Chapter 47
For one more second, he holds my gaze, breathing hard. Then he goes still, locking down, his fractured control glued back in place.
He is on his feet before I can say a word, stalking away until the balcony doors block his retreat. I can only see his eyes glowing in the dark glass. His wings spread wide. His hands curl into fists, then open.
“I need to be re-chained,” he says.
“Why?” I whisper from the floor. His control seems tenuous, and I’m afraid if I move too suddenly, he’ll be out those doors and into the night.
“Because if I don’t keep…control of myself, my powers are going to take me straight to Illios so I can kill the emperor. Tonight.”
“No!” I sit up straighter. “No, Alaris, don’t. Stay here with me.” I hear his words echoed in my mouth.
His eyes close in the reflection before frost crackles across the glass. “Being near you makes it worse. I can’t watch you go under again. I can’t watch you…die, again.”
“I won’t. I’m fine now.” My heart pounds. I only used the oraculi to save him, and now he’s going to risk it all to go face my father alone? What can I say to stop him from leaving? “I’m fine.”
He shakes his head. “You’re not fine. I see you falling back there, and when your mind relives it, your body follows. You need to focus on staying present.”
I can see the cracks in his fragile control. And I can feel the memories tugging at my mind. He’s right. I woke up faster this time, but with a single thought or image, I could slip right back into the past.
The room flips to the starlit garden…
I take a deep breath and try to ground myself in my freezing legs, folded against the frosted stone. My mouth is still tingling with the feeling of his lips on mine. I become aware of how little I am wearing, the thin shift clinging to every line of my body, still damp from the river.
I note the muscled planes of his chest, barely covered by his own soaked shirt. His scent is night air, cool and green, and underneath it that thread of cloves that makes me inhale deeper every time I catch it.
My attention sharpens on the present moment. I don’t want to fall into more spinning memories. I want to be here, with him, with only scraps of fabric between us.
If we were in darkness again, I’d crawl back into his arms.
I look up at him through my lashes. “Then keep me here.”
He turns as he seems to realize that I’m not just talking about being here together in this room.
“Ly. You can’t mean what I think you mean.” His low voice cuts through me. “You almost drowned.”
“But I didn’t.” I’m not sure who this version of me is, but I was compliant, polite, and small in yet another life.
None of that ever protected me from pain or kept me safe from death.
After so many lives, I feel older. More sure.
“We both have things we shouldn’t think about right now. Let’s help each other.”
I push up off the floor. My legs barely hold me as I cross to him. The wet shift is no shield, the cold biting harder with every step I take closer. His eyes blaze silver, and I hiss as frost blooms beneath my feet.
His wings flare out, like he can’t decide whether to swoop away or close the distance.
“Get back beside the fire, Ly,” he growls.
I quake, but it’s not all from the cold. “You told me what would happen if I took the oraculi.” I stand up straighter. “I’m a thief.”
He goes rigid.
“A thief. Who lied to you. And stole from you.”
“Don’t test me, Ly.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” I get as close as I can while meeting his gaze, arching my neck up and suppressing my shiver. “Didn’t you tell me you’d remind me what you do to thieves?”
For what feels like an eternity, his lantern eyes stare into mine. Then he brushes his thumb over my bottom lip.
“Say it again.” His voice is low and dangerous, even as he runs gentle fingertips down my neck, over the curve of my breast, and around my waist, trailing tingles. “And I will make sure you don’t forget this time.”
My voice is steadier than the rest of me. “I stole from you, Alaris. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
I gasp as he grips me tight to him. His other hand slides through my hair and cups the back of my neck. He curves down but keeps our mouths an inch apart. “And what about other memories? If I touch you, will I have your full attention?”
All other versions of reality go quiet. The only things that matter are his hands and his lips a breath from mine.
“Yes,” I murmur.
I think he can see it’s true, see his effect on me, because his eyes flash wide. This may not be everything I want between us…but I would give anything to close the gap between our lips.
I bite my bottom one instead. “What about you? Is this enough for you to stay?”
“Me?” His wings curve in around us, blocking most of the light.
He walks me backward until my knees hit the chair in front of the fire, and I drop into it.
He sinks slowly down between my legs, his hands settling on the armrests on either side of me.
“Chains would not be enough to keep me from this.”
He dodges my lips, trailing kisses down my throat, open and warm where the rest of him is cool.
His hand travels over the wet shift and cups my breast. His thumb drags across the peak, and I gasp, my hips lifting off the chair.
He does it again, slower, his eyes coming up to my face and staying there. “Yes?”
“Yes.” Now there is nothing in the world but that one touch. My skin that was cold before is on fire. I’m on fire.
His mouth closes over my breast through the fabric, his tongue warm, and I arch into him. My fingers slide into his midnight hair, cool as river water. He drags the neck of the shift down, baring me to the air and to him, and sets his lips back on skin.
I pant, the flicks of his tongue sending pulses straight between my legs.
“I should punish you,” he murmurs, as his other hand slides up the inside of my thigh, pushing the soaked hem aside.
He stops at the edge of my undergarment, skating just along the outside of it.
He takes my ear in his teeth, nipping and sucking, his fingers playing lightly over me until I whimper. “I should deny you. And make you beg.”
“Alaris…” I am ready to beg. I have never wanted anything the way I want him to touch me. My knees open wider. “Alaris, please.”
He reaches under the band and drags his fingers over me, finding me slick. He runs them over me once, twice. Then again. Every pass makes my hips roll toward his hand, and he lets me, and gives me nothing more.
Every time he skates over my entrance I feel the anticipation of him inside me. I clutch his shoulders and find his body wound tight, a shocking contrast to his gentle hand. His touch is already so different from my own, where I can predict every movement.
He pauses two fingers at my entrance, dancing at the edge but not dipping in, and I tense for them. Then he drags them up, finally sliding over the bundle of nerves screaming for pressure.
I arch, gasping. He circles it lightly, and my eyes roll back.
“Will you steal from me? Lie to me? Run from me again?”
I shake my head. “No. No. No.” I will say anything, as long as he keeps touching me.
“No what?” He flicks his tongue over my nipple as his circling fingers fall into a rhythm. “No to which one?”
“No, I won’t”—he sucks the peak and I gasp—“steal from you.”
“Good.” I feel the word hum against my skin. He moves to the other breast. “And?”
I cannot remember what else he asked. Pleasure and heat gather with each circle, building, and I moan.
His fingers and his tongue stop, and I whimper in frustration.
“Evil, evil man.”
“Lord of night with a bad reputation, remember?” he says, giving my nipple another flick.
I gasp and laugh, then moan when he sinks a finger into me.
He curves it on a spot and I cry out, my heels coming off the floor.
He lifts his mouth to mine, swallowing the sounds.
“Promise me, Ly.” His finger works in and out, each thrust essential and addictive. Then he adds another. “Promise me you will never do something so foolish again.”
I can’t answer. He keeps hitting that spot, while his thumb flicks back and forth. I lose touch with where my limbs are in the chair, and he grips my hip to keep me where he wants me. He takes my answer on his tongue, the kiss hot and open, swallowing my cries as his fingers pick up speed.
Something is building. It tightens and coils with every stroke, pulling me toward a tipping point. I don’t know what is at the end of this. Only that if he stops, I will break apart, and if he does not, I will break apart anyway.
I feel a jolt of it, and seize, before returning to myself.
“Alaris,” I cry, writhing. I grip his shoulders, the arms of the chair, anything I can reach. “I can’t…I’m…”
“You can.” His silver eyes are on my face. “You will.”
He drives his fingers deep inside me.
I break apart completely, clenching and breaking and clenching again, every stroke of his hand sending new pleasure through me. He doesn’t stop, continuing the relentless onslaught until I’m babbling, and squeezing again, his arm locked around my back my only tether.
I gasp and shudder, and flop back in the chair. Only then does he pull his fingers away from me. I can’t speak. My eyes close, my entire body suddenly so heavy.
“Ly, look at me.”
I crack my eyes at his beautiful face, still panting.
“That’s enough now.” He puts a hand under my knees, lifts me off the chair, and carries me to his bed. He sets me down on the mattress and folds the covers over me.
But it’s not enough. The pleasure is ebbing but the ache isn’t.
Before he can get too far away, I free an arm from the covers. I reach a bold hand out to touch him and find him hard. He draws a breath through his teeth and my stomach flips.
Although my limbs are heavy, my pulse picks up. I’m more and more sure this belongs inside me.
He tenses, and in a second, he’s at the end of the bed, wings pulled back.
“What?” I pant.
His wings twitch. “I should leave.”
My legs are rubber, slipping apart. All I can think about is kicking off the covers, shedding the remaining fabric on my body, and launching myself at him. “I don’t want you to.”
His eyes flare, silver so bright the room dims around him. His hands frame my feet, fingers pressing deep into the mattress, every muscle in him locked.
Then he straightens, a smile curving his wicked mouth. “Then let ending here be your punishment. Even after you stole from me, I gave you your distraction.” His wings widen as he backs up. “Sleep well, Lysandra.”
In a few steps and a flap of feathers, he’s out the balcony doors, the rush of cold air hitting me only briefly, before they close.
Part of me wants to run out on the balcony after him. But he looked in control of his power again. I don’t think he’s at risk of going to Illios tonight.
My limbs are heavy, and the bedding holds his scent. The ache between my legs has softened into something warm and slow. I have never felt like this. Wrung out and sated, alive and electric, all at the same time. I lie back and close my eyes.
As soon as I do, I’m grabbed in a stream of light and color. I can tell it’s not sleep pulling at my consciousness. I seize and my eyes fly open, darting around the room. I try to stay in the present. What can I latch onto? How can I stay here, in Arastos, in this life?
But before I come up with an answer, my eyes roll back. The scent of roses fills my nose, and I fall into memory.