“I’m scared,” she blurted out. “The Nexus is right there, it’s not some distant theoretical destination.”
“I know,” he said, pulling her into an embrace. He smelled of soap.
“We could have died so many times on the way here,” she babbled, “and now I might still die up there in that temple, and I’m going to… to walk in there and let it happen.”
Felix moved his hands to her shoulders and lowered his face so it was level with hers. “You are not going to die. I won’t let you.”
Isolde stared at him, wishing she believed it. Then she gave a tiny nod. “You’ll stay? You’ll come with me?”
He snorted with indignation. “I’d like to see anyone try to stop me.”
She sighed and slumped against him. Felix slid his hands over her back, knuckling her shoulder blades and the base of her neck. Her eyes fluttered closed. Maybe she could just stay here with him and forget about everything else. At least for a while.
“You know,” he murmured in her ear, apparently reading her mind, “there is a bed right there, and you can do with some distraction. It’s still a long time until morning.”
Her face broke into a smile. “Am I to assume you are offering to provide this distraction? How very selfless.”
He smirked and slowly backed her up towards the bed. “I am nothing if not entirely selfless.”
Isolde drew him onto the blankets, and they ended up in a tangle of limbs, pulling off pieces of clothing haphazardly. Felix’s lips met hers with a frantic intensity, a desperation that told her he was afraid every kiss might be the last.
She refused to think about it. They were here, they were together, and this night at least belonged to them alone, a dizzying torrent of kisses and touches, of whispers and sighs. She wished she could capture the look on his face when she straddled him in her memory forever, trailing her fingers over his chest in a caress, as she lowered herself down onto him as agonisingly slowly as she could. His hands roamed over her skin, mapping out the pattern of blue lines that spread outward from her heart, cupping her breasts, splaying across her hips. Then sliding down, touching her where they were joined. She dug her nails into his arms as the combined sensations gripped her and sent her spiralling. Her back arched as he coaxed her into oblivion, where there was nothing but his touch and the feel of him inside her.
Isolde slumped on his chest, boneless and panting, until he rolled her over. He sank back into her with a groan, and she wrapped her legs around him. His kisses were messy; his movements nearly erratic. One hand tangled in her hair and he drew her head sideways, exposing her neck. With the next thrust his teeth grazed her skin, and the mixture of pleasure and pain had her gasping his name. That erased the last remnant of control from him, and then there were almost too many things to feel at once.
Power coiled out of her, wrapping around them both. She lost herself in him, lost her sense of time, of place, of where she ended and he began. Her name became a plea on his lips, a prayer, and she clawed at his back and kissed him as he came undone.
Felix collapsed on top of her, his face buried in the crook of her neck, his limbs pleasantly heavy where they draped across her body. She leaned her cheek against his head, tracing lazy patterns on his back. It was almost surreal, how earlier she had been so convinced of her own impending death, but now she felt safe in his arms. Despite everything, despite the insistent humming in her mind that called her to her doom. How certain she was that he cared about her, truly cared. Even if he couldn’t say it. But she could.
“I love you, Felix.”
His body went rigid, frozen in stillness for a second or an eternity. Then he slowly raised himself up on his arms to look her in the eye. His expression was a mixture of fear and awe, his eyes deep and dark and searching.
“You don’t have to say it back,” she whispered. “I understand if you don’t want to… or you can’t. But I wanted you to know, because tomorrow –”
“Isa, stop.” He kissed her, fierce and hard. “I have loved you, dreamed of you, been obsessed with you ever since that night you told me about constellations and asked me why I didn’t kill you.” His voice shook. She wasn’t sure if her heart could take it, it felt like it was about to take flight. “You and your blushing, your endless lectures, your stunning eyes. You have no idea what you have done to me.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but he silenced her with a finger to her lips and a sly grin.
“You are smart, and funny, and stubborn as hell,” he continued, ignoring her glaring. “You’re the bravest person I have ever met. The moment I got on that boat with you, I knew you were special, so I tried to stay away from you at first.”
“No, you di –”
“Shush. I did; I tried. Not very hard, I’ll admit. Like I said, you’re very stubborn and, as it turns out, completely impossible to resist. You relentlessly battered at the nice, firm walls I built up around myself, demanding to be let in. So…” He swallowed and took a deep breath. “You’re in now. I’m yours.”
She pushed his hand away in earnest and dragged his face down to hers in a frenzied kiss. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but for the first time in recent memory, they were not tears of sadness.
***
Isolde woke up in the dead of night, the sky outside pitch dark. They still had time. Felix was asleep next to her, warm and quiet as he only was in sleep. In the near darkness, she allowed herself the brief luxury of simply looking at him, tracing the lines of his face, trying to commit every detail and angle to memory. Thenshe closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his neck as her hand moved along a determined path down his abdomen. He stirred, sleepily mumbled something about an insatiable magical goddess, before losing himself in worshipping her.
Later still, she lay curled against him, her head resting on his shoulder.
“We can still make a run for it, you know,” Felix murmured into her hair. “Steal some horses and supplies and go… It’ll be easy enough.”
Isolde laughed. “You’re never going to stop suggesting that, are you?”
“Never.”
