Chapter Twenty Zephyra
CHAPTER TWENTY
ZEPHYRA
I can’t ignore the looming presence of Arion beside me. It burrows under my skin. Nestles between my nerves and hitches my breath. No matter how exhausted I am, I cannot bring myself to sleep.
Fucking warlock.
I shouldn’t have talked as much as I did.
Shouldn’t have exposed the parts of myself I’ve hidden for so long.
I just got caught up in being here together.
In not being alone. Eight years of silence, of screaming or weeping or banging on that amber window, praying someone, anyone, would rescue me…
it stole something from me. It stole more than the sorcerer intended.
I don’t know how to exist in this world anymore.
I don’t want to be the person I am. I don’t want people to die because of me.
But Arion—he didn’t flinch away from that darkness. Probably because his opinions of me are already so low. Still, it was… nice. For a moment, with his liquid-metal gaze scorching through mine, the world felt small again. Just him and me. Our pasts. Our presents.
Maybe even our futures.
If we can find the heart.
I roll over onto my side, and—there he is.
Right there. The warlock’s muscles are coiled tight, his arms and hands crossed over his bare chest, beneath the blanket of his wings.
He doesn’t appear serene like Gavriall, who sprawls out with one hand thrown behind him and a leg dangling over the side of the bench.
Instead, Arion looks as if he’s fighting it.
Sleep, thoughts, life itself—any number of things hidden beneath that perfected surface of strength and power and control.
How did they train you?
Torture.
I hate the memory of our conversation climbing the walls of this too-small chamber, stealing the oxygen and suffocating me slowly. Because there is a world where Arion isn’t entirely evil. A world where I can’t entirely loathe him. A world where I—
I might even understand him.
The silvered cord twists around my waist, tighter, before shooting out to caress his throat.
His hard expression eases almost instantly.
His muscles relax. He rolls onto his back, his wings spreading wide enough now they threaten to tickle my cheek.
Every bone in my body stiffens. If I move, we’ll touch. And whenever we touch…
Zephyra, if we don’t stop now, I am going to fuck you.
I swallow hard. My breathing ceases entirely.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
But I stare at him, watching the rise and fall of his broad chest, the play of violet bioluminescence on his chiseled features, the way his trousers ride low on his hips, the rough fabric rasping with his every shallow breath.
Shallow breaths, I realize, not deep inhalations of exhaustion.
Shallow breaths, I realize, because he’s awake.
Shit. I can’t stop staring at him, and—Arion turns his head. He stares back at me.
His wings rustle, the lightest feather’s touch sweeping across my shoulder.
I shiver. His gaze flicks to my mouth. Truthfully, I’m far from a virgin.
I’ve slept with men, women, and nonbinary beauties.
But with Arion—with our goddess-forsaken bond—it’s different.
It’s too much. Desire burns through every cell in my body; it incinerates blood and bone, pulsing through the silvered cord with a divine sort of light.
Which is stupid. A historian-slash-criminal sleeps behind us, an evil sorcerer is hunting me down, yet I can’t help staring.
I lick my lips. Arion shifts on the ground.
Neither of us takes our eyes off the other.
The cord slides down his neck, over his chest, while it drags up the curve of my waist and over the tip of my breast. Cruel. Heinous.
I still gasp.
As soon as my lips part, Arion unleashes a burst of magic.
It silences my breathy sigh before it can permeate the cavern.
Although, that doesn’t really matter. Arion may not be able to hear it, but he can still see.
Just as I can see his throat bob with a rough swallow.
He shifts again. His hands ball into fists.
He’s searching for restraint, just as he was when he took my hand.
Goddess, I fucking wanted him. All that lust rushing through the cord, his body trembling with need, his cock hard. My body bowing toward his.
I don’t want him to have restraint.
I want—I need—
Stop, he mouths, and his gaze descends to my thighs.
I realize then that I’m pressing them together.
Whether I’m fighting pleasure or seeking it, I don’t know.
I squirm. He shifts once more. Reaching down, he tugs at the waistband of his trousers.
The silhouette of his cock once again presses hard and huge against the fabric, and another harsh breath escapes me.
It’s been months since I’ve had the time or energy or care to touch myself, let alone touch anyone else, but right now I might implode if I don’t.
Of course, I can’t.
So I won’t.
But that doesn’t ease the building ache between my thighs.
Arion’s hand lingers near his cock, palm lying flat on his hard abdomen, and, dear goddess, I wish he’d lower it.
Just inches. Just enough to stroke himself and free me from this goddess-damned prison of lust. The silvered cord pulses once more, undoubtedly with a throttle of my own desire, and his gaze snaps to mine.
He clenches his jaw tight. His molten eyes spark with frustration.
I am still staring. Still aching.
His shirt feels more like a burden now, the material too thin, too scratchy, too not him.
I want to rip it off. I want to crawl toward him on my knees.
I want his hands, his mouth, his tongue, his everything.
I want to feel him against me. On me. All over me.
I want thrusts, rough and brutal. I don’t want control. I want reckless. I want—
Him.
The ground trembles with his restraint. He glares at me.
I glare at him. This is his fault. His fault for saving my life and entangling it with his own.
This is… this is the bond. Just the bond.
However, it feels like so much more, and I can’t fucking breathe.
I’ve been reduced to kindling. Made to burn.
Suddenly, a burst of hot magic encircles my wrists.
It pins them above my head. Arion’s gaze flares with his magic, his muscles tense as I lie, still silenced, mere inches from him.
I arch into the enchanted hold, sweat beading down my neck and between my breasts.
Arion curses—I watch him curse, though I can’t hear it either, can’t hear anything but my own pulse—and that magic sweeps lower.
A phantom touch of what I’m craving, but enough that I moan.
It glides down my body like a searing palm, over his shirt, and fuck, I wish he would just tear it away.
I wish there was nothing between us. The bond is driving me mad.
I’ve lost my mind, and I don’t know I can get it back until we… until he…
“Zephyra,” he groans—and the rough sound punctures the night. Punctures my nerves too. I gasp as Arion’s phantom touch rakes up my thigh. He slides my shirt higher, his magic grip on my wrists ironclad. “Fuck.”
I nod frantically, urging him to do more.
He is a human. I am a mermaid. But maybe—maybe we can have this.
A single moment in time. “It doesn’t have to mean anything,” I breathe.
And goddess, it hurts. It must hurt him too, because he reaches down.
Fists his cock with a shuddering breath. Just to move it. To adjust it.
It’s not enough.
“The life debt,” he rasps. “This isn’t—it’s not us.”
“No, it’s not,” I agree, pushing my legs open.
His phantom touch curls around my thigh, stroking the soft flesh near my core.
I moan, uninhibited, because it feels good.
Not bad. Not fine. Not even good enough.
For the first time in a decade, something feels really fucking good.
And I want it. I want more of it. The heat and the pain and the pleasure—it feels like living, and I crave it. “More,” I demand.
His gaze sears through mine. “What about tomorrow? When we wake up and have to face what we’ve done?”
“I don’t participate in shame,” I say honestly, nearly panting now. “I don’t believe in regret either. We are two consenting adults, and you are”—breathtakingly handsome—“attractive enough. I, myself, am extraordinarily gorgeous. Why wouldn’t we? Unless warlocks are celibate—”
As if to answer the question, his magic presses a hot finger against my clit. “Shit,” I hiss. “Can he—can the historian hear us?”
Arion swears too, his breathing even more ragged than my own. Another burst of magic. It smells like lemons and honey. It smells like him.
“No. He can’t.”
The warlock holds on to his control by a single thread—a thread that seems to be unraveling more and more with each passing second.
“I shouldn’t be feeling any of this,” he growls, snatching the cord and pulling it taut.
The sudden force—the accompanying unbridled rush of ecstasy—arches my back even more.
A ragged moan wrings from my throat. His golden gaze flashes.
Darker, hungrier. As if he’s going to devour me.
“Warlocks cast aside their emotions,” he declares, voice hardened and enraged. “We sacrifice our past to ensure our future. We don’t need mortal vices to live.”