“Oh, Seliah,” he replied on a soft laugh, touching her face with his fingers and picking away the tendrils of her hair plastered to her cheeks and temples. Even in the dark, she felt beautiful, with her delicate, tensile strength and skin soft as moonbeams. “First of all, we’re getting out of this. I have no desire to be a corpse in the walls haunting the house of my birth. Second, my returning here has always been inevitable. What was special, dramatically unusual, and sacred to me is that I got out at all. Being in House Phel, knowing you, even tromping around with you in that fucking forest and fighting off hunters and spirits with you have been the best days of my life.”
“Then you’ve had a pretty shitty life,” she sniffled.
“You have no idea,” he replied, gratified to hear her laugh. Sliding a hand behind her neck, he kissed away more tears, tasting their salt and the sweetness of her skin. Her magic shimmered over his lips, seductive, addictive. Seeking more, he brushed his lips over hers, even softer, parting to offer him her heat. Though he knew he shouldn’t be doing this, had firmly resolved not to again, he held her head cupped in his hand and feasted on the kiss. If he was going back on his decision, he could at least give her everything he’d failed to offer her before.
So, he made it infinitely gentle, sweetly caressing, sensually evocative. Loving, even. At least, to as much as his shriveled heart allowed.
She moaned and softened against him, her long body curving into his in yielding supplication. Unable to help himself, he wedged his thigh between hers, brutally aware of the wet heat of her mound grinding against him. She fed on the kiss eagerly, moving with ardent undulations that undid him. Much more, and he’d climax in his pants like an adolescent. Well, if they did die, they’d be happy corpses in the walls. Maybe the house needed a change of pace for her collection.
With a chuckle of shifting wood, the house relented, finally appeased. The walls receded, giving them space—though he and Seliah clung to each other as tightly as before—and fresh air blew down from ahead of them. Light filtered into the passage from somewhere. Could it be they’d reached the outside and it was dawn already?
“Seliah,” he said into her increasingly passionate kisses, trying to back out, but she followed him eagerly, seemingly unaware that she could only be running her hands over him with such abandon because the space had expanded enough to allow that freedom. “It worked. We’re free. And much as I’d love to continue this, we have to escape. We must go now.”
His words finally penetrated and she pulled back, gazing at him in wide-eyed wonder, her lush black lashes spiky from her tears. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes. We have to get out of this house as soon as possible. We’ll be discovered soon.”
“Not that. Do you mean you’d love to continue this?”
Ouch. There was a tight corner he’d backed himself into. “Yes.” That’s not totally a lie, he thought fiercely at the house, just in case she tried to punish him again. He would love to continue this. He just wasn’t going to.
Seliah narrowed her eyes in suspicion, long, willowy limbs wrapping around him with their deceptive strength. “Promise.”
“I promise,” he said, thinking fast, “that as soon as you’re safe, I’ll take you to bed and fuck you senseless.”
The crudity didn’t make her miss a beat. She smiled with radiant happiness. “Good. I’ll hold you to that.”
He didn’t feel all that guilty for the deception. And apparently the house bought it, too. It was in Seliah’s best interests, after all, to save her from him and what he’d inevitably do to her. By the time she realized that her being safe meant him being far, far away from her, it would be too late. She didn’t really want him in her bed anyway—that desire was born of the bonding and would fade with his absence. In some ways, he was being noble here, sacrificing himself for her happiness.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Apparently his snide inner voice wasn’t in complete accord, but Jadren didn’t care.
Seliah was on the move again, crawling eagerly toward the growing light, quickly outpacing him. The walls and ceiling hadn’t expanded enough for them to stand more than half-bent over, so crawling was still more efficient. Whatever had been rolling around in his lung had now wedged painfully between two ribs, so he labored to keep up with Seliah, back to her usual agile vigor now that she scented freedom, and the outdoors. Unfortunately, hanging back and having to watch where he was going put her adorable behind squarely in his line of vision. The gown obviously wasn’t meant for crawling, either, the long slits in the skirt giving him tantalizing flashes of the backs of her lean thighs.
Who knew the backs of a woman’s thighs could be sexy? They shouldn’t be, particularly under these conditions, but he couldn’t help catching glimpses of golden skin and firm muscle, his gaze obsessively following them to where they disappeared under the black silk clinging to her compact rear, his fevered brain supplying an image of the enticing crevice there, the satiny, heated folds he’d touched but hadn’t seen. He ached for her, wanting in a way he’d never before wanted, his magic reaching for her.
You’ve had as much as you’re going to, he told himself firmly. You’ve done enough damage.
This time, no inner voice responded.
“Jadren?” Seliah whispered loudly, half-turned around to see him—which gave him a full view of her naked breasts hanging ripely inside the gaping bodice of the gown. Groaning, he closed his eyes. “You’re still not well,” Seliah said worriedly. “Let me help you.”
“You can help by moving your tiny ass,” he bit out, hoping to be sufficiently scathing, an effect completely undermined by his strained breath. Yeah, and it had zero effect, Seliah seeming completely unbothered. In fact, she looked more worried than ever.
“You’re too wounded to do a good job of being mean,” she said, confirming it. “How can we get out of here if you can’t even move?”
“Do we have a choice?” He pointed. “Go. Go on now. Get!”
“Still not a puppet.” She crawled back to him, breasts swaying like mesmerizing pendulums. “Yes, we have a choice. Take my magic, wizard.” Kneeling up, she clamped her hands on his shoulders on the bare skin inside his shirt. Her touch seared him and he reached for her wrists to tear her away. “Don’t,” she told him sharply. “You’re my best chance of getting out of here, Jadren. Please. I need you.”
Her amber eyes gleamed with her concern, black curls waving wildly around her fine-boned face as her lovely lips shaped the words. I need you. If only she meant it for real. Some broken, lonely part of him longed for it to be so. The desiccated, jaded rest of him knew better.
Still, he closed his eyes and inhaled her magic through his skin, the moon-bright pure flood of it pouring into the aching black hole that was his body attempting to heal at blazing rates of speed. The thing lodged in his ribs broke free, making him gasp as it fractured the nearby ribs on its way out and then tore through his flesh. It fell, hot and sticky with blood, inside his shirt.
While he shuddered, letting his body heal in the wake of that brutal eviction, Seliah fished out the thing, firmly gripping his shoulder still with her other hand. Digging out the brass device, she turned it in the light from the end of the tunnel, examining it. Perhaps she’d done that with all the pieces his body had extruded while he was unconscious, before she tossed them into her makeshift midden pile in the corner of the cell.
“Keep that one,” he told her, having a pretty good idea of what it was, the way it scintillated with his mother’s magic.
Her gaze met his. “Why?”
