Terilyn smiled, her dark-eyed gaze softening with a love that had sustained Eimarille since they were both young girls after meeting on that long-ago train ride, each of them on a road guided by a star god. “I will never leave you.”
Eimarille closed the scant distance between them to kiss Terilyn fiercely, bringing up her free hand to frame the other woman’s face. Terilyn’s hands gripped her waist through the thin fabric of the clothes she wore, her touch everything Eimarille would always want. She twisted so her neck wasn’t angled so cruelly, allowing her to deepen the kiss to something possessive.
She let her hands fall to Terilyn’s thighs, fingers gripping the colorfully patterned dressing gown and dragging it upward. She only let go long enough to undo the thin fabric belt tied around the other woman’s waist. Terilyn hummed against her lips, ceding to Eimarille’s desire, allowing herself to be turned and pushed down onto the desk, long legs splayed wide. Eimarille dropped gracefully between her legs, hands catching the hem of Terilyn’s dressing gown and sliding it up pale, scarred thighs to bunch around her waist.
Eimarille kissed her way up every mark that was revealed, dragging her tongue over the pale, puckered scars that were all her fault. Terilyn never blamed her for those moments where the Blade had fought for her, defended her, killed for her. Eimarille was meant to rule, and Terilyn was meant to see she lived to do so, but she wished it didn’t have to hurt her lover so.
“I love you,” Eimarille murmured against the soft skin high up on Terilyn’s inner thigh. “I love you so much.”
Fingers stroked through her hair, trembling in a way they never did when holding a weapon as Eimarille licked over wet heat with a sureness that came from years of doing so. “Show me how much.”
Eimarille smiled as she dipped her tongue into Terilyn’s slick entrance, feeling as much as hearing the soft moan that escaped her lover’s mouth. She slid her left hand higher, slipping two fingers inside Terilyn where her tongue had been. Eimarille rose to her feet, letting the soft fabric of Terilyn’s sleeping gown fall around her wrist as she kept her hand where it was. She pressed the heel of her palm against the sensitive clit there, grinding down against it even as she wrapped her lips around one of Terilyn’s nipples through thin fabric.
Terilyn arched into her mouth and hand with a gasp, having to brace herself against the desk with one hand. The other was tangled in Eimarille’s hair, gripping the long locks as if they were an anchor against the pleasure Eimarille knew how to give her. Eimarille dropped her jaw a little to bite at the tender flesh beneath her teeth, flicking her tongue against the damp fabric molded around the taut nipple. Terilyn jerked beneath her, hand sliding a little against the desk. Her chest heaved, pressing her breast more fully into Eimarille’s mouth.
“Don’t stop,” Terilyn gasped.
Eimarille hummed and lifted her head, kissing her way up warm skin and the line of Terilyn’s throat to her mouth. She kissed her deeply, tongue moving at the same languid pace of her fingers as Terilyn ground down against her hand. Her breath came in ragged gasps when Eimarille finally tore her mouth away, staring at Terilyn’s flushed face and kiss-swollen lips. She reached up and hooked her fingers around the loose collar of her sleeping gown, dragging it down to reveal one breast to the cool air of the office.
“When I have the world, you’ll be right beside me,” Eimarille promised before bending her head to bite at that tantalizing nipple, increasing the movement of her fingers, curling them through clenching heat.
Terilyn choked on a cry, hand flying to Eimarille’s shoulder as she rose on her tiptoes. Eimarille followed her with hand and mouth, relentless in the pleasure she wanted to give, heat pooling in her own body. She didn’t stop until Terilyn came undone around her fingers, clenching down around them as her release spilled around Eimarille’s fingers. Her quiet keen in Eimarille’s ear ended in a hitched breath as Eimarille kept her hand where it was between her lover’s thighs, fingers stilled, releasing the soft skin she’d bruised with her mouth.
She lifted her head, staring at the only person other than her son who had ever held her heart. Terilyn’s eyes were closed, dark lashes flickering as she came down from a pleasure high. She was a mess in a way no one else would see, and Eimarille held that gift close, as she always did. Eimarille ghosted her lips over Terilyn’s cheek, finally pulling her fingers free, splaying them over Terilyn’s thigh.
After a moment, Terilyn cracked her eyes open, the dazed look in them pleasing to Eimarille. Terilyn straightened up, lifting a hand to touch Eimarille’s hip. “I could?—”
Eimarille shook her head, stealing another quick kiss. “No, darling. Later. My pleasure will keep.”
Terilyn sighed softly and allowed Eimarille to put her clothes to rights. By now, the tea had grown cold, but the servants would take care of that, just as Eimarille knew they’d have taken care of preparing a bath for them back in her suite.
Eimarille twined their fingers together and lifted Terilyn’s hand to her lips, kissing her scarred knuckles. “When we get to Amari, I want you to execute Caris’ parents.”
Terilyn smiled softly, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “Your will is mine.”
As it always had been.
Seven
NATHANIEL
Nathaniel peered through the porthole overlooking the starboard side of the ship-cityMatariki. The pink hues of dawn crept over the horizon, breaking up the vast darkness of the sea and sky that seemed to be as one. The stars were fading, wisps of cloud high up in the sky coming into view with the sun. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, letting it ease the throb in his head a little. He’d woken up with a headache and an uneasiness in his gut he attributed to lingering seasickness. After several weeks at sea and a handful of pitched naval battles, Nathaniel had thought he’d moved past the illness.
There’d been no activity during the night, no sirens calling crew to their battle stations. The ship-city was a massive piece of engineering that fascinated Nathaniel to no end, rising like an island out of the waters even as it churned through the waves with ease. He’d been amazed at how the frigate he’d boarded in Oeiras had seamlessly attached itself to the ship-city, its engines providing extra power to the whole ofMatariki.
Its sister frigate on the starboard provided the same sort of support, both smaller ships able to disengage quickly from the main portion of the ship-city. The main deck that sat above the waves was where its heavy artillery and harpoon guns were located, situated in intervals that meant it could cover every side of the ship-city with defensive fire. A cargo hold at the aft had a recessed ramp that, when winched down, led to the water. The space was used to haul leviathans into the belly of the ship-city but also to dispatchMatariki’s contingent of submersibles.
When he’d been given a tour of the ship-city, it had felt like a warren of painted iron hallways and countless rooms. Some were used for berths to sleep in, many more were meant for the overall function of the place the crew called home. WhileMatarikicould be pressed into battle—as it had been in the past, for the Tovanians had their own history of sea-faring skirmishes between ship-cities—it was meant to be a home first. Port Avi back on the Tovan Isles was where the shipbuilders resided and where their country’s laws were decided, but home was found on the open seas.
“How’s your stomach faring?”
Nathaniel lifted his head and dragged his gaze away from the endless stretch of water to meetUri’kaAkeheni’s eyes. The officer’s mess was quieter than the crew’s on the other side of the ship-city, but it was still crowded, more so than it typically was, he’d been told. Akeheni had graciously allowed the Ashion officers use of this mess, and people were packed elbows to elbows at the narrow tables bolted to the floor. The officers at the one Nathaniel sat at all handily shifted down the bench to provide their captain room.
“Better than my head, if a little uncomfortable. I haven’t needed to use the bucket in my room for at least a week,” Nathaniel said in the trade tongue with a faint smile.
A few of the Tovanian officers at the table laughed, the ink on their faces moving with their smiles. Like Akeheni, they sported tattoos on their chins, around their eyes, and across their cheeks and foreheads of delicate designs that depicted rank as much as they depicted their lineages. Nathaniel was still learning what they all meant, but he knew the ones Akeheni sported elevated her to something higher. Akeheni was captain, ambassador, and a ruler of sorts in her own right, and he was continuously deferential to her.
Nathaniel might be Caris’ representative out here in open waters, but he had no power or sway over anyone. The treaty had been negotiated and signed, and that alliance granted Akeheni the right to wage war how she saw fit on the waves to bring the troops to shore. So far, that had resulted in dozens of Daijal ships and Urovan submersibles sinking into the ocean’s depths before the blockade had pulled back along the Daijalan coast.
