Chapter 19
Cal
Drivas snored. Loud. So loud, in fact, I wasn’t sure how their existence could ever be doubted, because I was positive they could be heard throughout every realm. I thought I was sick of hearing the ocean waves, but I reckoned I’d take that over the thunderous sound of three sleeping drivas.
The fire burned low, embers lazily floating into the air, seemingly weaving between the stars before their lights winked out.
Miles had taken his bedroll and moved it about a hundred feet up the beach in an attempt to escape the worst of the drivas’ snoring.
Petra and I had stayed in place by the fire.
I watched as her lashes fluttered closed, listened as her breathing slowed and evened.
Carefully, I slipped my arm from beneath her head, staring for one extra second before I made my way down the beach. The sand shook with the sound of the drivas’ snoring, and I had no choice but to cover my ears as I passed their sleeping forms.
“Holy shit,” I murmured to myself when they were far enough behind me that I could actually hear myself think. “There’s no way that’s healthy.”
Down the beach I walked, with no destination beside far away from my own thoughts.
The muscles in my legs would be feeling the effects of the ride we made for days, but I pushed through the pain clinging to my calves and thighs.
Miles’ secret was weighing on me, the lie like a stone sitting heavy in my gut.
In the days since he’d told me, it hadn’t grown lighter.
It hadn’t shifted. I could always feel it, its steady weight pulling me down.
I even went so far as to justify the lie of omission’s presence within me, to tell myself Miles was right, that the choice Petra would face if she knew the truth would be far more cruel than keeping it from her.
And maybe that was true. Maybe it was kinder to keep the secret as long as I had to, then drive a blade through Tobyas’ — no, Miles ’ chest.
“Dammit,” I muttered to myself, stopping in the sand when the weight grew too much to carry one step further.
“Can’t sleep?”
I whirled to see Petra twenty feet behind me, a fragile smile on her pretty face.
“ Fuck ,” I breathed. “How long have you been following me?”
“The drivas covered up the sound of my footsteps,” she said with a chuckle, but it was hollow.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She closed the gap between us, her brown eyes glimmering as she looked up at me. I couldn’t read the look on her face as she searched my gaze and said, “Talk to me about when it’s over.” Her words were no louder than a whisper, but the desperation resounded around us as though she’d screamed .
A brittle part of my heart splintered then, because she was asking for hope. Would she ask me if she knew the secret I was hiding from her?
I took her hand and lowered us to the ground. I wanted to breathe in that sweet orange and rosewater scent and hold it in my lungs until I suffocated. “When all of this is over,” I finally said, forcing my churning thoughts into submission, “I’m going to build us a house.”
An amused breath rushed through her nose. “Oh yeah?”
“Mhm. Whatever kind you want. Wherever you want.”
“What makes you think you can build a house? Have you ever built a house before?”
“No, but I’m good with my hands.”
She laughed — a real, genuine laugh that loosened something in me.
I hoped there would come a day where this was normal, where we could laugh together and not think of it as something special or out of the ordinary.
I hoped there would come a day when I built her that house, and even if it fell apart around us because I turned out to be shit at building, we’d be happy in the ruins.
I hoped we’d both live to see the day when all of this turmoil was nothing but a faded memory.
“What if I don’t want a house?” she asked. “What if I want a mansion carved into the side of a cliff?”
I pulled her closer into my side. “I’ll chisel it bit by bit.”
“What if I want a farm with cows and chickens and goats?”
“I’ll learn how to grow crops and build fences.”
“And what if I want children?”
My lips skimmed to her ear, nipping at her earlobe. “I’ll give you as many as you want.”
“And what if I don’t?”
She gasped softly as my lips roved to her jaw, placing kisses as I went. “That’s fine, too. All the more time to spend with you.”
Her fingertips flexed against my arms as my forehead rested against hers. She’d turned to face me now, searching my eyes, a look of need on her face I’d do anything to satisfy. “What if I want the moon, Cal?”
“I’ll build a ladder to go get it for you. And I’ll bring you back the sun and stars while I’m up there.”
She exhaled, swallowing hard. I knew what she wanted to ask, what she wouldn’t say out loud.
“You want a bold life spent ruling your kingdom? I’ll rule by your side.
You want a quiet life spent in the countryside?
I’ll chop the firewood and plant you a garden.
You want to live by the ocean? I’ll learn to swim.
You want to cast me away and live a life without me in it?
I’ll miss you every day until my last, but I’ll go.
Whatever you want, Petra, I promise I’ll give it to you. ”
There was nothing tacked on to the end of that sentence, no if we make it out of here . No if we survive. It was definite, and I meant every word.
“I just want you.”
Her words boomed through my head, and my hands moved to her hips, squeezing, possessive.
She arched toward me, molding to my body like it was the most natural thing in the world.
So much could be said in this moment, so many words I could think of.
The but s and what if s had plagued us since the day I first laid eyes on her.
They didn’t need to be spoken aloud. Instead, I pulled her closer.
We collided, my lips demanding and hers surrendering.
She melted into me, one of her hands tracing the tattooed flames up and down my arm, the other reaching for the hem of my tunic.
Our movements quickly turned frantic, pausing only to pull the shirts over our heads and peel the trousers from our legs.
I pinned her beneath me, my hands roaming shamelessly up and down her sides, skimming the bottoms of her breasts as my teeth sank into her bottom lip. I wanted to soak in the feeling of her, be consumed by her glow. I wanted to ruin and ravage her and shield and protect her all at the same time .
Her legs locked around me, greedily pulling me toward her. As desperately as I wanted to take my time with her, drive her crazy the way she did me, I was a man possessed.
“Please,” she whimpered, reaching between us.
I hissed through my teeth the moment her hand wrapped around me, my forehead falling to hers.
She lined me up at her entrance, and fuck , she was ready.
In one thrust, I slid home. I captured her gasp with my mouth, swallowing my own groan as I began to move.
Everything was happening too fast, it would be over too quickly, but I was anything but in control right now.
“Petra,” I snarled, moving my lips from her mouth to her throat.
“Yes, Cal, yes ,” she whispered, her legs locking tighter around my hips, pulsing against my back, urging me to move faster.
She constricted around me, her hands gripping my shoulders for dear life. Her fingernails dug in, and I hoped I’d look down tomorrow to see she’d left marks. She was so perfect, her body responding to mine as if this was a law of nature, like the world made her just for me and me for her.
A gasp left me before I even felt the pain of a burn bloom on my shoulders, as if my body were seconds ahead of my mind. It hit me the moment she yanked her hands back, her eyes widening in horror.
“Oh my fucking Saints,” she blurted. “I’m sorry. Oh, fuck, I’m sorry, Cal. I don’t know what happened. It felt so good, and my fire just–”
I cut her off with a kiss, reaching up to place each of her hands back on my shoulders.
I winced slightly when they made contact with the skin that was definitely already reddened and angry, but I didn’t care about the pain.
Tears flooded her lashes as her fingertips ghosted over the burns, afraid to touch.
“Don’t be afraid to hurt me. There is nothing your hands can do to me that I wouldn’t welcome.”
Slowly, she pressed her hands into my skin again, the residual heat warming my shoulders as I captured her mouth in another kiss. Her movements were tense, measured. She was holding back, even as her legs tightened impossibly more around me.
“Brand me, Petra. I’m yours.”
And she listened. Her hands pressed harder, the heat building as her motions slowly loosened, as her control slowly slipped.
“That’s it,” I urged her, nipping again at her bottom lip as my movements quickened. “Let go.”
I grunted as the burn singed my skin, so hot I knew I’d bear the marks forever. Good. I’d bear them with more pride than any crown or title.
Her hands left my shoulders, her features etched with a tentative hunger. “It’s getting to be too much,” she whispered.
Without a second thought, I was pushing to stand and mourning the loss of her heat.
She stared at my outstretched hand. “What are you doing?”
“Cooling you down.”
A soft smile played on her lips as I pulled her up and led her to the water, and she didn’t protest when we waded in, slowly moving deeper and deeper until the water was just below her chest. I lowered myself just enough to soothe the burns on my shoulders.
Petra opened her mouth, her apology imminent, but I spoke before she could. “Don’t you dare apologize,” I murmured, my hand stroking over the back of her head.
She was silent for a beat before our lips clashed together again.
This time, it was different. The energy between us had shifted.
What had been frenzied and feverish had taken on an invisible but undeniable weight.
So much in the world was turbulent. So much was uncertain.
But what was between us, this thing we’d built in the face of a great force trying to tear it down… It was everything.
Petra hiked one leg up to my hip, then the other.
And as I sank into her once again, I hoped she felt what I felt.
That at the end of it all, if everything else burned to ash, we’d always have this.
Malosym could wipe the realm clean, break it down and wring every ounce of pain he could from it, but this moment, here, with Petra, would remain. He couldn’t take this away.
She began writhing against me, her breaths growing faster, her moans and whimpers growing higher in pitch.
The water sloshed between us, cooling my shoulders.
There was no sign of her fire nor the apprehension it had caused her.
“Come for me,” I growled into her ear. “Let me feel it, Petra. I know you’re close.
” Her movements grew more erratic, her hips bucking, my arms flexing as I pulled her against me over and over.
“Cal,” she moaned before her breath hitched and she shattered completely, her muscles squeezing tighter and tighter around me, pulling me along with her. Stars spotted my vision as she rode out her climax, her mouth open against mine. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“ Fuck , I love you,” I groaned as I followed her over the edge.
“I love you,” she whispered back, and I’d truly never get used to hearing those words come out of her mouth for me .
And the next morning, when we woke up tangled together, for one moment, there was no evil. There was no lie I was telling, no secret I was keeping. There was no Malosym. There was simply me and Petra and the world I so desperately wanted to give her.