But I can’t tell him. Not without admitting who I am.WhatI am.
What am I doing? Ladies don’t fight in wars. They don’t murder would-be assassins who enter their chambers in the night. They certainly don’t go running off after their generals to protect them.
I smooth the lines of my face and nod. “Of course. I’ll stay.”
“Don’t do that,” he says with a heavy sigh and shake of his head.
“What? You asked me to stay, and I’m saying I will.” I fail to keep the heat of my temper from my voice.
“And I’m glad, because you’ll be safer here. But don’t pretend to be something you’re not just to appease me. Stars help me, I love your fire. I love that you’d rather be by my side than wait idly by. But if you came, you’d only distract me from what I need to do.”
I know what he is trying to say, but it doesn’t make it any easier. So, I send him with a simple request. “Just be careful. Please.”
He drops a kiss on my temple when he says, “I have something for you.”
There’s a sparkle in his eyes when he slips two black daggers out from the sleeves of his leathers. I’ve never seen their likeness.
The blades are slimmer than the ones I had before. And while the obsidian I’d become accustomed to was a flawless black, easy to conceal inthe dark, these are something else altogether.
I pluck them out of his palms, slowly rotating them in front of my face as I examine them. The stone blades pull at the light in the room like they will draw the very flame inside and snuff us into darkness. Curious, I glance at the dark blades strapped to his back and find that they share the strange quality.
“They are carved from feynstone,” he says.
“I thought feynstone was a myth?” The shock is clear in my voice.
“Rare, but not a myth.”
He takes the daggers from my hands, sliding them into the discrete sheaths sewn into the leather at my outer thighs. They practically disappear from sight, so clever is the crafting, and my face stretches in a wildly amused smile.
“You seem to know your way around a blade,” he says, “And I need you to be able to protect yourself. Even if I hope you’ll never have to do it again.”
I lift myself onto my toes and kiss the male, gripping his leathers and pulling his chest against mine. His hand cups the base of my neck and his thumb strokes my jaw tenderly. But it’s his smile that catches my breath when I draw back. I’ve never seen the male smile like this before, and it pitches my stomach sideways, sending my heart into an offbeat rhythm.
My lips curve up in answer when I ask, “Why are you smiling like that?”
“It’s the first time you’ve kissed me,” he says.
I’m about to argue that I’ve kissed him many times when his meaning dawns on me. He’s kissed me before, and I’ve returned the affection. Never have I gone to him with my lips in offering, in wanting and desire.
I crane my neck and look up at him and say with a grin, “Then come back to me quickly, so I can do it again.”
He wraps my legs around his waist, pinning my back to the wall before I can take another breath. His mouth is on my neck, his hips rocking his length against my core. I don’t think when my hand rushes between us and I unlace his pants.
He sucks in a breath when my hand slides down his shaft. He sighs atthe contact and his mouth travels up my throat, along my jaw, and onto my lips. I wrap a hand around his thickness, unable to close it fully as I stroke in a long, slow sweep, exploring the shape and length of his flesh.
Riesh bellows from the main room and Xeyvian’s body stills against me. We linger on the precipice of … something. Each unwilling to let this moment pass.
“I want you,” I whisper.
A fist pounds on the washroom door and a muscle ticks in the general’s jaw.
“When I return,mi’ajna. I will give you everything.”
I reluctantly loose my hand from him and he sets me on my feet. There is a moment he hesitates, a moment he looks like he might tell his friend to go to haliel before taking me against the wall of the closet. Maybe I wish he would. The moment passes too quickly when he vanishes out of the room, his dark cloak trailing behind him.
“The foc happened to you two?” Riah barks from the ring.
We make a pitiful pair today, Awri and I. She looks so tired, always tired, and today she’s worried as well.
