“Damn, you’re old,” I moaned, dragging my fingers through his sodden hair and tugging him even closer.
A low, wicked chuckle rumbled up his throat, vibrating through my chest. “You fucking love it.” Kaden captured my bottom lip between his teeth and bit down just hard enough to elicit a sharp tingle of pain. “It makes me patient with the gorgeous little huntress berating me on my deathbed.”
“Immortal asshole,” I hissed, lifting my hips as my body sought his.
“You love me,” he repeated, his cold lips ghosting down my neck.
As his tongue chased an errant raindrop down my throat, I wrapped my legs around him and savored the solid thump of his heart against my chest.
He was alive. He wasmine, for however short a time. It filled me with a desperate urgency to rip his clothes off and fuck him right here in the godsdamned mud.
“Get a room, you two,” came an annoyed female voice.
Relief and irritation flared through me, but in the end, relief won out.
Shoving Kaden off me, I looked up to find Sorsha staring down at us in annoyance. Her leathers were filthy, her face flecked with mud. Her golden hair had mostly tumbled out of its braid, but she looked unharmed.
“Yes, yes, I’m alive,” she said with feigned grandeur, holding out her arms.
“And Adriel?”
“Here,” he grumbled, emerging from the trees with his blades sheathed and scarcely a hair out of place.
His gaze lingered on me sprawled in the mud for half a beat before he tore his eyes away. Still, it was long enough for me to realize that I was lying on the forest floor, jacket unbuttoned and undershirt hitched up beneath my breasts.
“How did they find us?” Sorsha asked as I hurried to right my clothes.
“He didn’t use the bond, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Kaden, rolling to his feet and pulling me with him. “Now that he knows what Lyra is, he must have guessed that this was our plan. To restore the Death Bringer’s hands so that he could be killed.”
Sorsha looked distressed at this information, and Kaden glanced at his royal guard.
Adriel’s expression was hard as always, though he seemed especially grim.
“If he knows we’re coming for him,” said Kaden, rubbing the back of his neck, “then we must find a way to regain the element of surprise.”
“How?” I asked, glancing between him and Adriel. But the royal guard did not offer his input. He merely scowled.
“Perhaps we do not need to surprise him,” said Sorsha, looking thoughtful.
Kaden’s brow furrowed.
“Perhaps we only need a way to tip the odds in our favor.”
“What do you propose?” Adriel asked. “Semphrys has an entirearmyof demons guarding the Dark Palace.”
“I suggest we bring an army of our own,” Sorsha countered, meeting his gaze with a challenging glare. “And I know just where we can find one.”
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
LYRA
“Absolutely not,” Siran snapped, a muscle pulsing in his jaw as he looked from Sorsha to Kaden before finally settling his gaze on Adriel.
The royal guard narrowed his eyes, and Siran’s nostrils flared in irritation.
I folded my arms across my chest. It might have been petty, but it annoyed me that the leader of the Drathen forces hadn’t so much as acknowledged my presence.
