“Stay here with me tonight,” he said quietly. A tendril of his shadows curled around the flames of the sconces, dimming them. “No sex. Just … stay with me.”
He could feel her eyes on him in the dark. But then she moved—zippers hissing as she shrugged out of her clothes. He tugged off his pants, nestling under the blankets.
Then her warm, soft, lush body curled into his.
And yeah, he wanted to be inside of her so badly he had to grind his teeth, but her scent soothed him. Steadied him. He slid a hand over her bare waist, tucking her in close, her breasts flush against his chest. His hand drifted lower, to her ass, and all it would have taken was a shift in angle and he would have been between her legs.
But this wasn’t about sex. And as their breathing evened out, as they stared at each other in the near-dark, he’d never felt more seen.
Eventually, her eyes closed. Her breathing deepened.
But Ruhn lay awake, holding her tight, and did not let go until dawn.
* * *
“Is that a laser?” Tharion shouted as rock crumbled from where the light had sliced into it, the cave-in now cutting off access to the two Fae Kings, Flynn and Dec, and the Murder Twins. And a bunch of ghouls. But Bryce ordered, “The river!”
“What?” Hunt barked. Bryce was already running for the dark, rushing water.
“Jump in,” Bryce called, starlight bobbing with each step.
“Teleport us across!” Hunt countered. Flynn and Declan had been stranded on the other side of that cave-in, and they needed to figure out how to get them away from the kings and the twins—
“Jump in now,” Bryce ordered, and didn’t wait before she ran for the ledge. Hunt grabbed for her, to stop her from this pure insanity—
She leapt. Right into the river. He could have sworn the starlight glowed brighter as she did, as if agreeing with her decision.
Then the light in her chest went out.
And in the sudden dark, with only Hunt’s lightning flickering around them, the ghouls began to hiss, drawing nearer, as if coming through the rock itself.
“River,” Tharion said, grabbing Sathia and racing for it. He dove, and she shrieked as he dragged her with him. The roar of the river swallowed the sound—and them—in half a second.
There was no choice left, really. Hunt met Baxian’s stare and saw his own annoyance mirrored there. They could have taken the kings. Bryce surely knew that. And yet …
If Bryce had chosen to cause a cave-in, to block the kings but not kill them, to opt for going downriver instead of teleporting across … she hadn’t told him why, likely due to their fight. She hadn’t told him, which meant his mate probably no longer trusted him, and he had no idea how to start fixing that—
“Athalar,” Baxian growled. “Snap out of it!”
Hunt blinked. He’d been frozen in place, reeling. Baxian’s eyes were wide. Hunt shook off his shame. It pissed him off to no end, but Bryce did nothing without reason.
Hunt didn’t wait to see if Baxian followed before he tucked his wings in tight and leapt.
56
Hunt shuddered with cold, teeth chattering, as he hauled himself onto a dark bank illuminated dimly by Bryce’s star.
After a rushing, disorienting downhill journey, the river had calmed and emptied into the pool around them, a small bank providing the lone path of escape. Tharion was already near Bryce, a shivering Sathia between them, and Baxian was just crawling onto the shore a few feet from Hunt, dark wings dragging on the rock beside him.
Hunt exploded at his mate, “What the fuck?”
“Later, Athalar,” Bryce murmured, turning from the pool and facing a natural archway of stone, with a tunnel beyond. Her star blazed bright—brighter than it had upriver.
“No, now,” he warned, scrambling to his feet, water sloshing from his boots, his waterlogged wings impossibly heavy. “You say we’re all in this together, making decisions together, and then you go and pull that shit?”
She whirled, teeth bared. “Well, someone has to lead.”
His temper flared. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means that I’m not letting my fear and guilt swallow me whole.” The others stayed silent, several feet away. “It means that I’m putting all that shit aside and focusing on what needs to be done!”
“And I’m not?” He splayed his arms, motioning to the caves around them. Lightning flickered over his hands. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Do you even want to be?” Her voice echoed off the rocks. “Because it seems like your fear of the consequences outweighs your desire to defeat the Asteri.”