Chapter 39
he room is even smaller than the one I slept in at the start of the Retterheld. A lot smaller. The single bed fills up three-quarters of theT space even though it’s pressed right up against the wall. The only other piece of furniture is a stool with lopsided legs, which is propped against the doorframe. I’m not even sure it would bear Kyor’s weight.
I push open the one internal door, hoping to find a bath I can sleep in, only to find nothing more than a toilet, a miniature sink, two towels, and a bar of soap. No shower or bath, but it’ll do for a wash and clean up, I tell myself stubbornly. This is fine. Fine. ‘We’ll get washed, and then we’ll sort out the sleeping arrangements,’ I tell him. Like scrubbing off the grime might be enough to make another bed appear. ‘After you,’ Kyor says, and I don’t object. I’m filthy. And not in a fun way.
Despite the lack of luxury, the water is warm, and I fill the sink as many times as it takes for the water to run clear. ‘All yours,’ I say to Kyor when I finally reappear, almost half an hour later. His eyes linger on my towel-covered body for a moment before he disappears into the bathroom without a word.
At least we’ll be warm and dry, I tell myself as I rummage through my belongings to find my cleanest clothes. Maybe I should see if we can get our laundry done while we’re here.
As I rifle through my bag, my mind wanders to Kay and William. I need to get a letter to them while I’m here. Not that I can say much, other than confirm I’m well, but I suspect that’s all they need to hear. I wish they could
get a message through to me too, though, to tell me how they’re doing. What I wouldn’t give to know they are safe.
A desperate yearning fills my body as I think of the last time I saw my siblings, and before I have time to draw breath, I feel the floor slip away from me.
FROM THE RINGED walls that sweep around the buildings there’s no doubt as to where I am. I’m back in Wrohelm, soaring through the air, the feel of the wind rushing through me as I dip into the High Hold and then the courtiers’ arc. Eagerly, I head towards my house, but as the glass roof of our oratory comes into view, I don’t swoop down the way I expect to. Instead, I keep going until I land on the window ledge of a house several streets away. The curtains are mostly drawn, yet there is a sliver of a gap between them.
Tentatively, I edge myself towards it and glance through the glass.
William. My brother’s new name rattles through my thoughts as I stare at him, there alone in his room. Is this Artur’s house, or is William still staying with friends? I don’t know the answer, only that he’s here, alone.
Unaware that I’m watching on, he moves towards the door, turning the lock and then turning the handle once to check that it doesn’t open. When he’s sure it’s secure, he makes his way to the middle of the room, stands in front of a mirror, and unbuttons his shirt.
No! The word cries out in my mind at the sight of my little brother there, in front of me, his entire torso displayed. The markings have spread, and far faster than I could ever have feared.
Tears prick my eyes at the sight of not only the white lacy pattern on his skin, but also the fear in his eyes. He did such a good job of convincing me that he was okay, that he had control of his situation, but I can see now that’s not true at all. He’s scared. Terrified, even. I only wish I could be there to hold him. To comfort him and tell him that I’m going to find a solution.
The markings aren’t confined to his stomach as he told me, but run all the way up his chest, stopping only a few inches below his collarbone. Not only that, but they also cover his entire back, and I suspect they travel down onto his thighs. I lean in, pressing myself against the glass. All it would take is someone slicing through his shirt in a spar and his secret would be exposed.
He would be killed.
I can’t let that happen. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the pain that is spreading through my chest. I can’t lose him again. I am going to find an answer to this. I have to.
‘ROSE?’ My eyes snap open, and I find Kyor standing there in front of me, just a towel wrapped around his middle. ‘Are you okay?’ It takes a moment to find myself. The scene I’m faced with is so different from what I saw a moment ago. Now my eyes are locked on the half-naked prince, the sight of thick water droplets trickling down his neck and torso enough to steal my breath. ‘Did something happen?’ he asks with concern.
With my head now back in the moment, and with the knowledge that I have returned again from one of my slippages, the truth teeters on my tongue.
He knows about the visions. It would hardly be a surprise to him if I told him I just had one, but then he’d spend all night worrying, and he needs to rest even more than I do.
Or worse, he’d ask what I saw, and I’d be forced to lie. He can’t know about William. He can’t. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ I tell him, forcing a smile to my lips. ‘I’m fine.’ His eyes narrow as if he doesn’t believe me, but a second later, he’s looking at the bed. ‘You take the room,’ he says, evidently assuming that’s the cause of my distress. ‘I’ll sleep outside.’ ‘Outside?’ ‘In the corridor. I’ll be close enough to hear if anything happens to you.
That’s what matters. You’ll be safe and secure here.’ He would do it, too. Despite his injuries, if I were to tell him I didn’t want him to share this tiny bed with me, he would sleep outside on the cold, hard floor. Or more likely, lie awake all night, the drums from below thrumming through the walls, more muffled up here but impossible to ignore.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh out a long breath. ‘Absolutely not.
You’re injured, so sleeping on the floor is total idiocy. Look, we slept in the same bed yesterday, and it was absolutely fine.’ ‘That thing didn’t count as a bed, and I was unconscious,’ Kyor points out
drily. ‘Right. But so long as you can keep your hands to yourself, it’ll be fine.’ My eyes move to his shoulder. The wound is visibly red, and I grimace at the angry look of the cut. It might not be bleeding, but it’s barely knit together.
Dammit. I should have taken him into Galreck’s court, got him seen by a proper healer.
It’s a suggestion I could still make, but him turning up like this would be worse than if we’d gone straight there. It would raise too many questions about why he avoided coming in the first place. ‘I have some paste that might help with the pain,’ I tell him. ‘It’s not that bad,’ he lies. ‘I’m fine.’ ‘You’re not,’ I reply calmly, as if we are discussing the weather. ‘Let me do this for you.’ Trying to pretend that this is nothing more than standard healing work and ignoring the hammering in my chest, I grab my satchel and pull out the small jar. With the paste on my clean fingers, I rub it lightly across his skin. I barely brush the wound, yet he sucks in a sharp breath. I pause only long enough to meet his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Breathe through it,’ I advise quietly. ‘Low and slow.’ The nod he offers is minuscule, but it’s there. He breathes in, then exhales slowly and controlled, and lets me continue.
I take another – more generous – swipe of the thick paste and begin to rub it in, pressing firmly enough that he hisses through his teeth. ‘Sorry,’ I mutter as I continue to rub the lotion into his skin. ‘I need to get it in deep.’ ‘Pretty sure that’s my line?’ He smirks.
I offer an eye roll in response, trying to act as if his words don’t have any effect. Or that I’m not enjoying the feel of his skin under the pads of my fingers, feeling his body in a way I never thought I’d get a chance to again.
Silence stretches between us, thick and heavy. ‘Better?’ I ask eventually.
He grunts and nods before glancing at my pile of dirty clothes. ‘The innkeeper will clean them for us,’ he says, echoing my earlier thoughts. ‘I’ll take these down for her to get started. I’ll also arrange for her to put together some travel supplies for us. Do you need anything else now? Food? Drink?’ ‘I wouldn’t say no to something else to eat,’ I admit. Fresh food will become a luxury again once we’re on the road.
‘Yes, I hear you. I’ll grab us something.’ He picks up a pair of clean trousers, ready to slip them on, and I find myself turning away. Whether it’s embarrassment or simply not wanting to be reminded of what I’m missing, I’m not sure.
He disappears and I grab a brush to start on the white-blonde tresses that should mark me as magic-less. I’ve no idea why Kay’s brunette hair and mine didn’t return with my magic. Truthfully, though, I’ve grown accustomed to the blonde, and if my locks turned brown again, I’d miss it.
Once a mark of shame, I now see it as a badge of strength.
I’m still brushing my hair when Kyor comes in, and he stops on the threshold. His jaw drops open at the sight of me. ‘Fuck, you’re beautiful.’ He whispers the words quietly enough that I can pretend I didn’t hear him.
And that’s exactly what I do, because things are already complicated enough.
He gives himself a shake, clacks his jaw closed, and enters. He’s carrying a tray laden with food: crackers, ham, cheese, and grapes. Also balanced on the tray are two glasses of wine. He sets the tray down on the rickety stool and then strips off his top and trousers and throws them out through the door. ‘What are you doing?’ I ask. ‘Landlady wanted to wash these, too. Tried to make me strip downstairs in the bar. This felt like a better option.’ His perfect body is littered with scars, but my eyes instinctively go back to his most recent addition – definitely no mottled green – and then on to a scar that has only just started to fade to silver – the wound I stitched up for him during the Retterheld. It was the first time my hands were on his bare skin.
I remember all too well the conflicted desire I felt. Back then, it warred with hate and my need for vengeance; now, it wars with heartbreak and broken trust. But the desire is still there.
It never left.
He looks at me and hesitates, a look of uncertainty flashing across his face. ‘Would you like me to do your hair?’ he says softly. ‘I can braid it if you
want.’ ‘You can?’ ‘Sure, I used to do my mother’s hair when I was little. And I may have
done a couple of horses’ tails in the past,’ he adds with a casualness that’s intended to make me laugh.
I offer a smile, but I don’t respond straight away.
It’s an intimate thing, letting someone do your hair for you, or at least it is for me. Maybe it’s the type of intimate offer I should say no to, but I can’t. ‘Sure. A braid would be good.’ He settles behind me on the narrow bed, close enough that I can feel the heat of him at my back. Slowly, carefully, he draws the brush through the curtain of blonde spilling over my shoulders, the bristles whispering softly as they glide from crown to ends. When he finds no snags, his touch lingers, and he begins to divide my hair with meticulous attention, fingers combing through silk and skin alike. As he moves his fingertips to a patch of skin behind my ear, he winces.
I spin around and face him. ‘I didn’t think. Your arm. You don’t have to do this.’ His eyes glimmer softly. ‘It’s fine. It distracts me from the pain. As long
as you don’t mind?’ A distraction.
A sad huff threatens to leave my lungs. That was the one promise we made to each other – never to use one another as a distraction from the pain in our lives. But it wasn’t this type of pain we were talking about. Not a near- death injury but the type of wound that, no matter how deep it cut, most
would never see the scars.
Which is why I nod my head. ‘As long as it doesn’t hurt too badly.’ ‘I’ll stop if it does,’ he replies, even though we both know he’s lying.
Each gentle pass sends a shiver through me. His fingertips skim my scalp – unhurried, reverent – and the intimacy of it leaves me boneless, melting into the quiet rhythm of his care.
I close my eyes and let myself sink into the sensation, into the rare luxury of being tended to rather than standing strong.
For what feels like the first time since becoming the gifted, I allow myself to simply feel. To belong in the moment. To be taken care of.
Broken bones heal stronger.
Caz’s voice appears in my mind, followed almost immediately by Llin’s.
Which bone do you reckon Rose’s thinking of now? I hear her laugh as if she’s here in the room, and I can’t help but feel a sad chuckle rise within me.
She would have made the moment crude. I’m sure of it. And I would have laughed because we’d both know it was true.
But I can’t think about that now. I can’t.
It’s a slow process and I can tell he’s taking his time, but I don’t know whether it’s due to the pain he’s refusing to feel, whether he’s rusty, or because he’s guarding the moment, stretching it out so we can touch innocently for a few more beats.
Either way, I regret it when his hands go still. ‘All done,’ he says, his voice husky. ‘Thank you,’ I respond, only to find mine is the same. I clear my throat and try to sound like that experience didn’t affect me at all. ‘How’s your arm feeling now?’ I ask him.
He rotates the shoulder before shrugging it up and down. ‘A little better.
Come on. We should eat.’ He leans forward and picks up a piece of cheese, and I can’t help but notice the way he uses his uninjured arm, his dominant hand resting lightly on his lap instead. Once again, I find my eyes lingering on his body, the urge to reach out and touch him almost unbearable.
My intention was to nurse the wine he brought up – to enjoy it given that I’ve no idea when I’m going to get another cup – but as I go to take another sip, I discover it’s nearly empty. I was gulping it back to try to ease my nerves, but I’m not sure it’s working. I place the cup back on the tray. ‘We can share a bed,’ I say. ‘It’ll be fine. We’re both adults.’ His eyes glint. ‘It’s because we’re both adults that there’s a problem.’ ‘We’ll be fine.’ ‘Speak for yourself,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be fine. We’ll be plastered together in this tiny bed.’ ‘How the heck did they have three people in it?’ I laugh nervously. ‘Surely it couldn’t bear all of their weight.’ ‘Ryne has the power to increase the strength of any object. It’s a useful skill on the battlefield. And, apparently, in the bedroom.’ Kyor has finished his food, so he too picks up the wine and downs the glass in one go. ‘Really?’ I laugh. ‘You didn’t even try to savour it.’ I know mine went down far too quickly, but that wasn’t deliberate. It was nerves. Entirely different. ‘If I’ve got to savour something, I’d much rather it was you,’ he throws
back, only to wince. He rakes a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry. No flirting
right now.’ ‘Right.’ ‘Right.’ He clears his throat. ‘That wine isn’t good enough to savour, but
it’ll help keep us warm.’ ‘The room’s warm enough.’ He slides me a glance. ‘Compared to the slums, yes. Compared to the High Hold? No.’ I breathe out heavily. ‘I can’t see my breath. Ergo, warm.’ He shakes his head. ‘Whatever happens between us, I will see you spoiled for the rest of your life. I will feed you, keep you warm and safe. I never, ever want to see you go without again.’ The depth of feeling in his words shakes me. I don’t need Caz’s power to know he means them. Utterly.
I can’t respond. My head throbs with the impossibility of it all. It doesn’t matter how much he wants to keep me safe, he can’t. I’m the only one who can do that. Who can keep me, Kay and William safe. Besides, it’s all very well saying this in the privacy of this tiny room, but when push comes to shove, if he’s forced to choose between his father and me again, we both know which way it will go. ‘We should sleep,’ I say. I shift in the tiny bed. ‘You should lie flat because of your injury. I’ll … I’ll curl around you. Lie down on the right side of the bed, against the wall,’ I instruct, ‘and then I’ll lie on your left shoulder.’ Kyor sets the empty wineglass down, blows out the candle, and we’re plunged into darkness. It’s only when the bed dips under his weight that I know he’s joined me on the mattress.
When he stops shuffling, I assume he’s lying flat as directed, so I take my place on my side in the scant remaining space and rest my head on his uninjured shoulder. ‘This is fine,’ I say, not sure who I am reassuring.
I can smell him now. The sweet vanilla scent that is purely Kyor, mingled with the aroma of fresh, clean soap. It seems a crying shame for his skin to be so clean and me unable to touch it. Taste it. Taste him. Gods, how I want to taste him. ‘What are you thinking about?’ Kyor asks. ‘Your breathing is heavier.’ ‘Tasting you,’ I answer before my brain connects to my mouth.
There’s a pause. A dangerous one.
Kyor exhales slowly, the sound rough, as if he’s dragging it up from somewhere deep in his chest. ‘Thorn,’ he murmurs. That intimate nickname on his tongue has always been my undoing. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that to me.’ ‘Why?’ I whisper, my lips brushing the warm skin of his shoulder as I speak. It’s an accident. Mostly. Because the moment my mouth touches him, even just there, everything shifts.
His body goes rigid beneath me. Then after a beat his uninjured arm lifts before settling around me, encircling my back, his hand resting at my waist.
It’s a featherlight touch, as if he’s holding himself back with patience that’s fraying by the second. ‘Because I don’t trust myself,’ he admits.
I tilt my head, my cheek sliding against his chest, my nose skimming the smooth plane of his skin. I can feel his heart now, hammering beneath my ear. ‘You trusted yourself with me yesterday.’ ‘I was half-dead yesterday,’ he says, breath hitching when my knee slides between his legs. ‘That was safer.’ I shouldn’t move closer. I know I shouldn’t.
But I do it anyway.
My fingers trace the line of his ribs, tentatively at first, then bolder when he doesn’t stop me. His hand tightens at my waist, thumb pressing into bare skin, sending a shiver straight through me. The bed is too small. There’s nowhere for the heat between us to go, nowhere for the want to bleed off. ‘Rose,’ he warns again, but his voice is low now, threaded with strain.
I lift my head enough to look at him in the darkness. I can’t see much, but I don’t need to. I know the shape of him. The tension in his jaw. The way his breath stutters when I lean in and brush my lips against his throat.
It’s just a kiss. Just a little kiss.
Then another.
His hand slides up my back, slow, reverent, like he’s relearning me, his touch careful and aching all at once. But when his mouth finds mine, there’s nothing restrained about the kiss, nothing gentle. This one is hungry.
Desperate. All the things we haven’t said crashing together between us.
I melt into it, my fingers fisting in his hair, my body fitting against his as if it were made to be there. Usually he’s all dominance and fire, and I’m all too happy to be burned, but this time I’m in charge.
There’s nothing subtle or coy about my movements as I rock against him, pressing the inside of my legs against his bare skin, careful of his injured side. I lean my weight to the other side of him, but every nerve ending is lighting up, my skin buzzing, my pulse racing.
His hand moves, slips lower, heat following in its wake, and I gasp into his mouth as he rubs against the damp fabric of my underwear, his fingers already knowing the strokes that will lead to my unravelling. A second groan escapes me, and the sound seems to snap something in him. He moans into my mouth, his grip tightening, his forehead pressing against mine as if he’s trying to ground himself. ‘Gods,’ he breathes. ‘Rose, I am yours. You know that, right? I will always be yours.’ I do. Gods I wish it weren’t true, but I do.
With his strongest action so far, he pulls me closer. The bed lurches, and a light gasp flies from me, but it’s not at the motion. It’s at the feel of his hard cock pressing against me. So fucking hard, just the thought of it is enough to make me drip.
Concern for his shoulder is my only reticence as my hand reaches down to the fabric of his underwear, lingering on the surface for barely a moment before dipping under and sliding against the warmth of his skin. The head of his cock is already dripping precum and a new throbbing pulses in me.
Trying to steady myself, I move my hand down, wrapping my fingers around his girth and squeezing just hard enough to watch his lips part in anticipation.
Then, slowly, I pull up and then push down the length of him, revelling in every perfect inch. ‘Gods, Thorn,’ he gasps as his hips roll into the rhythm of my wrist, his pace increasing, seemingly involuntarily. ‘Oh Gods, you have no idea what you do to me.’ I do. I can see it in the tautness of his muscles. Feel it in the scatter of static that skitters uncontrollably across my skin. But it’s not enough. I want more.
I don’t allow myself to think about what I’m doing as I shift further down the bed, only stopping when my mouth is level with his cock. For a second, I hesitate at its size. It’s not just its girth. It’s the length, too. There’s no way I can take it all, but before the doubt fully forms, I shrug the concern aside.
Right now, this is what I want. ‘You don’t have to do that,’ Kyor murmurs as his hand claws into my
hair. ‘I know,’ I tell him a moment before my lips part and I take him in my mouth.
Static sprays across the inside of my thighs as my head starts a slow rhythm. Gods, every taste of him, from his lips to his skin, makes my body crave him even more, and this is no different. Aware of the wetness pooling between my legs, I take as much as I can before lifting my head back up and
going again. ‘Fuck me, Thorn.’ ‘We’ll get there,’ I murmur as I take a breath before continuing to take him deeper and deeper.
I can feel the restraint coursing through him. He nearly died, and yet he still won’t let himself have the luxury of a release. That’s not something I’m okay with, and so I quicken my pace.
An involuntary moan rips from his throat, and I take him deeper still, more than ever before, and when he groans again, I know his control is starting to fray. With each of my movements, his own thrusts deepen, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, until his cock is sliding in and out of my mouth with a freeness I can’t remember seeing him exhibit before. A spark, bigger than ever, jumps between my thighs as he suddenly pulls back and releases his grip on my hair. ‘Stop, Thorn. I won’t last long with you doing that,’ he groans, drawing me back up his body. ‘Please, let me feel you first. Let me feel how wet I make you.’ Rather than protesting, I shift up, tracing a line of kisses up his torso before I lie on my back, my body exposed and ready for his taking. Without another word, Kyor’s hand slides down my belly and under the waistband of my underwear, his fingertips grazing over my clit, eliciting my deepest moan
so far. ‘Gods, you are dripping,’ he groans.
Tantalisingly slowly, he strokes around the edge of my opening before pulling my lips apart and plunging two fingers into me. ‘Fuck!’ My back arches, pushing my hips up and forcing his fingers deeper into me.
Rather than backing off, he curls his fingers upward so they press against my inner wall. An involuntary spasm rockets through me. ‘It’s my turn now, Thorn.’ His voice is a growl. ‘And I want to feel every part of you.’ His wrist
moves in a perfect medley of stroking and pulsing. ‘Come for me, Rose. Let me feel you come.’ No intelligible sounds leave my lips as I try to stifle my moans, and he removes his two fingers, only to replace them – with an added third – a moment later, stretching me even further. ‘Fuck …’ It’s the only word I can manage as he continues to work that spot that’s going to make me soak him even more. If he keeps going like this, he’s definitely going to make me come, and soon. But that’s not what I want.
We haven’t gone through everything we’ve been through for me to let him unravel me in this way. And it’s not like he was okay with letting me control him either. Which means there’s only one option.
Wordlessly, I pull my hips away from his hand, savouring the last few moments of friction against his fingertips. Then, when he’s fully out, I sit up
and straddle him.
‘Your shoulder okay?’ I ask. ‘Trust me, I feel perfect.’ With my eyes locked on his, I lower my entrance so that it’s pressed at the top of his cock. Just the feel of it there is enough to have us both groaning. ‘You really want to tease me, Thorn?’ he questions as I pulse ever so slightly. ‘This isn’t teasing. It’s called savouring the moment.’ ‘Really? Because it feels like teasing.’ Not able to wait any longer, I push down. If I thought his fingers had stretched me before, it’s nothing compared to the manner in which he fills me now. Every muscle in my body is taut as I lower myself, inching him slowly inwards, each movement causing inaudible gasps to stifle in my lungs. ‘You feel so fucking tight, Thorn,’ he groans, his own chest shuddering with pleasure. ‘You feel so fucking perfect.’ I want to respond, but I can’t. I can’t speak. Not when I’m struggling to even breathe. He’s deeper in me than I even knew was possible, and I know there’s still more length to go. Fighting the ecstasy that threatens to overwhelm me, I push my hips forward and plunge down. Simultaneous cries erupt from us as his nails bite into my skin.
From downstairs comes the beating of the drums. A constant rhythm getting faster and faster, as if it is a personal accompaniment to our pleasure, pushing us towards the moment of climax.
‘Kiss me,’ Kyor says, pulling me down into him as his cock fills me. ‘I need you to kiss me.’ There’s urgency in his voice, as if it really is a need, and I waste no time obliging.
It’s a kiss of pure desperation. Of every ounce of restraint dissolving into nothing.
He fists a handful of my hair while running his other hand down my back and pulling me closer, as if he can’t bear to have even a millimetre of space between us. As if we need to be one. The rhythm of my hips rolls faster and faster as his thickness grinds into me. ‘You need to slow down.’ Kyor mutters the words between gasps as he grasps my backside. ‘Or you’re going to break this bed.’ ‘I’m rich now,’ I groan, refusing to change a single thing about this moment. ‘I can buy a new bed.’ His laugh sends him so far into me that it frays my last thread of restraint.
Not to mention his. Heat pools, and my muscles tense then release in the most glorious display of ecstasy. My head tips back at the same moment as I feel him finally release himself fully into me.
Panting, I drop my head down onto his chest, beads of sweat weaving down my neck. ‘I love you, Rose,’ he whispers against my ear.
And then, because I know it’s the truth whether I want it to be or not, I whisper back, ‘I love you too.’
