“Why, Aria?”
“Because I’m freeing you from the life debt!” I shout, my voice scraping over the stone and stirring Myla’s dragon fromwhere she rests just outside. She releases a low rumble, and I look out the opening and meet those luminous eyes again, the dragon’s top lip peeled back a fraction and showing just a hint of the large teeth that wait behind it.
A soft grip on my chin guides me until I’m looking once more at Myla, at the confusion that forms a line between her brows. “Say that again.”
“I am freeing you from our life debt early. You have met the terms we set when we made our bargain.” I gesture for her to take the dagger again. But she doesn’t move, held in stillness by a rare show of emotion. With a soft exhale, I keep my eyes on hers as I reach back to the empty sheath I know is at her upper thigh, finding the open spot with my fingers before guiding the dagger into it, the sound of it sliding in making Myla’s eyes shutter. I plant my now free hand near her shoulder, letting my eyes trace the sharp edges of her face. “You taught me how to fight in every aspect. I wanted to learn how to protect those I love, but Ineededto learn how to protect myself too, and no matter how you feel about me or how much you loathed to do it, I need you to know that you helped me. You gave me a choice in my life that I never had before, so I want to try and return that to you. You have fulfilled the debt. You’re free.”
I had made the decision after our last lesson. It makes sense, given the fact that Lyre will be having her babe soon. It is coincidental that Sade thinks our mother is going to have Rhea heal me to pass through the Spell, which likely means that I won’t so easily be able to return to our meetings anyway. But beyond those things, I don’t need to know every facet of Myla’s life to know that she is a female who understands what it is to survive in oppression. Where I had spent so many of my yearsfailingto do anything but feel sorry for myself, Myla had taken action. She became something to be feared. I knew as she told the story of the Shadow, she was talking about herself. I knewas she carefully bandaged my arm and told me that “no” should have been enough, she was speaking from experience. Myla is a complicated fae, but I have seen enough glimpses beneath her hardened exterior to know that complicated can also be generous. Protective.Beautiful. I should tell her those things, but I’m afraid I’ve already said too much and her silence is because she’s convinced herself that I’m lying.
“Say something,” I whisper, only to gasp as she surges from the ground, sitting up and forcing me into her lap fully. I try to brace my weight onto my knees,veryaware of the fact that I’m still nude. But the warmth of her hand settles on my hip, and though her touch is light, I heed to her command not to move.
“You’ve fucked everything up,” she rasps, releasing my wrist and moving her hand as if to cradle my face or weave it into my hair, only to hesitate. My eyes widen at her words, hurt slicing into my chest as she exhales roughly. “I should be elated by this. I should feelfreedby it, and yet”—her voice drops lower, a seductive song all its own as she studies me—“tell me why all I can feel is disappointment?”
She stares at me like I might actually hold the answer to her question, and what could I even say in response? The truth? That I am disappointed too? That when I think of my future, the silhouette of her is always there, haunting me from the shadows because there is no way in this world that the two of us could ever be anything more thanthisand even that has a time limit. And yet, as I watch her study me, her face full of vulnerability for the first timeever, I decide that maybeI’mthe one that needs to be braver. The one to show her that she’s worth the risk. “This doesn’t have to end,” I say softly, laying my hands on her shoulders, my fingers brushing against the delicate skin at her neck. “We just get tochoosewhether or not it continues.”
“And is that what you want?” she asks, head tilting to the side, her mouth perfectly lined up with mine.
My pulse races as I lean in slowly, giving Myla ample opportunity to stop me. But she doesn’t move as my hands travel up to cup the sides of her face gently, bright hazel eyes meeting dark onyx ones. “It isoneof the things I want. And before I show you the other, I want you to know one more thing. I know you are the Shadow.” Surprise flares as she watches me, her eyes dipping to my mouth and back up again, like she can’t decide what part of me she wants to look at most. “I know who you are, Myla, and your darkness does not scare me.” And then I crash my lips onto hers.
Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen: Myla
Thelasttimemylips had met Aria’s had been because of survival. I needed oxygen, and she knew how to give it to me. That same drowning panic claws its way to the surface now, my body stiff beneath hers as all the reasons why I shouldn’t touch her cycle through my mind. But even those protests are lost to the gentle way she coaxes our kiss to deepen, to the way her softbody arches into mine, warm and tender and sweet. Her quick intake of breath when my tongue meets hers ignites the heat already spreading through me, desire pulling my muscles tight as my fingers curl around her hip. My awareness narrows down to her taste on my tongue as I map out the shape of her, the space between us eaten up inch by inch as she draws my face even closer.
And because I can’t help myself, because it’s been so long since I’ve felt this way, my mind tortures me with memories of the past. Suddenly, it’s not Aria’s lush lips that move against my own but Daiya’s thinner ones. It’s not Aria’s soft moan but Daiya’s deeper one as we hid in a palace corridor, hands questing and tongues exploring. I tense, Daiya’s voice playing in my ear just like the day we were discovered.She forced me to do it! I never wanted this—I never wanted her!There had been a power imbalance between Daiya and I, just as there is with Aria.
Our kiss breaks when I jerk myself back, my gaze roaming over Aria’s expression as I search for proof of what my mind believes—she doesn’t want this. Doesn’t wantme. I take in her parted, swollen lips, her hazel eyes fogged by lust as she studies me through lowered lashes, and I think that she’s never looked so perfect. That she’s never looked so open and unguarded andraw. For as much as it makes me want to draw her back in, to claim her as mine in a way that makes my core ache and my stomach clench, it alsoterrifiesme. Because she may know that I’m the Shadow, but does she understand just exactly who, andwhat, I am?
“Myla,” she whispers, her thumbs gently brushing over my cheekbones.
I release my hold on her hips to wrap my hands around her wrists, pulling her touch from my face. “You don’t want this,” I say, horrified by the uncertainty in my voice. By the sympathetic expression it pulls from Aria. I realizethatis the thing I havefeared most. Not giving in to this tension between us. Not being vulnerable or even falling for a being whose kind was responsible for my brother’s death. It’s that look—thatpityinglook—that screams,here is this broken thing, how can I fix her?
I drop her hands, about to silently command Sunis through the bond to burn this entire cavern down when Aria says my name again. Not with pity, but with desperation. It halts my movements enough to meet her gaze again, finding them alight with something like conviction.
“So rarely have I had the opportunity to look at someone and tell them that I want their touch. That Icraveit. And so rarely have Ievergotten what I wanted.” She drags her bottom lip in between her teeth. “But, if you’ll allow it, I’d like to see how you taste beneath your ire and malice. I’d like to feel your heart race in your chest as it’s pressed against mine.” The stupid organ hiding behind my ribs responds, skipping to a pace that makes my breath come faster. “I’d like for you totouchme like I’m not something you hate, but—” Her inhale is stilted as she drops her gaze to her lap.
Fuck that. Wrapping an arm around her back, I pull her flush to me and roll, gently letting her back hit the ground before sliding my arm out and bracing my weight on it.
“Like what, then, Little Siren?” I ask, tracing her bottom lip with my thumb. Her knees press into either side of my hips, eyes flaring wide as her hands leave a scorching trail up my arms. “You don’t get to be shy now that you started this.”
“Like you think about me as much as I do you,” she whispers.
The admission halts my thumb as I stare down at her, something dangerously soft threatening to take root within me. “Do you want to know if I think about you?” I ask, dropping my hips lower but still not making contact with her bare skin.
“Yes.”
Tilting my head, my lips brush against the corner of her mouth, our breaths mingling in the tight space between us. “I think about you when I’m angry,” I whisper, smirking when her brows lift. “That’s how it always starts. I’m always angry when you first enter my mind, and then I picture you standing across from me on this fucking platform, your eyes glowing with newfound determination. With bravery. And strength.” I graze my fingers down her neck and between her breasts, trailing them over her stomach. Goosebumps flare over her skin, her breath catching when I force my touch to linger in the space between her hips, higher than we both want.
“Myla,” she rasps, her throat working with a swallow as her hands move from my arms to brace my hips.
“Look at you,” I murmur, my lips finding her jaw and then lower, taking advantage when she arches her neck to taste her with my teeth and tongue. “If I were to slide my fingers between your legs, would I find you wet for me, Aria?” She whimpers, the sound skating over me like a soft wind. The threads of my tightly woven control begin to fray as I toy with her, my fingers just barely brushing right above her clit, each taunting swipe making her writhe and buck her hips towards me.
“I want you to touch me,” she moans, eyes glazed in the heat of that want, and maybe I’m no better than the males who act on their base level desires because my fingers inch lower, the anticipation of sinking them deep inside of her—of watching her come around them—snaps those tethers that restrain me. She reaches up to capture my mouth with hers and I let my hips sink lower, let the tips of my fingers brush over the swell of her clit as my throat constricts with the ache of wanting to drag my tongue over every inch of her.
My own body hums at the way she feels beneath me, the slickness of her desire coating my fingers as I press them at her entrance, rewarded when it makes her moan softly in response.I grit my teeth together at the sound, something dark stirring within the heat of what should be pleasure as forbidden to me assheis when the wordminestabs into my mind. I latch onto it, so lost in working her higher, in drawing my fingers in and out at a pace that is torturous for us both, that I almost miss the single thought that bursts through the fog of my own yearning.Leave.
Fucking dragon.No, I send back, nipping at Aria’s lip. But before I can go any further, Sunis’s intention is sent again down our bond, forcing me to rip my mouth away from Aria’s to send a withering look to my dragon.
“What is it?” she asks from beneath me, chest rising quickly as her hands draw up my sides.
