Delirious, I kept my eyes on his square jaw until I could no longer remember his name.
19
ORION
I held Rowan in my arms, carrying her into my room. As soon as I’d seen the searing burst of light from the wilderness, panic had begun to claw at my mind. I’d raced through the skies, only to find her in a clearing of dust and ashes. The air still shimmered with gold around her.
Her magic had consumed a large circle of trees, and she lay in the center of it all, her clothing destroyed by the force of chaos. For a moment, I’d been so stunned by the sight of her lying naked on the earth that I could hardly think straight. But once I’d realized how badly she needed me, my thoughts became crystal clear.
I couldn’t sense her soul.
She was clearly here—I could see her, feel her weight in my arms, smell her scent of ripe cherries with the mossy scent of the forest still clinging to her skin. Her chest rose and fell with each breath. But I couldn’t sense her life. Normally, I could feel her energy, but like the music of the spheres—or an air conditioner that suddenly switched off—it was hard to notice a constant presence until it went silent.
Rowan’s energy had been like that, I think since even before I’d met her. Maybe since she’d been born—my twin star, a vibrating, humming power just at the outer edges of my consciousness.
When the mob had hanged her in the underworld, I’d felt the same dreadful quiet. Fear had stilled my heart.
Now, I laid her gently on my bed, and her arms flopped over her head. Her hair fanned out above her, billowing like a mermaid’s. Or like Ophelia in the paintings after she drowned herself with a kingdom at stake. With the mad, murderous prince Hamlet driving her insane…
Regret tightened my throat.
Fuck. I was the mad, murderous prince. And this is what I’d wrought. I should have been there for her always instead of throwing her out of the city walls.
Rowan had been so ferocious when she’d tossed down the gauntlet, and now she looked so delicate—alabaster skin, narrow wrists. Her calves and back were smeared with dirt.
Rowan had used all her Lightbringer power at once, holding nothing back.
Kasyade and Legion weren’t proper teachers. They were reckless arseholes so convinced of their own righteousness.
But it wasn’t their fault Rowan didn’t believe me. The sad truth was I was the one who’d convinced her not to trust me. I was the one who’d pushed her away because I was so afraid of losing someone again.
She knew that someone like me would cheat and steal to get the vengeance I’d promised to Ashur.
What she didn’t know was that I prized something else above the throne right now. It wasn’t revenge, either.
I just wanted her to open her fucking eyes and look at me.
She consumed me, and right now, nothing else meant anything anymore.
Raw fear replaced my anger, and fear was the one thing I couldn’t really deal with. This was exactly what I’d hoped to avoid with Rowan, why I’d pushed her away—the dizzying terror of losing someone you cared about. I wanted to avoid that particular horror again, the one that had devoured me so completely, the one that had broken me until I no longer really knew who I was.
I touched her chest, just between her breasts. Whatever light remained inside her was now just a guttering lick of flame. Darkness and chaos swirled around it. That light would be gone for good unless I could heal her soon.
If I fucked this up, she’d be lost to me for eternity to the chaos inside.
A wave of my hand brought the candles in my room blazing to life—I still preferred them to electric lights. And I needed to stoke those flames inside her now, just like that. The Lilu healed by feeding off lust, but it had to be done properly.
Slowly.
Too much lust too quickly would overwhelm her. I’d have to take her to the brink and keep her there for as long as I could. A slow, erotic build-up was the best way to restore a Lilu depleted of power. A simmering heat. And with my hand on her chest, I could already hear her moaning quietly. Even if she couldn’t think clearly yet, her body’s primitive instincts knew what she needed.
I extended her arms toward the corners of the bed and followed suit with her ankles. I spun my index finger in the air, and tendrils of my magic coiled around Rowan’s limbs, holding them fast. If anything went wrong—if I overwhelmed her with power—I needed her under control.
Her heart started to race, her chest flushing. Something in her body liked being bound, which was a detail I’d have to think about later when her life wasn’t on the line.