I made a horrible snorting laugh noise. “Yes, apparently he was the one who killed the old king.”
Dorian stared at his hands. “Gods. This is my fault.”
“What?” I drew back.
“My son was the one who erected the shield.”
“The head they brought?!”
Dorian nodded. “Niallan was king here for a short time, which was how Belshazzar had access to him.”
“Dorian, this isn’t your fault either. It was Lebedev’s fault. He ordered the grenade that cracked and felled the rock. The shield would have fallen, but it wouldn’t have been as devastating if not for the greed and power hunger the military elite harbors.
“There’s no point to this war. The whole reason it’s happened is deep-seated fear.”
Aiko had taken the chair in the corner and listened quietly.
Dorian stared at him and then chuckled. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.”
Aiko laughed hard. “You weren’t sleeping. I knew you weren’t sleeping.”
I looked between the two of them. “What?”
“A movie that your vampire lover happens to really like. He watched a few times at night when we were able to bed down. And no, I wasn’t asleep. It was a good story. The little green bastard had some good advice.”
Dorian let his gaze drift to the ceiling. “We still don’t know why we’re here.”
“We might have found the reason in the library.”
His head swiveled to stare at me.
“I am a researcher and teacher by training, Dorian. Did you forget I was once a meek librarian teacher?”
“How far you’ve come.”
His eyes sparked to life, and in the next instant, his lips were on mine, and he devoured me.
Pressing me back on the bed, he climbed on and hovered over me.
This was the Dorian I remembered.
This was the Dorian I needed.
“I need to be inside you,” he grunted.
“Yes.”
He didn’t bother with hands but instead used his magic to unfasten my clothes and jerk them down. His hand did find the back of my knee and pulled it up. It slipped out of the leg of the pants, and he spread me wide beneath him.
I, on the other hand, very enthusiastically used my hands to undress him. I slipped my hand down inside the back of his pants, grabbed two handfuls of his magnificent ass, and squeezed.
The grunt of desire was echoed by my own.
The pants slipped easily down his ass and down to his knees.
Did I need more than exposing his straining erection at that moment?
No, no, I didn’t.
