Chapter 43
Their pack thudded to the ground as Adara dropped it and practically fell into the eager arms of Asher and Caleb, waiting at the outskirts of the oasis in the shade of the verdant palm trees. She winced, pulling back from their grip.
Asher eyed her shoulder with concern. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Adara’s lips twitched into a smile. “I’m not dead. That counts for something right?”
“That counts for everything!” Caleb exclaimed, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her into the air.
Adara’s head tipped back with euphoric laughter as he spun her.
The pain radiating through his body was dulled by the ecstasy overwhelming him. Dominic smiled as Caleb gently set her down. “I’m here too, you know?” he joked.
“You want me to hug you and spin you around?” Caleb asked, brows raised and arms open in invitation.
Dominic breathed a laugh. “You want a broken arm?”
“Point taken,” Caleb replied.
“We’re glad you’re back, too,” Asher offered. “We just know better than to hug you.” He retrieved their rucksack.
They headed deeper into the copse of trees, where the others waited.
Bedrolls lined the sand, littered with cacti.
The horses drinking from the waterhole turned their heads and whinnied at their arrival.
Zephyr poked his head between the canvas flaps of the caravan, brown eyes shining with excitement.
“You’re back!” he shouted, leaping from the wagon and running to them.
His arms wrapped around Dominic’s legs, and though he was a small kid, Dominic staggered back. He groaned at the throb in his leg.
“Sorry!” Zephyr said, immediately pulling back and eyeing the rip in Dominic’s pant leg where the stab wound could be seen.
Dominic chuckled. “It’s all right,” he said, ruffling Zephyr’s blond hair.
The young boy bounded over to Adara, hesitant to embrace her after accidentally hurting Dominic. But Adara knelt to his level, and he threw himself into her arms. The others made their way over, all expressing relief that they’d returned and eagerness to go home.
“What was it like?” Niran asked, eyes lit with curiosity.
“Were there monsters? Ghosts?” Silas questioned.
“Did you see the ruins of the old kingdoms?” Evreux pondered.
“Did you get the relic?” Tyson inquired, rolling his eyes at their useless questions.
Adara pried herself from Zephyr’s arms and stood to greet them all.
“Yes, we got the relic,” she said, with a sharp glare pinned on Tyson.
Her gaze returned to the others gathered around.
“It was awful and terrifying and deadly.” Adara lowered herself into the sand, crossing her legs beneath her.
Zephyr, Silas, and Niran followed her lead, settling onto the ground, ready for whatever perilously epic tale she was about to tell them.
“Ruins of the kingdoms were littered all over the desert,” she said, coughing and licking her dry lips.
Evreux sat with them, offering Adara a canteen of water.
She gladly drank from it before continuing. “There were monsters with nothing but mouths of razor-sharp teeth for heads.” She gestured to her shoulder, pulling her bloody tunic aside. “That’s how I got this.”
Niran reached into his rucksack and pulled out a journal. He scribbled on the pages as Adara spoke, asking for details to add to his drawings.
“There were lost souls, but not only from the Wasted War, as we thought. They were ghosts of the past, illusions of people we once knew.” Adara’s eyes flickered to him, soft and apologetic, as if she knew he’d seen his father without him telling her.
“What happened to your pack?” Tobias asked as he strode over to them. He joined their circle, along with Caleb and Asher, and offered some provisions of cured meat and nuts.
Adara picked up a stick and began drawing in the sand. “I was attacked!” she exclaimed with a flourish.
Zephyr and Silas startled, then eagerly leaned forward to see what she was doodling.
“By a massive sand serpent.”
Silas drew a knife from his belt and a block of wood from his bag, beginning to whittle. Dominic couldn’t help but grin as Adara told the tale of how she escaped the mighty beast in the underground ruins of the old kingdoms.
“You’re not going to go crazy on us, are you?” Ace’s voice drew his attention away from Adara.
Dominic ran a hand through his hair, grimacing at the grit of sand. “I hope not,” he replied, barely suppressing a grin. “I think we did the impossible. We made it out alive with our sanity intact.”
Ace crossed his arms, raising a brow in disbelief, his jaw set. “Good,” he said, but his austere tone suggested otherwise. “Surely the King of Keys wouldn’t forget his goals,” he spat, turning on his heel and heading for the caravan.
Dominic shook his head. He didn’t have the energy to deal with Ace right now.
Vesper strode up to Dominic and clasped his forearm in a firm shake. “Glad to have you back,” he said, pale cheeks red and peeling from the scorching sun. His usually white hair was stained blond with sand.
Dominic dipped his chin in an appreciative nod. “Good to be back.”
“Was it really like Adara’s saying?” Sawyer asked.
Dominic glanced over to where Adara still sat, animatedly recalling their journey and pointing to Niran’s drawings and Silas’s woodwork, correcting their details.
Silas held up the beginnings of a little wooden snake. “Well, it won’t be as big as you described . . . ”
Dominic huffed. “All that and a lot worse.”
“You reek,” Desmond said, tossing Dominic a bar of soap.
“Yeah, how about you two clean up so we can all go home?” Vesper suggested.
Adara was suddenly by his side, stealing the soap from his hands. “That sounds like an amazing idea.”
Adara stripped down to her underlayers and let out a dramatic sigh of relief, lying back in the crystal water, rinsing away the blood and sand sticking to her.
Dominic followed without a word, throwing his filthy, blood-and-sand stained tunic and pants onto the ground.
The others had taken the horses and caravan to the outskirts of the oasis to give the two of them some much needed peace and quiet.
Adara dipped her head under the water, then reemerged, slicking her hair back. Her skin shimmered beneath the drops of water sliding down her face, the light catching just right through the canopy above, and Dominic smiled to himself to finally see her face without all the grime staining it.
She lathered the bar of soap in her hands before tossing it to him, scrubbing the suds all along her arms and beneath what little remaining clothing she had on.
“Would you mind?” she asked, looking at him over her shoulder as she partially peeled the blood-stained bandage away, unable to reach the rest of her wound.
Dominic splashed water on his face, rubbing away the sand and sweat, grateful for the sticky feeling to be gone. Then he waded over to her. “If you wanted an excuse for me to touch you, all you had to do was say so,” he teased, gently tearing away the rest of the bandage.
“Why would I ever want that?” she said dismissively, picking at the dried blood beneath her fingernails.
Dominic laughed and gently massaged soap suds around her wound, diligently removing all the grime so it wouldn’t get infected. “It’s inspiring how much strength you have to restrain yourself from your desire for me.”
Color bloomed on her cheeks, the only sign of surprise. “A desire that doesn’t exist,” she replied stiffly. Steam rose from the water around her, fire simmering beneath.
Dominic took her arm and gently spun her to face him.
He peered down at her eyes, then her lips, her skin that glowed with renewed cleanliness, and the supple curves of her lithe, toned body, covered only by her underwear and the fabric around her breasts.
He’d seen her like this before. He didn’t know why something inside him now simmered at the sight of her.
He remembered the feel of her body pressed against him as they slept, wanting to feel it again with nothing between them.
He recalled the way she’d angled her head to give him better access to her throat, practically melting in his touch when he’d kissed her neck in that alley in Lykrios, and had the intense urge to do it again.
“You don’t have to hide it,” he said softly, reflecting his own thoughts. You can want me without love.
She gazed up at him, the angle bringing her lips dangerously close. Sharing the same breath, Dominic assessed her gaze. Emotions flashed in her eyes. None he could recognize.
Water rippled, and suddenly, her hand was in his.
He stilled, sparks dancing through his fingertips, up along his arm, but not the magical kind.
Not the kind made by Adara’s fire. Both of their eyes darted to that spot in the water where their fingers laced.
Dominic let out a shaky breath, hoping she didn’t notice.
The corners of his mouth twitched into a soft smile.
He lifted his other hand, a finger resting beneath her chin, tilting her head to look back up at him.
Her lips parted as she inhaled sharply, eyes searching his.
Her wary gaze told him all he wanted to know.
The walls around her heart were crumbling for him, and she was scrambling to rebuild them.
He wouldn’t let her. With their fingers intertwined, his thumb shifted up along her wrist, brushing along her artery to feel her pulse hammering beneath.
He needed to know what she felt like molded with him.
To know that this desire was purely lust. To know that whatever it was he felt toward her would never last. He needed to feel how much she wanted him.
Dominic leaned in closer, their lips almost grazing one another.
Barely any space left between them, he waited, wanting Adara to be the one to close the gap, to give in.
“Just say it, and I’m all yours.”