His hips slapped against my ass, picking up tempo.
“Touch yourself, Leela. Do it.”
I reached between my thighs, fingers finding my swollen clit and rubbing in the rhythm I craved. Oh, so close. So fucking close.
“You want this. You knew it was different. Rougher. But you wanted it.”
Oh gods, I was going to come.
“You wantedmenothim.” He fucked me harder, deeper.
No. No, this was wrong. This wasn’t Araz, this was?—
I came, walls clenching around him, body pushing back on instinct to milk this feeling even as tears leaked from my eyes and guilt twisted my insides.
Hot breath kissed my ears. “You wantedmeto fuck you, Leela. Not Araz.Me.”
“NO!”
“Leela, it’s all right.”
I batted at the hands trying to hold me. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay. You’re okay.” C’ael’s soft baritone soothed the ache in my chest. “You had a nightmare.”
A nightmare. I blinked myself awake, locking on to his concerned face, a bitter taste in my mouth, the weight of guilt crushing my heart. I sensed the others around me, awake and alert now, and my lungs shrank.
Kalani got up slowly and left the room, and the stone-faced brothers followed, leaving me alone with C’ael.
He tucked a tendril of my hair behind my ear with infinite gentleness. “Talk to me, Leela. Tell me what’s weighing on you.”
I couldn’t. I didn’t want to say it. Because saying it would make it real, and then…then it would hurt more. It would claw at my waking mind, not just at my sleeping soul.
“Leela…you need to air it. Let it out, whatever it is, and we can burn it clean. Together.”
Clean…I hadn’t felt clean since that night. The bastard had put a stain inside my soul. I needed it gone. I bit back a sob. “I let it have me, C’ael. In the steam baths, I let it have my body.”
“You didn’t know.”
“But I should have. I should have known. I should have fucking known it wasn’t Araz. I should have questioned the difference and?—”
“No. Stop this right now. This is what it wants. You weakened. You riddled with guilt and doubt. You cannot let him have that, otherwise he will win. You made love to Araz. You made love to his soul because that is who you believed him to be. Evil cannot touch that, and?—”
“He told me that Araz saw it.” My vision blurred, and I blinked to clear it, releasing hot tears down my cheeks. “He saw that thing have me, and he couldn’t do anything about it.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Do you know that Araz tried to surface? He asked me so many times to stop him, but I thought…I thought he was being a gentleman, that because he was now Iblees he was trying to give me the choice of waiting, and I…I should have waited.”
“I am sure that Araz knows the truth of it. That he understands. Leela, this is not your fault. None of it. He needed your body. Your consent. He needed to access your bond with Araz, with Iblees your twin flame in order to force a connection strong enough to get into the royal domain. He knew enough tosway you, to make you believe. He wounded you, and we will make him pay. I swear it.”
His eyes gleamed like emeralds in the firelight, his jaw tight with determined rage on my behalf, allowing me to let go, to be soft. The tears that I’d been holding ever since Araz was taken from me for the second time crashed into me in a suffocating wave.
I fell against him, clutching his shirt, my body shaking, venting the emotion that it had been housing for too long. I wasn’t sure how long I sobbed, or how long he held me and rocked me, whispering phrases that made no sense and yet served to soothe me.
When the tide of grief retreated, it left a burning coal in my chest.
I was done doubting.
Done grieving.
It was time for retribution. For retaliation. And I was ready.
