“Fucking yes…” He roars in my ear, burying himself deep, stretching me around him. He groans out my name like a rugged prayer as he comes, while the last of my rippling orgasm laps over me in lingering licks.
I’m floating in the depths he brought me, basking in the weightlessness of it all, in awe of the force of our joining. As I shudder and pant against him, I let my forehead rest against his. We sink against each other, breaths shallow, feelings deep, wading in waters that are completely uncharted.
So this is how it can be with the right person.
All my life, I thought sex was just…sex. A commodity to be sold, a job to perform. With Midas, sex was the only time he’d give me the touch I so desperately craved, a way for me to make him love me. But I never felt anything like this before. No one ever gave me such pleasure or made me feel so treasured, so sexy, so wanted.
I watch him with a sweep of sated awe, his aura languid, flowing from his shoulders to drip across mine like a cool stream. We breathe together, chests rising and falling in tandem. My ribbons lazily stroke up his back, playing with the spikes that are once more protruding from his spine, and I hum in pure happiness.
Once again, this is a moment I never want to end.
But I know it has to.
As if he can see it in my face, Slade lifts his forehead from mine, eyes searching my expression.
“We should talk,” I tell him, my voice filled with regret, even as it still carries a husky note to it. Those three words break the spell we’re in, and then it’s not simple anymore. It’s not just him and me.
All too soon, we’re breaking apart, bodies separating, my ribbons drooping like they’re mourning the loss of him. I don’t blame them. All I want to do is curl up beside him and fall asleep in his arms, but we don’t have that luxury. I don’t know if we ever will, and that thought hurts my heart.
Maybe these stolen moments of a forbidden romance are all we’ll ever get. Moments where we forget about the outside, but the outside doesn’t forget about us. The world has a way of blowing past your bubble, poking and prodding until evaded reality pops its way in.
So, as much as I want to keep on ignoring, keep on melting into him, I don’t. If I want him, if I want me, it’s time to face those harsh realities, because there is no future with Slade if I don’t fight for it.
Which is why I clean up and get dressed in heavy silence, letting every concern and thought and worry rush back in as violently as churned rapids from the falls.
Slade watches me from his pallet, pants on, shirt off, spikes out, an army commander waiting for a problem he can attack.
“Tell me.”
Not a command. He says it in a way that lets me know without a shadow of a doubt that he’s here as my ally. That he’s not just my lover, but someone I can depend on, can trust, and that’s what gives me the strength to finally unburden myself and let my tongue unravel from the secret knots that have tied up my throat.
“Midas has him,” I say, and the weight is like a boulder dropped from my hunched shoulders. “He has Digby.”
Chapter 37
AUREN
I tell Slade everything.
About Digby, about how he went missing before the attack of the Red Raids and how I’d thought he was dead. Dead just like Sail.
I tell him about Rissa too, our plans to escape that keep changing, from trying to find a secret passage to deciding to leave during the ball and take Digby with us.
After I go over everything with him, he finishes getting dressed and brings me to the meeting tent where his Wrath are already waiting, and he has me relay everything to them too.
When I’m done, Judd exchanges a look with Osrik, running a hand over his yellow hair thoughtfully before he says, “It’s possible Midas doesn’t actually have Digby.”
“It’s definitely possible that he’s lying,” I agree. “But…I can’t take that chance. I need to find him.”
“How much of the castle have you searched so far?” Osrik asks from across the table. We’re in the same positioning that we were back when I thought I was a prisoner in their army, only this time, Slade is sitting next to me.
“Not much,” I admit. “The few times I’ve been able to look around, I’ve had to stick to the places that weren’t guarded. There’s an antechamber that connects a bunch of passages, one of which goes to the library, but when I searched the rest, they didn’t lead me any closer to finding Digby.”
Everyone looks at Lu, and she shakes her head. “I’ve checked them. She’s right.”