Chapter 29
MAE
My punch barely grazes Asmo’s cheek, but it’s the closest I’ve come to striking him in the last hour of training. To my irritation, he gracefully dodges the blow. To my satisfaction, he takes the bait and doesn’t see my follow-up strike coming. With my knee.
He stumbles back, one hand clutching his groin.
“Fuck,” he swears. “Watch it.”
I roll my eyes. “Males are so weak. If your dick is so valuable, maybe don’t leave it exposed.”
His eyes darken. “I could’ve sworn you loved it when I—”
I strike again. I summon wind and aim it at the ground, my magic brushing against the dirt-packed floor as the wind travels over it. I summon earth—the dirt mixing with the wind—and aim straight for Asmo.
He throws up a barrier to block the blow. My wind dies and the dirt falls to the floor as it hits his shield. I huff a sigh. “What am I supposed to do against that? How do I break a shield?”
He drops his hands, and the shimmer of the barrier disappears. “It depends.” He walks closer to me, running his hand through his hair to restore some sort of order to it. “The more a barrier is attacked, the weaker it becomes. You could continue to strike it, or you could fight smart.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
“Think about it.” He flares his hand once more, and the barrier reappears.
“It’s not possible to hold up a barrier to protect yourself and continue to attack your opponent,” he says, firing a burst of black flames that die when they reach his shield.
“It’s also not possible to hold a barrier forever.
You could wait your opponent out and essentially be in a stalemate. ”
He pulls me through his barrier. He steps outside and summons his flames, creating a controlled fire on the ground.
“Or you could use your environment to see what else you could do to entice them to drop the barrier,” he says, coaxing the flames higher.
I resist the urge to adjust my clothing as sweat begins to bead along my back.
“Then, you could quickly attack when they drop it, or they’ll attack you, in which case, you should be prepared to provide a strong counter-attack. ”
“So, in that instance, what could I have done?”
“Hard to answer, since we’re not in battle,” he says.
I cross my arms and glare at him. He continues, “There are a number of things that would have made me drop my barrier. Don’t forget, although the barrier protects against strikes, it does not make the user immune to their environment.
You need to get creative. You have to make the environment around them unbearable. ”
“Like what you did with your fire?”
He nods eagerly. “Yes, exactly. You could surround them with fire or burn things around them to create smoke and make it hard for them to breathe.”
My brain swirls with possibilities, with images of me surrounding Marik in a wall of wildfire. I grin. “Again.”
He hurls a wall of black flames at me and all I can do is throw a barrier up to avoid being scorched. He’s right. There’s no way I can attack him while I have my shield up. But there’s also no way I can drop it without being burned alive.
So, I do what any sane female would do. I start screaming.
He yanks his magic back to him. His eyes are wide, concern and panic etched across every line in his face. Good. “Wh—”
I hurl my own fire back at him, and it speeds toward him. He throws up his shield and I pour more magic into my fire, the white flames licking at every surface, searching the unyielding shield for some entrance.
They find none. I pull back, letting the fire recede but still surrounding Asmo in a writhing circle. He watches me over the flames, the reflection dancing in his dark eyes. His black locks are now curled at the ends from brushing against his sweat-slicked forehead, and my heart skips a beat.
His words from yesterday have been on repeat in my mind since we left the cabin. Why do you keep pushing this away? Did he kill what’s mine?
What if this male is who I was destined for?
What if he’s the one who can heal me? What if I dare to give it a chance?
What if I just stopped fighting it and gave in?
Would the regret ease? Would the pain of my decisions lessen?
Maybe it would help me make sense of it all.
Maybe I had to choose Marik to have Asmo.
Maybe my heart had to bleed, a sacrifice for a love worth having.
“Asmo,” I whisper, striding toward him, coaxing my flames to part as I step through them.
Heat pulses from them, but they don’t burn me.
He drops the shield and I reach for him.
For the male who brought me back from the brink of death.
For the male who threw away a life for me.
For the male who has held a piece of my heart in his hand since I first met him, just as I’ve held his.
“Mae,” he whispers.
I wrap my arms around his neck and press my body to his. My heart riots in my chest. “Nobody could ever kill what’s yours.”
It’s the truth. Despite all that we’ve been through, what I feel for him has only strengthened. It feels immortal. In life, and in death, somehow, I know it will be there.
My hands find their way to the bottom of his shirt. I peel it over his head and toss it to the ground. I toss mine next. Asmo’s eyes drift from my face, down to the peaks and valleys of my chest, the small buds that harden at his stare.
“What’s mine?” he asks, his thumb stroking my cheek.
I nod, my eyes never leaving his. “All of it.”
That’s all it takes. His teeth, his tongue, his mouth collide with mine. His movements are frenzied, every stroke of his tongue forceful and hungry, sending delicious fire down every vein of my body. One hand cups the back of my head, fingers tangled in my hair. The other holds me against him.
Every inch of him is hard and taut.
His mouth breaks away from mine to place fevered kisses along my jaw, my neck, my collarbone.
“Mine,” he growls in my ear.
My blood hums.
I am his. I was from day one. The other princes didn’t have a chance. It was always him.
I fumble with the fastening at his pants, desperate to see all of him. Desperate to have him inside of me again.
He bites down on my neck, then soothes the ache with his tongue.
I gasp, trying desperately to focus on unbuttoning his pants, but it feels impossible with his mouth and teeth and his hands sliding lower.
His erection strains against the band. His chest heaves and sweat from the fire glistens along his chiseled pecs.
Finally, the button bursts free and I reach to pull them down, but his hand clamps around my wrist. “Wh—” I start, but he swirls me around, bringing my backside flush against him. My mouth dries.
“I need to be inside of you,” he growls against my neck, voicing the urge that’s been throbbing inside of me, too.
He pulls my pants down and rubs my center with his fingers, moaning as he finds the pool of wetness waiting for him. His hardness, now entirely free, nudges against my opening. I gasp, desperate to have him inside me, to be one with him again.
Last time, it felt like I had finally found something I had been searching for—something that I had no idea I needed until it slid into place.
It felt like I could breathe, like I could finally see clearly.
Despite the way I’ve pushed him away, I’ve thought about that moment countless times.
And right now, he’s acting like he has, too.
He gently guides himself inside of me. I tilt my head back and gasp at the utter pleasure that shoots through me at his entrance. One hand holds me firmly against him, while the other hand wraps around my throat.
His hips begin to rock back and forth in slow motions, sending my blood into a heated frenzy. Sweat drips down my back, but I don’t care. I need more. He groans in my ear, and I grind my hips against him in rhythm, already feeling the crescendo build.
“You feel so perfect.” His voice is breathy and low.
I can’t form words. The only thing I can think about is him moving inside of me. His pace quickens. He huffs in my ear, his moans growing louder and matching my own.
The wave crests, and every muscle in my body tightens around him, every sense focused on him pounding into me as I ride the wave of my orgasm. I arch my back and let out a gasp as it peaks and peaks and peaks. I dig my nails into his forearm, his hand still around my throat.
“Fuck,” he barks as he explodes inside of me.
I can’t breathe I’m on fire I’m in heaven I’m in love I’m floating I’m burning burning burning
“Shit,” he hisses. He pulls out of me, his seed dripping from me and spilling onto the floor. I ache to have him back inside of me.
I twist. The flames—my flames—are now licking at the ceiling. Asmo summons sand and begins to smother them. I shake my head, post-coital bliss now over as the realization that I could burn this place to the ground replaces it. I wrench my magic back to me and the flames die.
Asmo turns to me, his length still hard and glistening. My mouth dries and my mind turns hazy at the sight of him. “We should talk about this,” he says as he tosses me my clothes.
I nod. Yes, we should. We have so much to talk about—what this means, what happens next, what the hell we’re doing. First, I need to figure out what hell I’m doing. Every instinct in my body is screaming at me to just be with him, but that one part of my brain is holding me back.
We get dressed and head back toward the residential wing. My mind races, my heart and my brain playing tug-of-war again.
“Your Highness!” someone calls behind me. I turn. Rain is racing down the hallway, her black, wavy hair flowing behind her as she runs. She looks like a different version of herself now, such a contrast to the shell of herself we pulled from the dungeon. Her eyes are wide, frantic.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She comes to a stop before us, and her breathing is labored from the exertion. “The witches are attacking the citizens in the square.”