Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“We must hurry,” Cerise said. “If we leave now, we can reach him before nightfall.”
“Are you certain that’s wise?” the prince asked, gaze flicking to her leg.
“Careful where your eyes wander, prince, or I’ll shove you off the ledge.”
“I’m sorry, Cerise, I just—” Oberon sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “Wouldn’t it be best to split the day, set up camp closer and reach him tomorrow? Then we have a place to rest and recuperate after. Assuming we survive, of course.”
“We will survive. But only if we leave now. I know that magic. See how it twines up and around the bone like muscle and ligature?” Cerise pointed at the curving, sparking streaks of lightning that surrounded the rib.
“That’s exactly what it’s doing. Rebuilding the body.
While it would take several days to repair Azkanix’s full form, we must assume Vraethik has considered this and has a method for restoring it quicker.
An artifact. Remnant of his spirit. Both.
No, there is no time to waste. We will certainly die if we are beneath the Lich God’s cursed feet when he rises once again. Then there will be no stopping him.”
“The Celestials could return.”
Cerise barked a laugh. “They’ve long since abandoned us, prince. If they had any more help to offer, they’d have given it already. Now, stop thinking and move.”
He glanced at her, a wicked smirk tilting his lips. “I like it when you tell me what to do.”
A pleasant heat rose in her body, his words conjuring images of how they’d stood just minutes before, his body pressed against hers, mouth on her neck and hips between her legs.
Before she could respond, he bent and leapt to the broken stairs, sliding as he landed on the frosty top step.
He regained his footing and faced her, waiting.
With the distant thunder of magic raising a dead God at her back, she jumped from the ledge. The prince’s powerful hands clasped the side of her ribs, thumbs just below her breasts as he helped her land.
A strange sensation, being caught. While uncomfortable in how new, how different, it was, a fragile gentleness bloomed in her chest. A surprising welcomeness at the safety she’d never felt from another’s embrace. The knowledge that even though she couldn’t see her back, someone else watched it.
And when they’d first heard the bones erupting, shards splitting against the stone behind them, the prince had lifted his arms to shield her head, pressed his body harder against hers to protect it.
That was usually her role. How many times she’d sheltered Eirwen from cruel children and perverted clerics. How many soldiers she’d shielded from undead maws and decayed claws. Thanks to her height and strength, she was always the protector. Never the protected.
Yet here, beneath the prince’s brilliant gaze and hands somehow larger than her own holding her firmly in place, she thought maybe she’d be able to close her eyes without worry.
“If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to kiss you,” Oberon said, voice a low rumble in his throat.
Cerise cleared her own and dropped her hands, which had found the thick muscle of his biceps without her conscious command. Swallowed by her thoughts, she’d stared at him, not realizing the long seconds that had stretched between them once she’d landed.
She hadn’t registered the burst of pain through her knee as her legs met the steps, absorbed as she was by the prince’s touch instead. Yet it ached now, the swelling skin pushing against the prince’s carefully wrapped bandage.
“Come on, we have a necromancer to kill.” She snatched Beloved and moved around him to step down the icy-slick stairs.
“You didn’t threaten to stake me with Beloved if I kissed you,” he said, sounding too smug as he stepped behind her.
“And?”
“And it seems to me that means perhaps you want me to.”
Cerise remained silent, not wanting to stroke his ego but unable to voice the lie.
“There’s something else I’m wondering,” he added when they reached the last stair.
Finding her footing in the snow, she faced him, careful to keep her gaze on his eyes rather than the tempting lines of his mouth. “Go on.”
“How to make you say my name again.”
Heat rose to Cerise’s cheeks. “There’s a necromancer raising a dead God who wants to destroy our world and that’s all you’re thinking about?”
“Not exactly,” he replied. “It’d be more precise to say I’m wondering how to make you shout it.”
He grinned, the curl of his mouth catching her attention. The smirk grew into a smile as he caught her glance at his lips.
“If you need threats to remain focused to the task at hand, I can provide them.”
“Now you’re just tempting me with a good time.”
Cerise laughed. Not out of scorn or disbelief. But a genuine, joyful laugh. It erupted loud and deep from her belly, surprising both her and the prince, his eyebrows arching briefly before his smile stretched into a bright beam.
“One thing at a time, prince. First, let’s deal with Vraethik. Depending on how that goes, maybe afterward we can discuss how you should be punished or rewarded.”
A desirous grumble rumbled in the prince’s chest, gaze sharpening as he focused on her face, his rapt attention piercing her to the spot. “I like the sound of that.”