Faylinn’s breathing was low and even, though I felt the erratic thumping of her heart.
She wasn’t nearly as unaffected as she liked to think.
My dick twitched involuntarily, and I chuckled when Faylinn’s eyes widened briefly in recognition. She moved to extricate herself, but I only banded my arms tighter.
“Stay,” I commanded, her body stilling immediately. “Stay,” I said again, softer, pressing reverent kisses to her forehead.
“I have to leave, Rohak,” Faylinn whispered, her breath fanning across my face. A growl slipped from my throat, my chest reverberating against hers.
“No.”
“Not now. I meant tomorrow, or soon. I need to go to Deucena.”
I hummed, cocking my head slightly. “Why?”
Faylinn paused, taking the moment to twine her fingers through the base of my hair and massage my scalp. I groaned at her touch, my skin on fire for her.
“I think it’s past time I have a conversation with the Bondsm—my mother,” she said.
I tensed before relaxing once more as her hands moved to the muscles in my shoulders, kneading the tense fleshthere.
“And Kaos said I need to take Ellowyn with me when I go . . . search for information.”
“So that’s what Kaos said to you,” I said, slightly relieved that it was nothing more.
“He’s . . . not what I expected,” Faylinn admitted quietly. “I’m still not sure I trust him, but I don’t think he’s working with his sister, for what it’s worth.”
“What makes you say that?” The idea that the gods could be separated, that they haddifferentgoals, was a sliver of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape.
“He wants me to find the knowledge Alois and Solace tried to bury. He also . . . needs my help with something”—she held a finger to my lips when I tried to interject—“no, he didn’t tell me what or when, but it didn’t feel malicious. There was almost a . . . sadness to him? It’s the best way I could describe it.”
I nipped at the pad of her finger before kissing it quickly. She let it fall back to my shoulder as a fiery blush stained her cheeks.
“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes and burying my nose in her neck.
“Okay?” Faylinn asked incredulously, frantically pushing on my forehead before grasping my face in her hands, maneuvering me to where she could see my expressions.
“Okay?!” she repeated. I shrugged.
“I trust you, Faylinn. More than anyone or anything else. If you say he is harmless, then I believe you. If you say you need to go to Deucena and have a conversation with your mother, then I support you. If you need to bring Ellowyn and leave me here? Then I will be grumpy beyond measure because I simply want to be close to you at all times, but I will understand.”
Faylinn gazed at me dumbly, mouth agape and blinking rapidly.
“You truly mean that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. I don’t say things I do not mean,” I said simply. Faylinn’s mouth still gaped open, and my cock twitched again at the sight.
“Close your mouth, Faylinn. Or I’ll put something in it,” I rasped.
Faylinn’s eyes dilated as her chest rose and fell rapidly with panted breaths. My eyes darted to her chest, where I could barely see her nipples, hard and straining against the black fabric of her tunic.
The Bond pulsed and writhed in my chest as if it could sense both our desires and pushed for us to domore, to complete it. I’d been brazen lately, projecting carnal images subconsciously while we slept, our nearly naked bodies twined together.
But that was in our heads and not a physical manifestation. There was an all too real possibility that Faylinn would withdraw again.
It was growing more difficult by the day to reject the Bond’s desires.
Each morning, we pretended my physical reaction to her closeness didn’texist, despite the heat and wetness I could feel between her thighs as she straddled my leg in her sleep.
