“And you? How are you feeling?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it. About anything.”Make me forget, she wants to say to him.Save me. But he can’t this time.
He tilts her chin up, forcing her gaze to his. “Are you sure you want to be here? I can take you back to your room if you want to be with your mother and Bastet.”
She shakes her head and grips the collar of his shirt. There’s a sense of wild abandon coursing through her, the high of knowing that you’ve only so long left to live, so you can do anything you want. She looks around. They’re on a balcony at the east side of the castle, on one of the upper floors, overlooking the sandstone cliffs; below she can see the waves crashing against the shore, the sound echoing through the night.
“Where is here exactly?”
He studies her for a moment, trying to read her, then his lips quirk. He leans in, sweeping her hair back from her face, and brushes his lips against her neck, against the shell of her ear. She shivers.
“Well, just through those doors is my room,” he murmurs against her skin. “Would you like to go inside?”
She finds the gap in his shirt collar at the back of his neck and slips her hand within, desperate to feel his skin beneath her fingertips. “Yes, yes, I would very much like that.”
He brushes his nose along the shell of her other ear, kisses his way back down her neck, his lips skimming along her collarbone—then pauses, looking at her. “Did I tell you how devastating you are tonight?” He draws a knuckle along her cheek. “And have I ever told you how much I love your freckles? Nearly as much as I love these dimples.” He grazes the pad of his thumb over the corner of her mouth as she smiles. She watches as his throat bobs. “I want you to stay with me. All night. Will you stay with me?”
He’s so intent on her, so intoxicated by her, she feels giddy. She steps out of his hold but grasps his hand, walking him to the glass double doors, then turns around to face him. “There’s nowhere on this continent, or on my own, I’d rather be.” She means it with her very essence, with all of her magic. “I’ll stay with you. All night.”
“Thank Arach,” he says, exhaling, and slides his hand through the open panel of her dress. She sucks in a breath at his touch, the rough calluses of his palms scraping gently on her waist, moving upward until he skims the heavy underside of her breast. A satisfied smile takes over his face at the small whimper that escapes her lips.
He reaches behind her and opens the doors to his rooms, his other hand making small, torturous circles along her ribs. Astrid’s breathing becomes uneven, and with every unsteady rise and fall of her chest she can feel his hand brushing against that sensitive skin, aches for him to raise it a little higher, to take her nipple between his fingers and pinch.
“Come,” he says, pulling her inside, then through another door to his bedroom. “You’re the first person I’ve ever allowed in here.”
Astrid stops. “Are you serious?”
He pulls her up against his body, circling his arms around her back. “I’ve never wanted to bring anyone else here. This is my space, the only place that is mine and mine alone, and you’re the first person, the only person, I want to share it with.”
A fierce sense of possessiveness rises in Astrid as she processes this. What it means for him to trust her like this. She pushes up to her toesand wraps her arms around his neck, her mouth crushing into his, hard and dominant. She wants to mark him in every way possible, wants to claim him so thoroughly that others can scent her on him long after she’s sailed from this world. He groans into her mouth as she scrapes her nails along his shoulders, pulling at his shirt as she does.
“Take it off,” she gasps. “Take it all off.”
She needs to see him, needs to touch every part of him. He lifts his shirt over his head and she watches, admiring the ripple of muscle along his arms, the taut lines of his stomach, the curl of his biceps. He steps back from her, out of her reach, and she attempts to follow, but he stops her with a shake of his head. “Take off your dress.”
She doesn’t heed him, can only stare. His body is more beautiful than she remembered. The light of the moons shining bright through the windows casts him in silver and shadows, the scar along his torso as stark as a lone tree in a meadow, and she wonders, not for the first time, how he is real. How someone like him can exist.
“You’re perfect,” she breathes. “You are so perfect.”
She barely registers what’s happening before his ravenous lips are on hers again. He hooks his fingers under her dress straps and pulls them off her shoulders, drags them down her arms, peeling the dress from her body. When she’s bare from the waist up, he lowers himself to his knees in front of her, like a man praying, a man begging, a man asking for eternity with her, and the sight of him kneeling before her is dizzying. She pushes her fingers into his black hair, tips his head back so she can see his face properly.
He stares up at her as he lowers the dress over her hips, down her thighs, then lets the material pool to the floor around her feet. She’s wearing nothing underneath. He slowly drops his gaze, eyes closing briefly when he realizes she’s completely naked, then opens them again, his fingers flexing at his sides, as he hungrily takes in every detail of her body. For a moment, he does nothing, simply sits frozen, transfixed by her. Then he splays a palm along her calf.
“May I?” He lifts her leg and taps her shoe. She nods, voice caught in her throat. He slips off one silver slipper, lowers her leg, and takes her other calf, removes the second slipper. She feels exposed suddenly,vulnerable, despite the fact that she is the one standing while he’s on his knees.
“Dimples?” he asks, sensing the hesitation in her.
She blinks down at him. She’s probably going to die tomorrow and yet, right now, being here with him, she couldn’t feel more alive. Is more aware of her body—of blood and marrow and muscle—than she’s ever been. And all she can think of is that he’s been given to her, as some gift, the final, perfect gift, before it all ends.
He stands and takes her face between his palms, studying her, eviscerating her. She can see, now, the terror he’s been trying to hide, and it acts as a salve to her own. She leans in and kisses him lightly, then again more firmly. He relents, pulling her bottom lip into his mouth, sucking on it. His hands start to roam down her back, along her hips, over her backside, and with every touch she feels herself coiling tighter and tighter. Goddess, she could eat him.
“Can I tell you something horribly selfish?” she murmurs as he kisses her neck, right where her pulse thrums. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.” She thinks of the Heart, her people, her queendom. But it’s true. Her want for Zryan is different and all-consuming. “I have to duel tomorrow, and right now all I care about is this. You.”
“You’re not selfish,” he says, kissing the hollow of her throat. “If we’re speaking of being selfish, just know if I could go into that arena tomorrow in your place, I would, and if I could swap my kingdom for your life, I would.” Astrid’s breath hitches. He can’t mean that. He grips her thighs, lifts her up; and she wraps her legs around his waist, absolutely nothing separating the most intimate part of her from him. He looks down at where their bodies meet, just like when they were in the forest, and when he looks back, his pupils are so large his eyes look black. “I’m going out of my mind knowing you have to go into that cage tomorrow, because I don’t understand how you could come into my life, the only person I’ve ever felt this way about, only for you to be taken away from me. That’s selfish.”
Astrid stares at him, at the sincerity in his face.
“Zryan,” she murmurs, fingers tracing his hairline.
