What magick made this place possible? How could this exist and her world know nothing of it?
Incredible!
“Mr. Dupree?”
He slowed at her call to look back over his shoulder. Then he paused, too. “You shouldn’t have followed me, Cameron.”
Biting her lip, she closed the distance between them. “I couldn’t leave you be. Not afterthatcruelty.”
A tic started in his cheek. That was the only sign he gave as to how much their actions hurt him.
Aye, he was a strong one. Always. He kept his pain locked in and spoke nothing of it. Only those stormy eyes betrayed what was locked inside his heart.
And it made her burn for him that he’d been so neglected. Yearned to hold and soothe him until the pain was gone from those stormy eyes. To keep him close and give him what they’d so obviously failed to.
Before she could stop herself, she reached up and placed her hand to his cheek. The roughness of his whiskers teased her palm and contrasted sharply with the softness of his lips. “You’re a good man, Kalder Dupree. Never let them, or anyone else, tell you otherwise.”
He crushed her against him and gave her the hottest kiss of her life. One that left her breathless and aching. It was raw and hungry and whetted her appetite for things she knew better than to even think about.
Yet she couldn’t help it. Every time she neared him, she hungered in a way that was sheer madness.
When he finally released her, he cupped her face in his hands and ground his teeth as if he were fighting with himself. “You don’t know what you’re saying, lass. A good man would walk away from you.”
“Why? Because your brother’s an arseling? You’ve met mine. Trust me. Few is the family what doesn’t have a stockpile of them. So what if some have a few more than others. It’s more about the size of the one above the overall quantity of them, anyway.”
Kalder laughed, amazed that she could amuse him when he felt so low and hurt. Yet that was the beauty of her. She always madehim feel better. And he didn’t know how. Others annoyed the very shite out of him. He couldn’t stand to be near most people. They tried his patience with nothing more than the sound of their breathing. In and out. The sheer monotony of it made him want to choke them till they stopped.
Cameron…
She, he craved with a madness indescribable. When others would ride his nerves into the ground, with barbed spurs on, and make him crave their hearts for it, her mere presence amused him. Soothed him. He could spend forever listening to her most inane prattle. And he didn’t know why.
The sound of her voice alone brought him peace.
Unaware of how she affected him, she glanced around the city. “What is this place?”
“Wyñeria.”
“Your homeland.” Her smile made him instantly hard and wanton. “Now I see what you meant when you tried to describe where it was located, you tricky man. Though you could have told me about some of these incredible marvels.” She tsked at him. “We’re under the sea, aren’t we?”
“Aye. Very observant you are, lass,” he teased lightly. “Truly astute.”
Without taking offense, she turned around, trying to take it all in. “It’s so beautiful. Wondrous! Unlike anything I’ve ever seen. So where does the light come from? Surely the sun cannot reach this far down, can it?”
“Nay. Bioluminescent plankton that only grows down here. We call it surilah.”
She sucked her breath in sharply. “That’s a lovely name! It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? So then, how is it dry here, anyway, if we’re under the ocean? Shouldn’t we be wet? How do you bathe? Can you bathe? Can it rain? How do you grow food? Do you have seasons?”
Kalder laughed as she rattled off on a roll, asking more questions before he had a chance to answer any.
Cameron was always so full of questions. Always rambling them off, one after another, usually in rapid-fire succession.
And he didn’t mind a bit. “Our legends say that it was placed on the ocean floor by the first king after his Myrcian wife told him that she would only birth him a son when she could lie comfortably on a dry bed of silk. But since he insisted his son be ocean born, as was the way of our people, this city was his compromise with her.”
“And the portal that brought us here?”
“Only the Barnaks and our versions of priests control them. They can come and go as they please. And they can bring humans down from the surface. Getting you back to your world without killing you is trickier for them for some reason—that requires one with special skills—a sacerdos. They are able to bend the laws of magick enough that they can prevent the human body from becoming ill and dying. As for us… we have to swim back and forth between the two. Our bodies don’t survive the portals well.”
So that was why he’d arrived wet while the rest of them weren’t. And why his gills had been exposed. Now she understood.
