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“Up to you.” I frowned. “I didn’t have an ulterior motive when I got this for you, Rayna. You deserve to have something you want just because.”
She took her time absorbing my words, hands on her necklace, eyes dipping back to my chest. The cut had closed now, merely a pinkish sliver etched into my skin.
Her decision locked into place. Slowly, she twisted to give me access to the back of her dress, an almost two-piece connected by thin strips of fabric on the sides and with silver buttons running down her spine. I could definitely massage her shoulders with it on, but not her whole back. “Help me out of this?”
Gladly. Oh so fucking gladly.
I took my time with each button, relishing each new inch of exposed skin. When she was completely naked before me, her clothes tossed to the side, I nodded for her to lie down.
She maneuvered to her stomach. I swept her hair to the side, trying not to let myself get distracted by that perfect ass right beneath me. Keeping my attention anchored to the brand on the back of her neck.
The moment I dropped a few beads of oil on her back and kneaded my thumbs between her shoulder blades, Rayna let out a moan. Her muscles were tighter than I’d expected, courtesy of all her training in the Uninhabitable Zone.
Pride swelled through me, and soon it became my own personal, wicked game to see how many moans I could squeeze out of her in a thirty-second period, experimenting with different pressures and spots on her back.
Again, trying not to get distracted by her ass.
“Have you…” Rayna cut off her own words with another moan before resuming. “Have you ever seen it in person? The original Esholian Institute?”
“Yes. It’s located behind the Sorronian palace, actually.” I swept my thumbs along her mid-back. “And since I’m the Fated General, I’m technically in charge of it.” Not that I’d made any real leadership decisions involving anything except for Mydusia’s first command and her latest amendment.
Rayna’s thoughts fluttered with curiosity: about the institute, yes, but also about Sorronia in general. What the palace looked like. What the surrounding foliage looked like and how it would sing for her. What the cities and towns were like.
What the temple was like.
Even during all my tests here at this Esholian Institute, I’d never felt as many nerves as I did now. They wound through my ribs, clogged my chest, crammed my throat until I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to speak. But I’d wasted too much time waiting when there was absolutely nothing to wait for on my end.
“Rayna?”
“Yeah?” She gave a sleepy sideways smile, cheek smashed against the blankets.
I flipped her around, my body hardening all over at the sight of her splayed beneath me. Not just her body, but her mind and soul.
“When I first heard about fate,” I told her quietly, “the word came from my mother. But she wasn’t talking about the entity who writes our future. She was talking about the future itself.” Without Mind Manipulating, I would have probably forgotten this memory. Now I was able to call it forth, the things my mother actually said to me up against a forgotten corner of the world. “She told me that some parts of our fate are out of our control. Beyond our grasp. But other parts…” I slid a hand against Rayna’s cheek. “Other parts are up to us. Ours to claim.”
She sucked in a breath, pupils expanding. Consuming me.
“I want to claim you, Rayna,” I whispered.
And finally uttered the question that had echoed within my darkness since it had exploded out of me. Since the moment I’d realized my catastrophic event was the mere possibility of a future without her.
“Will you go to the temple with me?”
CHAPTER
40
RAYNA
The words rushed through me, igniting every strand of my heart.
Will you go to the temple with me? I’d known the question had been on both of our minds, but I hadn’t realized I’d been yearning to hear it actually come out of his mouth. A declaration made real, settling into the space between our lips.
Yet my own lips didn’t budge, frozen in place. My tongue dried out. So many fears nipped at the truth that yes, of course I wanted to go to the temple with him.
“You don’t have to give me an answer right away,” Coen said without a hint of judgment. Almost as if he’d been expecting my hesitation. “I just thought you should know I want to go with you. I want to ask Fate for the bond.”
His voice wavered, if only for a fraction of a heartbeat, and I caught the vulnerability hiding in the cracks between each syllable. He deserved honesty, an explanation—not just from my mind, but from my actual spoken word.
