A growl escapes him as he pushes against my shoulders. “Stop.”
I pull back, and he leans down, scooping me into his muscular arms.
“Why do you always do this?” I grumble as he carries me to the bed and lowers me to the mattress.
He stares down at me, his eyes smoldering with need. “I want to be inside you—where I belong—when I reach my release.”
“Here?” I spread my legs and touch myself, and as he watches, I boldly slip my index finger inside me. “Or here?”
“You’re killing me, woman,” he rasps out as he moves to straddle me and grabs my hand, pulls my finger free, and brings it to his mouth. Liquid heat surges to my core as he sucks on my finger and slams into me at the same time. I dig my nails into his backside and move with him, giving myself to him as fiercely as he takes me.
Neither of us are doing what is probably expected of us right now, but we are following the call of our bond. It threads our Fate together in ways nothing else can. Bloodstone and Kyanite. Darkness and light.
“Yes, like that,” I say in ragged breath as he pounds into me.
It’s all the encouragement he needs to turn wild again, to become the warrior he hides behind all his masks. Tonight, I have unveiled the man beneath the armor. The chieftain. The leader. The one who had to hide his secret so the other tribes wouldn’t hunt him and slaughter him.
He is untethered as he takes me against the mattress, unchained by rules and restrictions. Tonight, he’s just a man taking the woman he cares about. And I’m just a woman desperately in love.
Everything shifts the second we step outside this tent. The battle will start. Lives will alter. But in here…he is the only thing that matters.
I kiss him long and hard when I reach my summit, needing to hold him a moment longer, needing to relish the heat of his body against mine.
War doesn’t promise us anything. It especially doesn’t promise us life.
So, I cling to my husband, relishing this cocoon we placed around ourselves.
It’s only a breath, a whisper in time, but I hold on to every single second as if they are days.
ChapterThirty-Five
Dawn settles over Sharhavva, flooding the towering walls in amber and gold. My heart pounds as I look at the sea of Bloodstone and Carnelian warriors—all wearing black face paint and waiting to attack the Hematites.
Earlier, I had watched in awe as the Carnelians joined the Bloodstone, adding those black smudges on their faces and uniting under one banner. I joined them, allowing Hector to smudge my face with that mixture of charcoal and bark.
I lift my hand, tracing over the black paint, knowing I am different, and I am called to be here. Here with the Bloodstone. Here with the people, I didn’t understand for most of my life.
The Bloodstone and Carnelian warriors clang their weapons and shields together and let out fierce battle cries that shatter the peacefulness.
The palace walls loom above us, tall and forbidding, casting a shadow over our assembled forces. I clutch my reins tighter as Hector raises his hand, giving his command to those operating the trebuchets. They launch flaming missiles through the air, illuminating the sky and shattering the quiet morning.
Again and again, those trebuchets release fiery projectiles, pouring destruction onto the Hematite city. Smoke and ash thicken the air as Luc issues orders to the archers. They move from behind a wall of shields and send flaming arrows over the walls.
The Hematites scramble on top of the walls to put out the fires and to pull their wounded to safety. But there’s no escaping our wrath. They are the trapped phoenix, and we’re the serpent, seeking our revenge.
We’re here, Everly!
I grip my mare’s reins tighter as Bloodstone warriors raise ladders against the ramparts, and the Hematites fight back, using their archers to make scaling the walls difficult. But the Bloodstone keep coming in waves, relentlessly pursuing the wall until the first brave warrior reaches the top and slashes down a Hematite. A Hematite archer shoots him in the throat, and he falls to his death.
More and more Bloodstone warriors rush the ladders as my heart throbs in my ears. Hector made me promise to not go in the first or second wave. Still, my fingers itch to join in, to avenge those people I rescued from slavery, to avenge those villagers from House of Silver, to avenge Everly.
A ladder breaks, sending Bloodstone and Carnelian warriors plummeting to their death. My heart screams in pain for them as I wipe away the sweat beaded on my brow.
Their deaths don’t deter the second wave of warriors. They climb up the ladders with renewed vigor, where they’re met with fierce resistance from the Hematites.
Everything shifts the moment the thick, well-fortified gate groans open, revealing two Bloodstone warriors.
Cenric and Hero.
