I cover his hands with mine, squeezing, because he’s carrying us away again, and I can do nothing more than hold on and let him.
Gasping, I take all he has to give, until he cries out my name. His sinewy body shudders hard against mine, and I shatter a second time, my entire body quivering with the most exquisite pleasure.
When it’s over, we collapse on the bed, sweat-slicked and exhausted, wrapped in one another’s arms and one another’s magick. We lie side by side, staring into each other’s eyes for a long time—gently caressing, exploring, touching—the crackling fire and our slowing breaths the only sounds in the room.
Alexus kisses my fingertips and then cups my cheek before pressing his lips to my mouth. It’s a slow, sweet kiss, deliberate and unhurried. I love it, but I pull away.
“You cannot keep kissing me like that, or we might never leave this place,” I sign, throwing more of his words from the wood back at him.
A gorgeous, heart-stopping smile unfurls across his face, and that dimple shines. “Well, you see,thatis what it is to be mine, and I intend to show you several more times tonight if that’s all right.”
I smile, too. A genuine smile. A smile I feel in my heart and soul.
I touch his dimple and drag my fingertips through his beard before pulling him on top of me.“Promise?”I sign.
He presses his reply into the skin over my heart.“I promise.”
There is no love without fear, but no one told me that fear feasts on those with something to lose. That’s been my problem all along, and though everything looks very different now when I gaze at my life, that part remains steadfast and true.
I imagine it always will.
The starkness of this certainty settles deep as I lie before the fire with Alexus’s head upon my breast. His long body is wrapped around mine, so still and tranquil, clinging to the remnants of our lovemaking. My mind drifts so easily to the worry that—at any moment—his gentle heartbeat could cease, and I can do nothing to prevent it. I don’t know how to reconcile this. Accepting that this is our fate unless we defeat the Prince of the East with a handful of Witch Walkers is beyond my reach.
Alexus doesn’t seem to live under the weight of such concerns. When he wakes, he takes me again, making love to me until my mind is blank of anything other than the passion we share. But we cannot remain in the dreamworld of his bedchamber forever.
Too soon, I’m standing with Hel in the main hall, watching servants carry the last of the packs and blankets outside. We’re dressed in leathers,thick wool tunics, heavy fur-lined cloaks, and sealskin gloves. Our boots are tall with daggers strapped to both sides, and we each wear a baldric across our chests, complete with swords that fit our hands perfectly.
I can’t help but glance at Hel, looking like the warrior she was always meant to be. Every hour here brings some new change that makes my old life less recognizable, but I’m beginning to think these changes somehow fit.
Hel jerks her head for me to follow, and we turn down the impressive hall leading to the kitchens. We pass a half dozen tapestries, each at least thirty hands high, depicting war. The Land Wars. The wars that led Colden Moeshka to a life he never expected—that of an immortal king.
Hel opens the door leading to the main kitchen, and we slip inside. No one is here but us.
“What is this about?”I ask.
She arches a dark eyebrow and guides me across the room. A pitcher and scrying dish filled with water wait on a rough-hewn table. “Can you look for my father? If he’s out there, Raina, that’s another pair of fighting hands we need. Possibly seven pairs of fighting hands if the rest of the hunters are all right. They’re good with weapons. Good at hunting. Survival. Tracking.”
I blow out a long breath. She’s right. The hunters from Silver Hollow would be a grand addition to our efforts, but ever since the night of the attack on the village, I’ve had a terrible suspicion that our hunters fell to the Eastlanders hours before the enemy devastated the vale. I saw Warek. What looked like a man passed out from too much drink could’ve also been a dead man revealed to me from an unclear angle.
But I must look again. I must be certain.
I slip a dagger from my boot and prick my fingertip. The blood falls, and I swirl the water.
“Nahmthalahsh. Show me the hunters.”
The image that forms on the water’s violet surface almost takes me to my knees. The hunters are there, in the valley, burying bodies.
I look at Hel and smile, happy tears welling at the rims of my eyes.
“They’re alive?” she asks as elation spreads across her face. “You see them?”
With a wipe of my eyes, I nod and turn back to the water, dumping it into a basin and refilling from the pitcher. Another prick.
Another drop of blood.
“Nahmthalahsh. Show me Warek.”
The water swirls, and another violet scene arrives.
