Page 110 of Joy Guardian
“I’ve no idea. But I love it.” I smiled.
Eager to finally be able to feel his hands on me, I reached behind him and found the chain restraining his wrists. Together, we recited the spell in reverse for the restraints to fall off.
“Ahhhh, yes.” He stretched his shoulders before wrapping me in his arms tightly.
My body tingled with anticipation in response.
“It’ll last for three days, Dawn said,” I murmured as he carried me to bed. “I think I can do this for three days. I’m actually really looking forward to it now.”
“Let me do this first, before the mating fever makes us fuck again.” He laid me on my back and spread my thighs, exposing me to him. “I’ll get to taste me on you. That’s a special treat.”
He licked his lips, kneeling between my legs.
Excitement fizzled in me like bubbles in a glass with Champagne. He sensed it through my tendrils and lifted his head.
“Can you feel me now the way I feel you?” he asked.
“Yes, my love. I missed our connection. But this is even better than before because I can share your emotions the way you’re sharing mine. I love to know how you feel, and I love being able to comfort you with my joy.”
“Then I’ll make it my mission to fill you with joy, for as long as I live.”
Epilogue
CIANA
“It’s not working, Ciana.” Dawn sounded distraught and looked especially pale in the moonlight that flooded an open balcony on the top floor of the royal palace in Teneris. “So many humans are still missing, and they aren’t safe out there. Rha offered a fortune to anyone who brings them here. But other than the four of you, no one else came. Lucia is stuck in the queen’ssarai, probably being pumped with wine against her will every night. And no one knows where Elaine is.” She heaved a long, heavy breath. “I’m worried sick about Elaine.”
Concern for the gentle, soft-spoken Elaine had been pressing on my chest, too, ever since the traders dragged her out of our cage.
“I’d run out into the desert to search for her, if only I had a single chance of finding her,” Dawn said.
“You’d have a million more chances of dying out there than of finding her. The desert is harsh on its travelers and unforgiving for the slightest mistake. Believe me, I know.”
We sat in silence for a while, gazing out into the night. Themoonlight sparkled in the crests of the dunes, and it looked as if the sky above sprinkled the desert with starlight.
“It’s hard to believe that something so beautiful at night can be so deadly during the day,” Dawn sighed. “People may be suffering out there right now, and all we can do is just wait.”
Prince Rha had spoken to Kurai at length. An entire army of royal spies had been scouting the desert and the nearby cities, gathering whatever information they could about the pleasure traders.
The word out there was that humans had been taken to the City of Ashgate where they would be sold to the highest bidder. But the exact location of the city remained unknown.
We couldn’t go to the temple in search of Melanie’s notes either. The Queen of the Alveari Kingdom had put a claim on the Temple of the First Priestess, permanently stationing her guards in it.
But there were also things that gave me comfort. Peter and Maria seemed to be recovering well from their ordeal. Shyanne happily returned to her gardening with the Joy Vessel Keepers in thesarai. Malis and the men, who helped Kurai free us from the traders, had successfully collected their reward and were free to leave Teneris. However, they accepted Prince Rha’s invitation to stay for as long as they wished, exploring the city life that they had been denied to experience before.
A palace servant arrived on our patio to announce that dinner had been served in Prince Rha’s private dining hall.
“Are you coming?” Dawn asked me, getting up and smoothing down the long skirt of her green-and-yellow dress. “Shyanne will be there. Even Peter and Maria said they’d come.”
I’d seen Shyanne often since our arrival in Teneris, but Peter and Maria kept mostly to themselves. Dawn assured me they’d always been a private couple and didn’t interact much with the others even before their failed escape attempt.
“I’d love to,” I replied. “But Kurai wants to have dinner with me alone tonight.”
Dawn’s bottom lip slipped out in a pout, and a wave of déjà vu flushed over me. Despite her being three years older than me now, I kept catching glimpses of the little girl I’d left back in our world barely two months ago.
“He’s keeping you all to himself too much,” she complained. “Tell him I love you, too, and he’s not the only one who needs you.”
I laughed, hugging her. “He said he had a surprise for me. I can’t possibly miss out on a surprise, can I?”
