Page 421 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Screeching, I bolted, running full throttle through the downpour, so fast I feared my face would outpace my feet. All while he laughed behind me.

“That’s my girl!” he declared in my wake as I sprinted right past Brody, Jason and Rika, where they huddled under the cover of the trees. “Race ya,” he declared as the ground began a subtle slant upward toward that narrow ravine.

“Sucker,” I breathed before shifting into the shadows.

Only…

He caught me. Aren anticipated my response and latched onto my wrist before I could vanish. A grin broke across my face as I took in his eyes, alight with mischief even in the molasses gray. Shielded in the shadows, drenched like drowned rats, I studied the way the fabric of his black shirt clung to him and thought of that translucent white tee he’d worn the day he kissed me stupid in that monsoon. My chest heated, even as he turned, dragging me behind him.

The man knelt, his back to me, pulling me onto him. Apparently, Rika wasn’t the only one getting a free ride today. And without another word, Aren carried me up the steep incline on his back. Even his breath was slightly staggered by the time we reached the top.

My mouth fell open, eyes sweeping over a skyscraping stone giant. The mountains had indeed been carved apart—mirroring knights, kneeling, heads bowed before intricately engraved swords, guarding the pass. A familiar winged sword was chiseled into their shoulder armor.

“Damn,” Aren said reverently. I was relieved to find him just as awed as I was.

Unwilling to let the others out of his sight, we stopped there, ogling the mountainous Grayshellian sentinels. But… I wasn’t quite ready to share him yet. Keeping my hand clamped around his wrist, I raised up on my toes to press a kiss to his cheek.

Aren, naturally, intercepted me, snagging my lips with his.

Unbothered, easy, like the agony of the last six months had all been a hallucination, he guided the kiss deeper. Those beautiful hands of his slid from my palm, up my wrist and arms, down my torso until he could wrap them around my waist.

God, I’d missed this. Him. Was still missing him, the need to merge our bodies was so pressing, somehow growing more urgent by the day, like I was suffocating without him.

Spearing my hands under his shirt where it clung to his muscled back, I breathed in his scent; petrichor and parchment, that hint of butterscotch, something intangible and inherently Aren.

Needing more than he could give, I finally released him. Time rushed back into existence, the downpour of rain popping our bubble. The gray swept in so close that even as I stared at him, aware the others were catching up, I couldn’t see a lick beyond him.

For one breath, it was just the two of us, on top of the world.

For a breath, it was Aren as I remembered him—light and happy and lust-addled in a way that threatened the integrity of my knees. My common sense.

And then reality seemed to dawn as suddenly as it left.

The dimples vanished as his face fell into something… solemn. An echo of pain flashed through his eyes, those broad shoulders dropping. Panic reared in my chest—a new desperation to cling to the warm rasp of his laughter, the light in his eyes, the carefree way he’d been touching me.

“I love you,” I breathed, settling my hands on his chilly pecs.

“I see that,” he said back, smiling softly. No dimples popped. No light glimmered in those icy blues. My heart threatened to stall, beating along only as he lifted a broad hand to cup my face and run the pad of his thumb across my cheekbone. “You’ve been showing me every day.”

“That almost sounds like pride,” I accused, a cheap bandage over the sting that he hadn’t said it back.

“Of course, it’s pride. Have you seen yourself? This brilliant, beautiful woman loves me enough to traverse the impossible.”

“I do,” I agreed.

“That’s very good for me,” he decided, pressing his lips to my forehead, even as my stomach tightened. “I will love you into eternity, Magnolia Green.” Not for the first time, I nearly choked on the suspicion that he was saying goodbye.

Unable to hold his gaze any longer, unable to face the hurt I’d put there, the hurt the Balaskas and their godsdamned war had put there, I buried myself against his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist. Aren’s strong arms banded around me like he’d never let me go, squeezing me tighter even as he exhaled roughly.

His heartbeat was the best song I’d ever listened to, and I was half asleep, fingers wrapped in his shirt, by the time Brody’s voice became audible. I was still resting in his arms, my eyes blissfully closed when the rain at last slowed.

“Is that… is that what I think it is?” Brody rumbled, voice tight with emotion. “Somebody verify I’m not hallucinating.”

Reluctantly, we peeled apart. When I looked up to Aren, he was staring down at me with that old, haunted expression… like I might vanish if he blinked. Like he wasn’t sure this was real.

“Guys?” Jason pressed, drawing us both away from our trance… and to the shadow of distant, tiny castle spires.

Where mountains had stretched on endlessly before… there was now a sharp decline to what looked like a valley floor. The flats stretched on for what had to be tens of miles before that castle, but based on the harsh whoosh of air from my mate’s lips…