Koda accepts the wolves’ presence with a tired, “Thank you.”
He trudges up the steps into his cabin while Temple and Luca take up position on the porch.
After brief, tired hugs with me, Malia and Taniya head to their cabin with Blitz in tow, while Ace and Ruby have already taken up positions on the front porch of the cabin that Roman and I steer toward.
I consider for a moment whether or not Taniya and Malia need another wolf, since, after all, Roman is the best protection I could ask for, but it is probably safer for the two outer cabins to be most heavily guarded.
“What will we do without Angelus Lux?” I ask Roman, turning my bleary eyes up to him as we approach our cabin’s door. Now that the immediate threats to our lives are past, the adrenaline that got me through is fading.
“Rest first,” he says, wrapping his arm around my waist and nearly lifting me off my feet as he whisks me inside.
The interior of the cabin is more beautiful than I imagined from the simple exterior. It’s laid out with a cozy living area and two rooms at the back, visible through ornate doors. One is a big bedroom. The other is a smaller bathroom. As soon as we step inside, a fireplace bursts to life, glowing with golden flames—not the amber ones like a fireplace on Earth, but pure yellow like sunflowers.
The walls are pastel blue with white, wooden embellishments. The windows are tinted with pastel glass. The furniture is soft white with plush cushions, and a large rug rests in front of the fire. It’s calming in a fairytale sort of way.
Without letting me go, Roman strikes a rune on his wrist and presses it to the door behind us. “That will keep angels out,” he says.
He strikes another rune that wafts from his wrist, a gentle sapphire glow that dissipates into the air. “And that rune will destroy any angelic magic that might allow them to surveil us inside this cabin.”
He scoops me up into his arms before I can take another breath, pulling me close and carrying me to the bathroom. “What about my sisters?” I ask. “They need runes, too—”
“They won’t be doing what we’ll be doing,” he says, dropping his lips to mine and taking my breath away. I catch a glimpse of soft blue tiles and a shelf of soaps and towels before Roman consumes my attention.
His voice becomes a deep rumble as he places me back on the floor inside the opulent bathroom. “I saw you fall in battle, Nova. I saw you crushed.” Rage clouds his voice, and his eyes are stormier than I’ve ever seen them. “The future isn’t certain. I’m not wasting a single moment that I have with you.”
I smile against his mouth when he kisses me. As tired as I am, my body is already responding to his touch.
He lifts my left wrist, transferring his kisses to it.
“Unclothe,” he murmurs, brushing the little rune with his lips.
The armor he created for me disappears from my body.
The moment we take a step farther into the bathroom, the shower turns on behind us. Roman shrugs when I give him a questioning look, and I’m not sure if he started the water, or if the cabin took care of it, like it did with the fireplace.
The warm water runs over my body, easing my sore muscles. Roman’s hands drive away all thoughts of angels as he washes me with silky-smooth soap and the softest cloth in soothing strokes from my scalp all the way down to my toes.
He lingers at my neck, trailing kisses through the water, then across my breasts, his mouth warm against my nipples, his hands tracking to the junction between my thighs, all tantalizing touches that move on too fast as he takes his time washing away all of the battles from my body.
The more he soothes my aching muscles, the more my worries rise. “What if I can’t find a way to help my father? And end Esta?” I ask him, a mere whisper beneath the sound of the running water. “What if we can’t leave this world?”
His hands still and he looms over me, his eyes darkening as he runs his fingers through my hair, brushing my cheeks. “First, you should know that Angelus Lux is bound to me. Not only by fate, but because I engraved a rune inside the edge of the horn when we were in the Wilds together. No matter where it is, it will come to me when I call it. As for Jareth and Esta, let me do the worrying for now.”
He drops his lips to mine, driving away my troubled thoughts as he gathers me up against him. The shower switches off when he leaves the bathroom with me in his arms.
He doesn’t carry me to the bedroom, easing me down onto the rug in front of the fireplace instead, quickly pulling cushions from the lounge chairs to support my head before he kneels beside me with a smile that heats me right to my core.
With a smooth movement, he lifts his hand as if he’s taking hold of something in the air. A flame from the fire darts into his palm, where it rests above the surface of his skin. He cups both of his hands around it, blowing gently into his palms before rubbing them together. When he separates his hands again, the flame is gone, but I sense the heat growing.
I gasp with pleasure when he runs his palms across the air above my shoulders and breasts, then down through the air above my stomach. Wisps of steam rise from my skin as the water droplets from the shower evaporate in the most glorious infusion of warmth that eases my muscles deep within. Instinctively, my back arches toward the warmth as he continues down each of my legs before he takes hold of my hips and urges me onto my stomach.
The heat emanating from his palms eases across my aching back and my final tensions release, making me moan with relief.
Damn, I didn’t realize how much I’d ached until he eased it.
As his hands continue down the backs of my thighs and the heat he’s creating tingles across my center, he replaces my need to ease my sore muscles with an aching need for him.
He finally lowers his hands to my upper thighs, a slow touch, his palms warm, his fingertips brushing my skin so close to my center that I push upward, easing back into his palm, trusting him with my body.
