“Oh, I know, and I believe it. But you also want me.”
He pulled back slightly, looking her directly in the eye. She squared her jaw. “I don’t. I never did.”
The last words were a mistake, because they both knew they were a lie.
“Say that again,” he said softly. “And I will leave right now. Imeria can take you to a bedroom of your own, and I will see you in the morning to discuss the political merits of this arrangement.”
She opened her mouth, but even as her lips parted, nothing came out. All she had to do was lie but?—
Her breath hitched as his thumb traced her bottom lip. “I thought so,” he said in a low, rough voice.
His voice didn’t sound like this often. Only certain pitches and volumes made the never-quite-healed wound at his throat so painfully apparent when he spoke. But she had heard this voice before, in a damp alcove behind a waterfall. The memory was the source of all her shame, but even so, at the reminder of it, her traitorous body did not push him away when he dipped his head to the curve of her neck.
Her back arched into his touch, and in that moment, she hated herself much more than she hated him. Teeth grazed the skin just above her collarbone, and a frustrated growl tore from his throat. He fisted one hand in her hair, breathing hard, his entire body trembling with restraint. She didn’t understand why he was holding back now, given that, moments before, he had been taunting her.
Tell me to stop.His lips parted against her heated skin, and he added, this time aloud in a hoarse whisper, “Please.”
That word was what ruined everything. It reminded her of all the times he had given her power over him, despite the fact that he was clearly stronger than her in every way. For just a few seconds, she forgot the past few hours, the past day, the pastyear.
Don’t stop.
She couldn’t make herself say it out loud, but perhaps it had been a mistake not to try. Using the pathway always made them both more vulnerable. It was much more difficult to hide the emotions laced within each thought.
Morgen froze against her, and for a thick, tense pause, the only sound in the cavern was the catching of their heavy breaths. She sought the clarity and resolve to push him away, but every thought of doing so dissolved as he bit into the soft skin at the juncture of her throat and shoulder. She gasped at the sharp spike of pain, though it quickly melded into something elseentirely as his tongue swirled over the hurt. Through half-lidded eyes, she saw the water in the basin spark again.
Morgen let out a low, “Fuck,” and then tore away from her abruptly, taking a few stumbling steps back.
She stared at him, eyes wide and heart hammering. His lips were swollen and stained deep red—the color was from her blood, she realized, once her mind caught up to what had just occurred. She lifted a shaking hand to her throat, and he was close again in an instant, muttering, “Let me heal it.”
She was too stunned to protest, feeling the brief burn of his magic—Life magic, laced with the essence of Pure Light and Deep Night, of Fate and Duality, of Death, and Fire, and War.
The magic of all the principal gods—the universe itself—lay within him, the same as it had in Kronos. It had been why the god-king had been so impossible to defeat.
She should have let herself die rather than help Morgen on his quest to achieve the same level of power Kronos had. Her life would have been a small sacrifice for peace, maybe even a chance at democracy. Her parents had given theirs and more to ensure those things, and here she was, betraying them.
He pulled his hand away, and she slipped past him, trembling from head to toe and heading for the hall. She had no idea how to navigate these tunnels. All she knew was that she needed to get out and never return.
Morgen didn’t even try to stop her.
It unnerved her, how easily he let her go now, but she didn’t care enough at the moment to ponder further as to why.
Varax!
She also knew Morgen would hear her calling for the dragon, but Varax was her only way out of here. Nya supposed she was about to see if the dragon’s loyalty was truly to her too.
I am sleeping.A pause, then,You wish to leave.
Yes.
An emotion that felt like a long-suffering sigh flashed through the bond.Fine. Follow the tunnel until you reach an opening in the caves. There is not an outcropping, so you will have to jump straight onto my back.
Nya didn’t waste time after that, the torchlight blurring as she ran. True to her word, Varax was circling below when Nya skidded to a stop at the opening in the tunnel.
Are you ready?
Nya took a deep breath. It truly was a cliff, the drop falling hundreds of feet below into stone threaded with thin streams of lava.
I’m ready.
