“I love how you treat your Bonded. I love how loyal you are. I love how you defend what’s yours and opened up your heart and home for another person you easily could have seen as competition. I’ve watched you for a while, Lex, and it’s difficult not to fall in love with someone with a heart like yours.”
I didn’t know what to say or how to respond. Clearly, my initial assumptions about Peytor and his emotions were far off base.
“I admire you, Lex. And that admiration very quickly turns into love. How could it not? Itanya never stopped talking about how you made her laugh . . .” he trailed off with a shake of his head. “I was jealous and more than a little pissed, thinking she’d replaced me with you. But watching you interact with my girls? I knew you would only help them. I just had to figure out how to get past my own shit.”
“I’m glad that you did,” I said immediately, running my hand down his jaw, my skin getting caught in the stubble that was quickly becoming a short beard. It looked good on him, distinguished, even.
“Me too,” he said with a smile that lit his whole face. I responded in kindbefore bending slightly to touch his lips to mine once more in a chaste kiss. The mention of Itanya, while sweet and comforting, destroyed my afterglow completely as my mind instantly flew back to the maps and charts on my desk.
“Would you like some help? Maybe a fresh pair of eyes?” Peytor asked, hope painted on his face. I could say no,shouldsay no and implore him to comfort Folami. But it was clear he needed this, needed to feel helpful and wanted. Plus, it reallycouldhelp to have a second set of eyes on the information.
“I’d be honored,” I told him truthfully, climbing off his body before helping him up from the floor. He winced slightly, and I turned sympathetically toward him.
“Sore?”
“A little,” Peytor mumbled, gripping the back of his neck as a flush worked its way over his skin.
“No need to be embarrassed,” I placated, turning to search for something that would clean us both up. There were a few discarded blankets next to the cot I’d set up in here, and I tossed one to him before using a second to quickly wipe down my dick and legs.
Peytor hissed as he cleaned between his legs and cheeks.
“Just wait until you take Ilyas,” I said with a wicked grin and a wink. Peytor visibly paled and swallowed audibly, his eyes widened in alarm.
“Yeah, I think it’s going to be a while before I do that,” he said before adding “if ever” so quietly I almost couldn’t hear.
I laughed long and loud, my head thrown back to the ceiling. Peytor’s blanket landed on my face, muffling my mirth.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Faylinn
Ancient parchment, dusty and weathered from time, crinkled under my hand as I traced barely legible runes with my fingertips. My nose nearly grazed the pages as I tried desperately to make out the words that were written so many centuries ago. The blue light from the Mage Orb I’d brought with me flickered periodically as the magic in it began to wane. I’d sequestered myself in the library for hours now and was no closer to the location of the gods’ artifacts than I was when I entered.
Frustrated, I sat back in my chair with an audible groan as my back screamed in protest. It seemed that hunching over a paper for endless hours was not conducive to my muscles and joints. Even when I closed my eyes, I could see the runes running across my eyelids as if they were burned in my retinas permanently; my mind continually turned over what I’d read, desperately trying to make sense of the words on the page.
The problem wasnoneof it made sense—whether that was because locations changed names throughout the centuries or because some of the runes were so garbled and warped that their meaning was completely indecipherable, I wasn’t sure. Either way, my task here tonight was relatively useless—an apt descriptor for the past six months.
Six months since the attack on Imena.
Six months since Folami lost Itanya, nearly breaking from grief; since we’d started preparing in earnest for Solace’s final move, one that we were sure would be swift and deadly, set on obliterating us all.
Six months of searching countless dusty tomes and disintegrating scrolls inthe hopes of finding some sign of the gods’ artifacts—the only remaining tether for the gods’ souls; of watching countless Mages fall ill, under-drawing their power due to the sudden lack of crystals and no available alternative.
Six months, and I was no closer to any answers.
Sighing, I cracked my neck and fingers, forcing my stiff muscles and joints to move once more. The Bond Mark on my forearm pulsed faintly in comfort as my frustration and residual pain forced their way past my mental block and into Rohak’s mind.
It was damn near impossible, not to mention exhausting, to keep Rohak out of my head for long periods of time. What started as a relatively strong block that easily muted my emotions eroded to a crumbling wall with more holes than an ancient ruin.
I released my hold on it, briefly unveiling my thoughts and feelings. Immediately, I felt his block fall as well, as if he had a constant awareness of my guard, continually prodding at it just to see if it still stood.
Too exhausted to temper or dilute the emotions that whirled aggressively through my consciousness, I let them pour down the golden thread that connected us. All of my frustrations and fears, thoughts of inadequacies and failures, flooded the Bond in a tidal wave of pure emotion. I felt his brief surprise before he muted his emotions enough to simply absorb mine.
“Give them to me, Faylinn. Let me see you, let me feel you,” Rohak whispered, caressing my mind like a gentle summer breeze. It carried notes of the evergreen forest that bordered my cottage in Isrun; warm and inviting, steadfast and so sure. I’d thought he’d remind me more of a winter storm with his vague aloofness and near-constant frown, but it was what lay underneath that frosty exterior that defined Rohak.
He was the gentle to my volatile, the ease to my burdens, the only one able to calm the tempest of my rich emotions.
I sighed as the weight of my noxious thoughts lifted, shared by the one person who knew my soul as intimately as I knew myself.
