Chapter 30 Galwell #2
He hardly grasped her explanation. How could he concentrate given the sight in front of him? Need, scorching low in his stomach, compelled him. He reached up for Mona’s bare breasts. When they filled his hands, he shuddered, his vision starting to constrict.
“Tell me what you want,” Mona urged him. “You can’t hide any of your fantasies from me, Galwell. Give me every wicked little
thought.”
“You,” he replied. “You’re my fantasy. Just you.”
Mona stilled, her eyes finding his.
In them, he found not only lust. Not only need. Those were there, yes. But for once, Mona looked—fully herself. Stripped.
Naked in skin, naked in soul.
He knew she could hear every way he wanted her. Every way he loved her. He was fiercely glad she could.
Withdrawing, he removed his cloak and laid it on the floor for them. When he helped Mona down—very chivalrously, of course—she
chuckled. “You find this humorous,” he observed without indignation.
“No, no,” Mona responded. “I just . . . didn’t expect this to be a first for me, too.”
He needed no further explanation. With one careful hand, he opened Mona’s legs. She guided him, her hand shaking with quiet
eagerness, until he slid deep inside her.
Everything vanished except ecstasy. The unwelcoming walls of their prison—gone. They could have been on the Evriels’ harsh
slopes or the clouds of the Ghost’s Gate. The wanted posters, the ignominy—gone. The plan, the quest—gone. Heroism, heartache,
power, corruption, legacy—gone.
There was only Mona. He pressed deeper inside her with every stroke, finding the perfect combination of deliberate rhythm
and drawn-out need. He wanted to feel every inch of her wet desire. He wanted ever deeper. He wanted forever.
Instead of losing himself to pure instinct, he paid attention to Mona. Her guidance was very helpful, and very vocal. Galwell clung to every word—not just her demands, or her promises, but how the syllables sounded in her mouth, husky
and intoxicating.
“Slower,” she commanded. “There.”
There. He caressed her thighs, imitating her when she clasped her hand on top of his, urging him to clench her ass. He listened
to every sigh she made when he pushed into her, making her quake in delight.
Her gasps shallowed—her eyelids fluttering while her lips parted—and Galwell knew they were on the edge of the same precipice
now. When his pleasure exploded, she held him close, looking into his eyes.
Galwell held her gaze. She wasn’t only succumbing to the pummeling ecstasy shattering her body. She was facing the feelings
between them head on.
Happy and spent, he collapsed onto her. No wonder Clare sought sex the night before they entered the Grimauld Mines, he recalled. No wonder Elowen and Vandra were always slipping off together.
Was it like this always? Or did Mona make it unforgettable?
He suspected the latter.
When he noticed her shivering, he reached immediately for his abandoned shirt to wrap around her shoulders. “You’re cold,”
he observed.
Mona smiled. “I’m not.”
Confusion combined quickly with dread. He frowned, fending off horrible, embarrassing conclusions. Feeling rather like he
was stalking into the Grimauld Mines himself, he voiced his concerns. “Was I . . . not good?”
Mona smiled wide, every inch her old self. Ghosts, villainy looked good on her.
“Galwell the Great, indeed,” she commended him slyly.
Relief rushed over him. “Is something wrong, then?” he ventured.
Mona shook her head, eyes full of feeling. “No, I just never thought I would—”
Right that instant, River teleported into their midst. If this were not sufficiently startling, nothing could prepare the
contented postcoital couple for the figure River clasped by one elbow—Clare Grandhart.
Glimpsing Galwell with Mona, the roguish hero shrieked, clapping his hands over his eyes.
“River!” Galwell exclaimed, panic constricting his voice. “You’re early! And—why do you have Clare?”
“Celine needs my help before I go onstage. Figured I would spring you two early,” River explained. She regarded them with
interest. “Didn’t realize I would be . . . interrupting. Honestly, good for you, Galwell. We didn’t know if you had it in
you.”
“No!” Clare protested. “Not good for you! Absolutely no congratulations are in order here! Commiserations! Lamentations! Condolences!”
Mona, who was not easy to embarrass, had flushed pronouncedly pink. She hurriedly pulled on Galwell’s shirt. The hero himself
was left to clumsily cover his privates with his cloak.
River went on cheerfully. “Spotted this guy about to get arrested from my tent. A fight broke out in the crowd. Lots of unrest
in this city. When they saw Clare—” River gestured to the elder Grandhart, who remained covering his eyes.
“Apparently, I’m famous even abroad, and Vestriyans really don’t like heroes—especially Mythrian heroes, given current interrealm
relations. Not even strapping six-time Sexiest Man Alive winners,” Clare grumbled, forgetting his mortification momentarily.
“Someone threw a punch at me, and somehow I was the one the guards arrested. Or they would have, if River hadn’t snatched me. Honestly, please take me back,” he pleaded.
“I’d take anything over this.”
Visibly mustering his courage, he peeked out from behind his hands with one eye, observing the half-dressed Mona and—
“Galwell,” he chastised his friend indignantly. “How could you? She’s my sister!”
“I—I did not know you felt so protectively for her, Clare,” Galwell replied.
Clare ignored him. “And you.” He charged on, redirecting his ire at Mona. “How could you? You’re evil and he’s . . . a kind, gentlehearted king of a man.”
“Why, thank you, Clare,” Galwell interjected, genuinely touched.
“No.” Clare cut his gaze back to his friend. “You’re still in trouble. I’m deeply disappointed in you both. And in a jail?” Clare shook his head in utter and unmistakable dismay. “I fear the realms really will come to ruin.”
“Okay, I’m going to go help Celine!” River interjected. “This seems like a family matter.”
She vanished. The next instant, she was inside their cell. She grabbed the half-clothed couple by one elbow each. Galwell’s
head spun from the shocking momentum of River’s magic. Then, suddenly, they were on the other side of the bars. Except—
“River! My pants!” Galwell reminded her desperately, for the garments remained in the cell, and not, regrettably, on Galwell’s
person.
“Shit. Sorry.” River rematerialized lightning-quick in the cell. She collected his pants and tossed them through the bars
to the chagrined Galwell. Then, with a cheerful wave, their companion—the only member of the present company not related to
or sleeping with each other—teleported out, leaving Galwell and the Grandharts.
Galwell dressed himself hastily.
“Do you love each other or was this a . . . physical thing?” Clare demanded, muscling through the question. When Galwell opened his mouth to reply, Clare preempted him. “No. I don’t want to know. Neither answer will comfort me.”
“I love your sister very much, my friend,” Galwell reassured him.
Clare roared.
“I assure you I have the utmost respect for her,” Galwell persisted. “I seek never to hurt her.”
“Only when I ask him very nicely,” Mona said, smirking.
Clare staggered to the wall. “I think I might be dying,” he pronounced.
“To be fair”—Mona inspected her crimson-charmed fingernails—“you did send him to me for safekeeping . . . So really this is
your fault. Speaking of . . .”
Mona’s gaze hardened. Clare’s eyes widened.
“You can’t be serious,” he replied.
“I kept him safe, did I not?” Mona returned humorlessly. “You didn’t say ‘keep him safe and don’t give him the best sex of
his life.’ I believe you owe me what was promised.”
Clare’s dramatics disappeared. Everyone’s sex lives were forgotten. Clare’s somber seriousness was like none Galwell had ever
seen on his friend.
Galwell rounded on Mona. What was promised . . . Surely she wouldn’t . . . Not now. He’d hoped—foolishly—to calm her yearning for revenge. To show her how joy and love and
hope could lead her out of darkness. Realizing nothing had changed . . . his heart hurt.
“Hunting them won’t change the past,” Clare pleaded. “It won’t make all their wrongs right. It won’t make yours right, either.
They’ve changed, Mona.”
“You fool,” his sister snapped.
Even dauntless Clare winced.
“Your quests may have made you famous, brother, but they have not made you wise,” Mona hissed. “Nobody ever changes. Not really. Not the worst things they’ve ever done. No one escapes their wrongs—the hurt they’ve inflicted. Or they shouldn’t,” she finished darkly.
“They do, Mona,” Clare insisted. “Please, listen to me, for once—”
Mona’s eyes hardened. “No. If I listened to you, you’d be dead. You only got to have your perfect life, beloved by all, because I made the real sacrifices for you.”
Clare gripped the bars of the cell, his knuckles white. “I’ve survived on my own just fine without you. You left me behind
and I made a new life. You could, too.”
“I tried! Your friends live. Even when they die, they come back to life—” She threw a hand out toward Galwell. “Who do I have?”
“You have me.” Clare’s voice broke. “You apparently have Galwell. Don’t act like you’re the only one who has suffered tragedy. I lost
my whole crew in the Grimauld Mines. I was prepared to let the Orb Weavers kill me. Galwell and Beatrice and Elowen gave me
a reason to live again.”
His eyes strayed to Galwell, who felt his heart ache with the pain he remembered in young Clare—hiding his grief, his hopelessness,
under swaggering recklessness. Pain Galwell now saw reflected in Clare’s younger sister.
“We’re nothing alike,” Mona said, cutting through his thoughts.
Clare sighed. Galwell heard his friend’s extinguished hope. “Look, personal disgust aside, it’s clear you’ve rubbed off on
Galwell the Gruesome here. But I have to hope Galwell the Great has rubbed off on you, too, Mona,” Clare said. “You can’t
do this. I can’t let you.”
Mona flipped her hair behind her shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter what you can and can’t do, brother,” she said softly. “I’ve already stolen what I wanted from your mind.”