Chapter 29 #2
The sight of it summoned something unfamiliar in Vaasa, and despite herself, tears sprang to her eyes.
She’d grown up in an apathetic city; no warmth lingered here.
So when she looked upon comfort, she still didn’t entirely know what to do.
That much of her hadn’t changed. She remembered the false words she’d spun to Roman in the prison, the subtle insinuation that she wanted him, and all the lies she told added up to a dagger at her own neck.
Roman’s betrayal wounded her somewhere deep. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that he’d been working for Lord Vlacik—that he’d been in Mekes before Vaasa had even left for Icruria. No matter what he claimed, it meant he’d only come back in pursuit of her throne.
After he’d been sent to the northern Asteryan border, the memories of him had become dark around the edges—she’d forced them to be. But there were times she had taken solace in the idea that even here in Mekes, a glimmer of love could be found. She’d clung to it, and he’d proven her wrong.
She squeezed her lids shut to try and dismiss her impending tears, but they wouldn’t leave. The weight of sadness racked her ribcage, and the resilience she’d tried to carry started to chip away.
It wasn’t that she loved him. It was that the final piece of brightness here had turned against her, had twisted into something terrible.
“Let it out,” Reid whispered while his hand skimmed up and down her side in a subtle attempt to calm her.
One rogue tear slid down her cheek. She hated that she felt this way. Her magic churned with the ferocity of the Iron Bay, like waves curling in on themselves and crashing against her insides.
“Reid, I need to tell you something,” she whispered into the dark.
He was still beside her, but not rigid. “Then tell me.”
“I told you once of a man I loved when I was younger, a man Dominik had killed.”
Reid let out a breath. “Roman.”
“Yes,” she said reluctantly. She sat up just a bit, her hair falling around her face as she met his gaze. “He’s… alive. He’s my lead sentinel. He was working for Vlacik, for those pirates.”
Reid didn’t move. He only stared up at her, never breaking their gaze. And then he said, “Back home in Mireh, I would have waited years more to have you. There were only two things that would have ended my pursuit. If you told me you did not love me, or if you told me you loved someone else.”
Vaasa’s throat tightened to the point of pain, the ball of her emotions lodged there. Another tear slid over her cheek.
“So tell me now, because I value your truth, and because I always want you to live in it. I am not a man you ever need to lie to.”
“You are the only person I love.” She dropped her forehead to his, closing her eyes.
Relishing in the closeness of him. “I want to be your wife, of my own free will, of my own volition. Not for salt, not for freedom, not for anything other than the unalterable truth that I am yours until I cease to pull breath.”
A part of Vaasa knew she was going to fall apart, that there were details they should try to fit together and potential outcomes they should anticipate.
But she was so tired of living in what this city made of her, of spending all day in her own mind.
“Please,” she begged into the minimal space between where her lips ended and his began.
She crossed that distance, pressing her mouth to his, lifting her hands to run over his shoulders.
She needed this—to be touched in a way that was not menacing, to be close to someone she knew would not put a knife through her back.
To be the version of herself she so desperately wanted to be.
The version of herself that was his. “Tell me you still want that, too. That in the end, it’s just you and me.
That you will want me beyond your ten years as headman, that you will need me for more than power. ”
Without a hint of hesitation, Reid rolled so that he was above her, one leg on either side of hers.
He kissed her so gently it bordered on torturous.
She didn’t want gentle. She didn’t want kind.
This place sharpened each of her corners, and she couldn’t even protect herself from it.
Her magic churned in her abdomen and melded with a kindling heat, the taste of Reid heady on her tongue.
It was all she could do to ground herself now—to smother this pain with the feel of him, to sate this longing with his taste.
“Of course I want more,” he whispered against her lips.
“You are not the blood of war. You are everything that happens after for me.”
Anything she had ever felt for another dwindled into smallness. It paled in comparison to the enormity of what this man summoned from the depths of her—something she’d thought she would never once feel.
That she could trust every piece of her being with another.
That she wanted to.
Vaasa was greedy with her hands as she slipped them under his shirt.
She kissed him so desperately, she thought she would be lost. Her nails scratched the hard muscles of his stomach.
She wanted to drag her teeth along them, a thought that ignited more passion in her body.
Fire blazed in her core, and she couldn’t believe how her desire consumed her.
She bit his lower lip, and a sound emanated from the back of his throat, tongue sweeping through her lips to tease her.
The intensity of everything she’d experienced speared through her, and she couldn’t contain it anymore.
Her fingers dug into the skin of his back as she clawed at his shirt’s hem, trying to haul it off him.
Reid lifted enough for her to accomplish her task, his eyes going alight with the sight of her being so wanton.
He grabbed ahold of her leg and maneuvered it so he was entirely between her thighs, looming above her, strong hands coasting over her hips and up to where her blouse tucked beneath her breeches.
She stared up at his half-naked form with nothing short of reverence.
The sculpted lines of him looked just as she remembered, only accentuated in the dim firelight.
She caught sight of the small bite mark she’d left on his shoulder during their last encounter, and it sent a thrill through her.
The strength sewn into his broad muscles reminded her of the way he worked oars upon Icrurian ships, the way he could lift her with ease onto his desk in the High Temple, how she’d been so fucking foolish not to take advantage of every opportunity to have him that she’d been presented. All that time wasted.
“What are you thinking?” he asked softly, his hands hovering above her stomach with the hem of her untucked shirt balled in his fist.
She bit her lower lip. “I should have fucked you on our wedding night.”
A smile formed on his face. “Oh, Wild One,” he laughed, pulling up on her shirt so she had no choice but to arch her back. His mouth dipped to linger just above her breast, his eyes looking up to meet hers. “If you had let me fuck you on our wedding night, you never would have left.”
He kissed her through her shirt then, teeth grazing over her nipple, leaving the fabric wet.
He’d done this to her on the Settara as they made their way to Dihrah, just days before the election, just days before everything was lost. Vaasa dug her fingers into his hair, needing to be reminded that he was real.
He was here for her. “You sound awfully confident,” she said.
“I am,” he insisted. His teeth grazed over her covered breast again. “You want to know why?”
“Why?”
His voice hummed along her skin. “Because you aren’t the only one who’s good with knots.
” With one hand, Reid pulled her shirt over her head until the fabric was bunched on her arms and twisted, causing the sleeves to tighten around her wrists.
Before she could register what he was doing, he looped the shirt onto the decorative arm of the couch, sliding it between two thick crevices of wood so the fabric was secured behind her head.
She pulled, but she couldn’t release herself. Her arms were trapped.
Vaasa’s breath hitched, and her eyes went a little wide. Faintly, she felt the cool mist of her Veragi magic as it played on her bound wrists.
Reid smiled like the devil. “You’re at my mercy now.”
Vaasa could hardly breathe. Reid lowered his head to her now naked breast and took her nipple into his mouth, sucking until she let out a small gasp.
He switched to the other side, flicking his tongue until she squirmed.
Vaasa let her low moan unleash, finally alone with him, finally able to make whatever sound she wanted.
His lips brushed the sensitive skin of her neck, hands roaming along her shoulders.
His eyes roved over everywhere he touched, fingers brushing the base of her neck.
Faintly, she realized he was inspecting her—going slowly in order to look for wounds. Scars. He was going to find them. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from arching into his touch. His breath was so warm. Her collarbones, the swell of her breasts, each of her shoulders—and then he paused.
His fingers ran over the slightly raised lines on her upper arms where Lord Vlacik had cut her. Such fine, delicate work that man had accomplished with a blade. Reid’s eyes met hers, and she shook her head. He had to know she wasn’t able to handle those memories. That they needed to stay buried.
“You want to forget?” he asked in that low voice of his, somewhere between a growl and a plea.
“Everything except you,” she confessed.