“We need to figure out this prophecy,” she mumbled, as she kissed across his collarbone. “What about the Council, the fever, telling everyone and—”
“I’ll make arrangements before I leave, and when I’m back in two days, we can sort everything else out. But for this moment, can I have you all to myself?”
Emmery groaned a complaintive noise but leaned into him.
He hummed into her hair. His chest vibrated with it, lulling her to sleep though she fought with all her strength. It was the song they’d played together, the one he had woven into their bond.
“I can’t believe you read all those books I touched,” she muttered, barely here or there, or anywhere as sleep wrapped her in its arms and stole her away. “You made notes for me, and it’s so perfect.”
“I’ll more diligently hide your gifts in the future since you’re such a snoop.” His rumbling laugh seeped into her. “Talia deserves a raise for her discretion. Smuggling all those books to me wasn’t an easy feat.”
“Why did you drag her into it?”
“Because I wanted to know what you were thinking. What you liked. And you were always too busy threatening to set me on fire to have a normal conversation.”
She chuckled, drunk on the night. “Which was your favourite?”
Dez pressed his lips to her forehead, then each of her eyelids, and last her nose.
“Yours. You have a knack for words among your many other talents.” Dez kissed her slow and sweet, then murmured against her lips, “Now for the sake of my sanity, please sleep. It’s nearly dawn and I need my hour of beauty rest.”
“It’s your fault you kept me up.” Her cheeks burned as her mind fell back to exactly how he had carried her up to his room, laid her out on his bed, and taken her all over again. The man truly was insatiable.
He laughed softly. “Wait until I have you all to myself for a few days. You’ll be sick of me yet.”
“Never,” she murmured.
And she meant it.
She fought sleep, trying to memorize the strength of his arms, the warmth of his breath, the sureness of his hands, his lips in her hair, his skin grazing hers, meeting everywhere, and how he was entirely and always hers.
But as he continued that featherlight path up and down her spine, she lost herself to it, hypnotized into the darkness behind her closed lids, though now it wasn’t hollow, but filled with warmth.
She faded into sleep, even as the morning broke the sky.
When Emmery woke, she stretched for Dez’s side of the bed, though she knew it would be empty. Regardless, her heart ached in his absence. So she distracted herself and played with the black ice at her fingertips, a snowflake, a burst of icy mist, and she hoped he could feel it through the bond.
She summoned her flame to one hand and Dez’s ice to the other, then touched the tips of her fingers. They sizzled with a hiss, then nullified.
It brought a frown to Emmery’s lips. Never had anything matched her power like that, and some instinct stirred in her, unsettled.
She rose, dressed, then puttered around Dez’s room until Aera made an appearance. “Where have you been, little troublemaker?” Emmery teased.
Aera gave her a snaggle-toothed grin, and toddled over. First she smelled Emmery’s hand, then stood on her back legs and nosed the bond over her heart. The fox showered each scar in slobbery kisses then stretched like a cat, and curled up on Dez’s side of the bed like she missed him, too.
With Fionn and Brennen off with Dez, Vera bedridden from the fever, and Cyrilla on an errand for the next few days, Emmery visited Talia.
The chambermaid marvelled at her bonds, curtsying and fussing and leaving Emmery frazzled beyond belief.
Gods, how would she deal with all the attention when Dez returned? What would that even look like?
There was too much to escape from in her own mind, and soon she found herself at Soren's bedside. As she looked upon the little boy’s sleeping face, she choked back guilty tears.
Because she’d been selfish.
More selfish than she ever thought she could be.
She’d chosen Dez and known others would suffer.
And though a connection existed between them, something intense, unexplainable, and all consuming, it wasn’t enough.
She still needed to find Shade. And she didn’t know if an implexus bond could overshadow her affections for Dez.
Yet, as she traced their bonds, she didn’t regret it.
She loved him. And he loved her. Even if they hadn’t said as much aloud.
And Zyphira had claimed love was the strongest force in the world and would always win.
Emmery took Soren from his crib, and as she sat with him on the floor, he quickly settled into her arms and snuggled into her neck. She leaned back against the wall and counted each of his breaths, timed them with her own, and tried to swim upstream against the rapid current of despair.
Soon his fever would return with vengeance, and they didn't know how to fix this or how much time he had left. And the longer he slept, swept away in that veramint induced haze, the deeper her thoughts dug, until she looked up from a black pit and could no longer see the sun.
Her chest convulsed as she tried to take a steady breath. And she became stuck in a mantra of apologies. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Soren. I’m so, so sorry.”
Because it was unfair. So damn unfair.
She mourned everything she had lost. Everything she’d never had. Everything she hadn’t come to terms with. How lucky she was to have Dez, who would hold her through it all. But how this little boy and so many others would pay for her selfishness.
She was lost in those thoughts, in the constant gloom of both her and this world’s future, when a soft rap at the window drew her attention to a four-eyed raven. She blinked at Quill, stood, and gently lowered Soren back into his crib, before she opened the window to let the raven in.
Then Vesper’s voice spewed from Quill’s mouth, frantic and muffled like he couldn’t breathe, and her world crumbled once again.