“Twenty-five? How many times have you played?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
Daed exhales, tilting his head in thought. “In truth, I’ve lost count. But that doesn’t matter. It’s good to see you up. How are you feeling? Do you need anything?” He brushes his fingers against my cheek, now only mildly swollen, and I place my hand over his, smiling at the warmth of his touch.
Zyphoro rolls her eyes. “I’m going to find some wine.”
I furrow my brow. “It’s the morning.”
“And yet here we are,” Zyphoro sighs, stretching her arms toward the sky as she backpedals away from us.
Daed pulls me close by the waist, his hips pressing against mine, and I can already sense the hunger radiating from him. “Do not mind her.”
“She hates it here,” I mutter. “She grows wearier each day.”
“It doesn’t matter how she feels. If she doesn’t like it, she is welcome to leave. She is not a prisoner here.”
“What about you?” I ask bluntly, my expression turning serious as I lock eyes with his.
He hesitates for a moment, either unsure of how to respond or what I truly mean. “What about me?”
“Are you a prisoner here?”
“No.”
“But yet you stay.”
“Yes, because you are here, so there is nowhere else I want to be.”
His answer comes so quickly that it’s hard to doubt him. Yet I must confront the truth he’s evading.
“We cannot stay in The Grove, Daedalus.”
He tilts his head, studying me with a furrowed brow. “And why is that, wife?”
“You and Zyphoro don’t belong here. You are beings of ash and smoke. Those things do not exist in this place.”
“I belong where you belong,” he replies, leaning in to brush his nose against mine. A familiar shiver travels down my spine, one I thought had been lost.
“There is nothing for you here,” I murmur as his mouth trails along my jaw toward my ear. “Nothing you want.”
His lips graze my earlobe, and soon I feel the heat of his tongue tracing the pulsing vein in my neck.
“I want what you want,” he whispers, his hand inching down my thigh, sweeping over the warmth between my legs.
“No, you don’t want what I want,” I whimper, my back arching as his hand explores, finding the opening of my robe.
He kisses my neck hard, his lips stinging where they meet the raw, healing skin of my rune tattoo.
I hiss, caught between pain and pleasure as his canines scrape against my sensitive flesh.
“And what do you want?” he growls into my skin, his fingers finding their way to my core.
I don’t know what I want. Or at least I can’t remember. With his hands on me, needing me, desiring me, all I can think of ishim pushing my back against the tree and sliding between my legs, the hard length of him thrusting deep inside me.
But I’m reminded of the relentless thud knocking at the back of my mind, driving me mad with its persistence. I first heard it when I lost Arax, and since then, it has drowned out everything else. That constant thumping is a reminder of something I can’t articulate.
As Daed eases his fingers inside me, I gasp, clenching his shoulders as his tongue traces my collarbone before his lips find my chest.
What do I want?
