Chapter 52
Ryder
She’s already extraordinary but even more so in her phoenix form.
It’s her truest self. Fiery and free. Just as she should be.
My shadows fuse with her flames as they trail behind us in the night sky.
Cheers roar beneath us as my people—our people—watch in awe.
With wide eyes and jaws dropped, they take in the miracle that is Reign Calloway.
There’s no fear or disgust behind their expressions.
Only admiration and wonder for the girl wrapped in beautiful, dangerous flames.
The glimpse of her smile as she dives sends a jolt of adrenaline through me. It’s as if nothing else in the world matters, only her happiness.
“She’s magnificent,” Amaya says to me when I touch back down on the ground.
“She certainly is,” I agree, joining her to watch from below.
“This is why you’re good for her.” Amaya turns to me. “She could’ve done this before, but she didn’t until you were here to help her do it.”
“Maybe she wasn’t ready before tonight.”
Amaya throws her head back. “You just don’t see it, do you?”
“I just think you’re giving me too much credit,” I counter.
She lets out an exaggerated grunt. “I’m not! You calm her fears and champion her decisions. Curse aside, it’s your love she needs. Perhaps even more than mine.”
“You’re wrong about that.” My voice is low and sure in the way it is when I command armies.
“It’s your love she needs. You’re the one she can always count on.
No matter what, your presence brings a peace to her life that no one will ever be able to compete with.
” She’s about to put up a fight, but I don’t let her.
“And that’s okay, Amaya. That’s how it should be.
You are her constant. Her soul’s twin flame.
Not Damien. Not me. You. If there’s one thing you believe, let it be that. ”
She bumps her hip against me. “You’re getting soft these days.”
“Believe me, it’s against my will.”
She laughs and turns to run her hand through Zane’s fur as he walks and settles beside her in his wolf form. When she stops, he nudges her with his snout, and she giggles.
I’d never admit it to her, but I appreciate the friendship we’ve built over the past few months.
She has a way about her that makes me feel comfortable shedding the hard exterior I tend to use as armor.
Other than Artemus and Reign, she’s the only one I seem to do it around.
I suppose that’s just another one of her many gifts.
When Reign finally makes her way back down, she’s met with a rousing reception.
Everyone shows their excitement as she walks over to join us, and I can already see the red radiating from her cheeks.
She’s not one to enjoy being the center of attention, but she deserves all of the praise she’s getting.
It’s time the world sees her for the woman she is.
“That was incredible!” She’s beaming, and it’s not from her power.
“No, you were incredible!” Amaya says proudly before ordering everyone to reconvene at the firepit.
I’m pleasantly surprised when Reign chooses to sit next to me this time. It shouldn’t feel like a big deal, but something about it feels like a statement. Her knee is pressed up against my thigh, and even though it’s only a slight touch, I can feel her heat warming me.
Once everyone is settled back around the fire, Akari begins to pass around glasses of wine to celebrate. Whatever game we were playing before has been long forgotten, and we spend the rest of the night watching the other entities share their gifts through music and magic.
It’s been so long since I’ve done anything like this.
Even in the Infinite Sea Territories, it felt like there was an underlying agenda.
Tonight has been different, though. Somehow, I’ve been able to release myself from the duties and burdens of being king and instead, just be Ryder.
It’s a freedom I don’t often allow myself, and now I’m thinking that’s something that should change.
As the fires begin to die out, I find myself wishing the night wasn’t coming to an end. I reach out my hands and help Reign up from the pile of blankets and pillows.
“Stay with me tonight?” It’s practically a plea when it comes out, but I don’t care. I’m desperate for her presence.
She answers with a sweet smile and nod that makes me want to melt to the center of the earth.
Once we’ve bid goodnight to the others, I sweep her up in my arms as the smoke rises around us.
“Did you have a good night?” I ask, setting her down on her side of the bed.
“The best night.”
“I’m glad,” I say as I sit down on the edge of the bed to take my shoes off.
“And you? Did you have a good night?” she asks, shifting to sit next to me.
“It wasn’t what I thought it would be like, but it was better.”
“You fit in with everyone, you know it?”
I laugh. “You sound surprised.”
“I am a little. I mean, I knew you had relationships with them, but I didn’t realize just how close you were to all of them.
Emeric maybe, but not the rest. I guess I expected your relationships with the others to be more surface level.
Mostly just business.” She stands up and starts unbuttoning her jacket.
“But you have jokes with them, and they’re at ease with you.
Comfortable in a way that only friends are. ”
I open my mouth to reply but lose my train of thought when she pulls her hair into a messy bun on the top of her head.
“Do you want to shower?” She gives me a look and I quickly clarify. “Alone, obviously. Just to get the smell of bonfire off of you.”
“That would be great, actually.”
She begins unlacing her boots while I prep the shower for her. I’m not sure how hot to make the water for a phoenix, so I take a guess.
“Here’s a towel and shirt for you. Everything else you might need is in the shower already.”
“Thank you,” she says bashfully, waiting by the door for me to leave.
Before I slip out of the bathroom, I grab the bottle of lotion from underneath the sink and leave it out for her.
The minutes tick by slowly and each one makes it harder for me to keep my thoughts under control.
Every inch of my body tenses, hyper aware that she’s standing naked and completely wet only feet away from me.
It makes my power rattle beneath my skin, fighting the urge to demolish the door that separates us.
I exhale deeply once I hear the water shut off.
Not sure her wearing my shirt will do much to halt the wave of dirty thoughts creeping into my mind, but it’s better than imagining the water running down her body where my hands should be.
The dagger I twist against my finger distracts me all of five seconds before my eyes catch a glimpse of her through the small crack she must’ve accidentally left when she failed to shut the door all the way.
It feels like a reward and a punishment all at the same time.
I have just enough self-control to keep myself positioned on the bed but not enough to pull my gaze.
Instead, I intently watch as she begins rubbing the lotion over her legs, working her way up to the very inner part of her thighs.
Just the sliver of her that I can see makes my cock harden to the point I’m in pain.
It only gets worse when she begins rubbing lotion over her perfectly round breasts that have my mouth watering.
It’s over in only a few seconds but it was enough to get me worked up to the point I need release.
The moment she emerges from the bathroom, I vaporate into the shower, using my shadows to close the door behind me. The water is cold, but not cold enough to undo the damage her bare body has already caused.
It feels wrong stroking myself with the image of her in my head, but I can’t stop.
I need release and she’s the only one who can free me from the pressure building up inside me.
I replay her massaging the lotion on her thighs, imagining it were my hands working their way up to the part of her that I want so badly to explore.
As the vision of her running her hands over her breast plays in my mind, I envision my mouth wrapping around her nipples that are hard from feeling my touch.
I stroke my cock faster as the fantasy of her runs wild in my head.
I picture my hands squeezing her ass as she wraps her legs around me.
Instead of my hand gripping my cock, I imagine it’s her wet opening, clutching me like I’m the best thing to ever happen to her.
I can hear her moan into my ear as she begins to lose control.
Her body shakes from pure pleasure, and it makes me come undone.
I can almost hear her say my name as I come with a quiet whimper that only she can cause.
I try to catch my breath as the water washes away the sins of my vivid imagination.
“Ryder?”
With my mind beginning to clear, I realize she actually had said my name.
“Yeah?” I ask as I quickly work to clean myself off.
“Is everything okay?”
It is now.
“Yes, I’ll be right out.”
I finish up and turn off the water. I had been in such a hurry to get in here, I didn’t grab something to change into, so I wrap the wet towel around my waist before opening the door.
She’s propped up on her side with a book open in front of her.
I do my best to keep my eyes focused on her top half, but there’s a moment of weakness where my eyes fall.
I notice the curve of her ass peeking out from under the shirt that isn’t quite as long as the one from the other night, and find myself clenching my fists as an attempt to check my power that grows more and more unstable the longer I look at her.
Eventually, I give up altogether and refocus my attention on the dresser.
“What book did you pick?”
She flips the book closed to look at the cover. “Finding Evangeline.”
“Interesting choice,” I tell her as I slip on a pair of bottoms with the towel still wrapped around my waist.
“Tell me about it,” she insists before slipping under the covers.
“There’s a boy who meets a girl named Evangeline when he’s six years old,” I begin as I turn off the lights and climb into the bed next to her.
“It was only for a day but that one day changed his whole life. He spends the rest of his life looking for her. He sees her in shops and street corners but only for a moment. Never long enough to catch up to her. It isn’t until the end that he finds out she was never real.
She was simply a figment of his imagination he had created the day his mother died.
She was what he needed in that time of grief and real or not, she kept him moving forward through life by simply existing—even if it was only in his mind. ”
“That’s tragic,” she says, hugging the pillow beneath her head a little tighter.
“I think it’s beautiful.” She looks at me like she’s surprised I would say such a thing. “What?”
“Nothing,” she mumbles. “Sometimes I feel like maybe I don’t know you as well as I think I do.”
“Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you this whole time?”
“I mean the softer parts of you. The parts that you’ve kept hidden, even from me.”
“Like what?”
She begins tracing invisible patterns on the covers with her index finger. “Like your mother. What was she like? What was your relationship with her like?”
I’m silent for a moment. Not because I don’t want to tell her, but because no one has ever asked. Everything has always been about my father. The only mention of my mother seems to be of her death.
“She was soft and quiet. She had a silent strength about her. To the rest of the world, she was in the background, hidden behind my father. But to me, she was the center.”
I grab Reign with my shadows and pull her close to me. She settles her leg in between mine, and I instinctively rest my hand on her perfect ass. The gesture makes her heat flare, and she inches just a little closer so that there is no space remaining between us.
“Tell me more,” she pleads.
“My mother was kind and gentle in a way that opposed her ruthless husband,” I continue. “Growing up, she would read me stories and make up games for us to play. As I got older, our time together became more scarce. But in that, it also became more precious. It was a gift that I treasured.”
“But she let your father do horrible things to you?” Reign questions with a look of hurt that makes me feel sick to my stomach.
“She didn’t always know what was going on,” I tell her, running my free hand along the arm she’s draped over my chest. “For whatever reason she loved my father, and he loved her back. It only made sense to the two of them, but I didn’t want to ruin that.
I never spoke of the things he had done or made me do.
Of course, she knew who he was. What kind of king he was.
But she was the light in all the dark and I was scared that if she knew it all, that light would dim, and I would be left in only darkness.
And I was right to think that because that’s exactly what happened when she died. ”
“I’m sorry,” she says in quiet sincerity.
I lift her chin up to look at me.
“Don’t be. It was you who brought back the light.”