His shoulders hunch. I stare, for it is unlike the East Wind to shrink from a challenge. “Things change,” he says.
“Like what?”
Only then does he turn, leveling me with those eyes of black fire. “You.”
Stupefied, I plop onto the edge of the sofa. The East Wind’s hard, heavy thigh presses against mine. My mouth goes dry, and I ball my hands in my lap so I do not curl them around the muscle there. The silence frays.
“Well,” I begin slowly, “so long as you get your favor before the poison works its way through the council members’ systems, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
Eurus is up, drifting toward the window. He rubs at his brow, drops his hand with a heavy sigh. “I didn’t administer the poison.”
The air in the room smells of coastal waters. It does not instill fear in me as it once did. “Why not?”
At last, he turns. His armor is gone, his heart is exposed, and I have never seen anything more magnificent. “You were right.”
“About what?”
“Everything. I thought of what my life would look like in a decade, a century, a millennium. Do you know what I saw?” He looks to me, dark eyes solemn. “I saw myself as I am now. I saw myself waking each morning, having struggled to sleep, my mind twisting onto itself in its attempts to turn back time, undo the hurt that has been done. And I asked myself if that is what I wanted. If I wished to live out my days in suffering. And I don’t want to live that way anymore, bird. All I want now,” he says, “is to live a life of peace.”
It is suddenly difficult to swallow, for I, too, desire a life of peace. What does that mean, that we both strive for the same tenuous ideal? “And what does that look like to you?” I whisper.
In three strides, he is across the room, framing my face in his broad hands. “It looks like all the days we have spent in each other’s company. It looks like your body against mine, and the ease with which we coexist.”
I reach up, curl my fingers around his wrists.Yes, I think. But it was not always so. Those initial days and weeks were far from peaceful.
“I feel belonging with you,” I murmur to him, a bit of shyness creeping into my voice. “I know it’s foolish—”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Not foolish.Right.”
Eurus has always worn intensity as though it is a cloak to be shrugged on, and I have generally shied away from it, but now I embrace it, I fall into it, and I have never in my life felt more free.
“You’re going back to Marles,” he says, fingers sliding up into my hair. “That was the plan. And yet, I want you, Min. I want everything you’re willing to give me. And if we only have tonight, then I’m not going to waste a second denying what I know is true.”
“And what is true?” I whisper.
“That whatever time we have left, I wish to spend it with you,” he murmurs, and lowers his mouth onto mine.
27
MY MOUTH PARTS, AND SALTbites at my tongue, a bright sting. Gently, the East Wind coaxes me into the kiss. His tongue glides against mine, a subtle drag as it withdraws. I follow blindly. He demands, and I give, no questions asked. It has taken many weeks and countless missteps, but I trust him to guide me. After all, he is deliberate, he is thorough, he leaves no part of my mouth untouched, whether teeth or lips or tongue. A soft, thready moan slips out of me as my grasp on reality weakens. Deeper and deeper I sink, into a place of obscure depths.
The East Wind is so tall I’m forced to stand on tiptoes to reach his hair, which I sift through my fingers. It means something, that he accepts my touch freely, no retreat, no flinching, no fear.
He maneuvers me toward an armchair, kissing me all the while, before settling us both into its generous cushions. Our legs tangle. A feverish wave laps at my skin, and it grows sensitive, painfully so.
His fingers dive through my hair and massage behind my ears, down toward my nape. My scalp tingles so unbearably I am convinced it will lift free of my skull and float away.
Catching my hips, Eurus shifts our positions so that he is seated beneath me, reclining against the chair back. And still, we kiss. The muscled strength of his thighs warms my backside, his massive wings draped over the chair arms. Pulling my legs wide so thefabric of my gown pools between them, he drags me forward onto his lap.
As his shaft nestles against my folds, I shudder against him, breaking our kiss momentarily. His girth is considerable, a throbbing heat.
Slowly, eyes locked onto mine, the East Wind grasps my hips and shifts me across his erection, back and forth and back and forth. The zing of pleasure between my thighs is so intense my eyes all but roll into the back of my head.
“Good?” he murmurs, a smile in his voice.
I nod, too dazed to articulate a proper response. “Don’t stop.”
“Worry not, bird.” His voice roughens to a low rasp. “I do not intend on stopping until we have both reached fulfillment.”
