My mind is my own.
My fingers curled around the edge of the table, and I dragged in short breaths. I would not be a toy of the gods again—I would not allow it—but everything was slipping, and I was being crushed.
The door at the front of the room groaned, and my head snapped up.
As if in slow motion, the entrance parted, and I swore the whole of Ambrisk could have turned to ash when my eyes met chocolate brown ones, those amber specks so bright even from here.
Tolek froze just inside the door, his stare drinking me in, and something that had withered inside me sprang to life—Echnid’s poison burned back another inch.
A smirk lifted one corner of Tolek’s lips. “There she is.”
I shook, my jaw quivering and knees buckling against the table, but I raced forward anyway.
Raced into the arms of the only man who could hold me together right now. Who always knew how to stitch up my wounds and my broken heart. Who made every day lighter just by breathing and flashing me those perfect smirks he wielded like a blade.
Who could see the scars I’d always had, and Angels willing, love the new ones I carried.
I collided with the scent of citrus and spice and that alone peeled back more of Echnid’s grasp on me. Like Tolek’s light solely seared away the mist. His arm banded around my back, expertly tucked beneath my wings, his other hand cradling my head to his neck as I trembled.
“Shh,” he soothed. “It’s okay,apeagna. It’s okay. I’m here.”
“Thank the fucking Spirits,” I blubbered, and I kissed him.
He groaned in approval, dipping me back so my wings brushed the ground and stroking his tongue against my own. Every sweep of his lips was another reminder, another pull back into myself, away from everything I’d gone through in the past weeks. Everything I’d done and become.
And something in my chest fully cracked open then, a tearing sensation behind my sternum, like it was finally okay to stop trying to hold it together because every one of his heartbeats wasbuilding this new cavern of safety for me to crawl into. For me to break within.
He wasit, grounding me in a way no one and nothing else could, and even as I shattered in his arms, I was more shielded than ever. I couldn’t get lost again.
I bit down on his bottom lip, needing to be even closer, wanting to fuse us together so we’d never be parted again. And if the way his hands grappled to pull me closer said anything, Tolek wanted that, too.
He broke the kiss, cupping my cheeks and searching my eyes. It was only then that I realized his hands were shaking, too.
I counted the amber specks in his irises while I waited. I didn’t know what he found, but he brushed his thumbs across my cheeks, catching the remnants of tears wrought of a god’s torture and a heart reborn, and something heated in his own stare.
“I think whatever you’re all doing here can wait?” Tolek said, not even bothering to look at the table or get an answer.
And though I was the one who bore Angellight, as he scooped me up and tossed me over a shoulder, he carried me out of the dark.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tolek
I stormedinto my room with Ophelia hauled over my shoulder and paused. The bed was mussed, the scent of lemon and jasmine heavy in the air.
“You slept in here?” I asked.
“For days. It’s my room, isn’t it?” She grabbed my waist, her wings curving around her to beat against my shoulders. Those fuckingwings. My memory didn’t do them justice. The gold woven through the downy soft feathers mesmerized me.
Ducking, I flipped Ophelia back over my shoulder and slid her down my body, planting her on her feet close enough that every breath she took pressed her into me.
“Actually, love,” I corrected, smirking, “it’s my room.”
She quirked a brow, and her eyes dropped to my lips, the air between us thinning. “This is where Cypherion put me,” she said on an exhale.
Fucking Spirits, the sound of her voice, already so breathy, went straight to my cock. I needed her so desperately, it was the only thing making my heart beat. To feel her breath against my lips, see the flutter of her pulse in her neck—she was alive and real and here, and the realm was more right for it.
I gripped her chin, tilting her head up, and whispered, “Right where I want you.”
