When Lore’s eyes opened, the trees were burnt again.
The moss was comfortable. The island warmth and the futility of her mission pulled at her eyelids, made her body settle.
Lore didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until she saw the ocean.
She sat up, frowning.
The tide had washed in, warm as bathwater, soaking the filmy white dress she was always wearing here. Lore pulled her knees into her chest and rested her chin on them, staring out at the eternity of blue, the sky meeting the ocean.
If the Shining Realm had existed, it would probably look like this.
Gabe didn’t call her name. Didn’t do anything but come sit beside her. Like Hestraon in Nyxara’s memory, he reached out and took her hand, staring out over the endless horizon.
“How are things going for you?” she asked softly.
“Shitty,” he answered. “You?”
“About the same.”
He glanced at her. “I heard you escaped.”
“Escapedmight be overselling it.” Lore stroked her thumb along his. “But I’m off the Second Isle. I’m at the Mount.”
He huffed a laugh. “I should have known you could do it.”
Her wrist still itched with the ghost of that ribbon in Nyxara’s memories. Her nerves tingled with the aftershocks of intimacy she hadn’t experienced.
Lore was so gods-damned tired of waiting. Of existing in this stasis where every step forward came with a step back. Of losing herself in increments.
Once, she’d been a person who took what she wanted.
When she turned to Gabe, he was already looking at her. A question already in his eyes, a tenseness to his limbs, everything they had never allowed to happen crashing into this moment.
She leaned forward and answered the question.
Lore had thought before about how different it was, kissing Gabe versus kissing Bastian. How Bastian was a slow explosion, a discovery, while Gabe was all flash and fire. He proved it once again; there was no easing into this kiss, no steady build. They fell into each other like starving animals.
His mouth opened to hers like it was all he’d been thinking about. His tongue brushed along the side of her own, hungry and seeking. Her body, already warmed, went up like kindling to a spark.
Gabe pulled her onto his lap; Lore straddled his waist, hips already chasing friction. His hands were on the softness of her waist, pulling at the hem of her white robe, tossing it away into the surf.
He sat back, eyes glazed, taking her in. He didn’t speak, didn’t need to.
Another searing kiss, his hands rising from her waist to find her breasts—Lore threw her head back as his thumbs circled the gathered peaks, her gasp loud in the silence, without even the sound of the tide to blunt it.
As he kissed her neck, Lore took his hands, guided them behind her back. She put her wrists together like Nyxara’s had been, pulling his fingers to circle them, bind them.
“Make me,” she whispered. He’d know what she meant.
And he did. Gabe looked at her with glazed eyes and nodded.
Quick but still gentle, he flipped her over, back against the soft sand. He held her arms prone over her head so her body stretched out below him, helpless and writhing.
Bastian had wanted her in charge, that night. Wanted to give up control, wanted to know that their intimacy was only theirs. They might have the same wants as the gods who’d chosen them as vessels, but that didn’t make those wants any less their own.
She wanted to be held down. Wanted to be denied, in an imitation of the way he’d denied her before. But this time, within her own parameters, and with the heated understanding that the denial was coming to an end.
Her body ached for him to touch her. Lore canted up her hips, trying to guide his hand that wasn’t holding her arms over her head; Gabe gave her a tiny slap on the thigh. The sting of it made her jump, made her breath come ragged and all her nerves pull tight.
