I’m barely able to nod, because with those words, pleasure ricochets through me like lightning.
Alexus’s magick intensifies, and he works his fingers harder. “Look at me when you come for me,” he demands.
I meet his stare, my body spasming around his fingers as I writhe. Lust shines in his green irises, sweet longing, the deepest ache. I feel those things too, pounding through the rune as I ride out my pleasure on his hand. But there’s something more. Something that scares me a little. Something that makes my heart lurch as though he’s beckoning it to him. Even the little death I stole for him in Frostwater Wood flutters in a dark corner inside my chest. And the abyss in my mind? It rages awake, as though it hears his siren call.
It’s what I saw in the wood after Thamaos’s summoning, though it shines brighter now. Like a beacon. It’s more than affection. More than adoration. More than fondness.
Before I can think the word, Alexus gasps around his rising orgasm. His face pinches with pleasure as I stroke him harder, but he never looks away.
“Fuck,” he cries out. “Don’t stop.”
In ecstasy, a quiver tremors through his body as he breathes my name—Raina, Raina, Raina—and his release shudders out of him, surging again and again, spilling warm over my hand.
Finally, he breaks our stare, tipping his head back, gasping, his mouth parted, as the last soft pulses of his orgasm pour from his body.
When he meets my eyes again, I trail my mouth up the column of his throat and nibble his ear. Smiling, he captures my lips, kissing me hard and hungry at first, but the kiss changes, becoming soft and sweet, his lips plush and pliant, his tongue gentle and thoughtful in its caress.
Once we regain our composure, Alexus cleans us, then we lie together the way we did that night at Winterhold, staring at one another for a long time, spent and sleepy.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, and I feel the honesty in the rune. “How do you miss someone you’ve only so recently met?”
I shrug, though I know why. What I saw in his eyes is the reason.
“I have missed you too,” I sign, unsure what that means for me, if I’ve already turned down the path of no return and just haven’t realized it until now.
He will remain constant long after I am no more than a fading star in the sky.
Where that terrified me before and made me feel selfish, now I feel greedy, as though one lifetime won’t possibly be enough. My eyes drift closed, and something inside me twists painfully knowing that I might not get another month, another week, another day. Maybe not even another hour, minute, or second.
“Come on,” he whispers. “Let’s get you in bed.” He kisses my forehead, then stands and gathers me in his arms.
Yes, we’re in the middle of chaos, and nothing that lies outside Starworth Tor holds any good for us. Not even time. But as Alexus carries me upstairs to the lighthouse loft, I fold my hands around his neck and rest my head on his shoulder, certain of only one thing. If all we have is now, I will fight like an unholy terror to keep him safe. To protect this special magick we’ve found, this portal to peace and contentment we travel into whenever we’re together. However temporary.
And I dare anyone to try and take him from me.
22
ALEXUS
I leave Raina in the loft and head to the main house to speak with Zahira and Yaz.
I don’t make it halfway down the corridor to Zahira’s office before I turn around, tuning my ear to voices in the foyer.
“But sir, perhaps you should speak to the captain before you leave.”
The rough scrape of boots on stone echoes down the hall.
“It’s all right, Mari. I won’t even be missed.”
Finn.
I eat up the hallway in eight long strides. When I turn the corner, Finn is standing at the bottom of the stairs with the house girl, his pack hanging from his shoulder.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
He looks me over with bloodshot eyes, from my damp hair to my clean clothes to my polished boots. His face goes red.
“To an inn. I can’t stay here, and somehow, I don’t think you really give a godsdamn.”
