Page 74 of Heart of Night
The part-Flame blows out a breath. “I wish I had friends like you, Clio. I’d never again feel like I’m worthless.”
That takes Clio off guard, and her anger cracks, turning into something different—not pity but a warmth I haven’t seen in her before. “Don’t betray us, and you might.”
Kaira smiles, and so does Clio. Nausea hits, and I vomit on the floor right between them.
So, I’m a Crow… Not that it matters. Nothing does as long as we get back our magic and retrieve the males before anyone can notice we’re gone. Rather than bemoaning what seems to be a fact, I grab the canteen Kaira placed beside me and rinse my mouth before gulping down a few swallows.
By the time the first droplets of rain fall from the dense clouds covering the sky outside, I’ve curled up by the side of the stack of crates near the center of the room and closed my eyes. I don’t wake until Clio’s and Kaira’s whispers drift into my consciousness.
“Where do you think you got your mind reading from? Mother or father?” Clio asks. Something rustles as if the female is sitting next to Kaira by the window.
“Since my mother wasn’t magical, it has to be my father. He never said anything though.”
“Sometimes it jumps generations.” Clio’s tone is wistful even when she’s lowered her voice to nearly inaudible.
“Do you read minds?” It’s bold of Kaira to ask, but by now, I’m used to her being straightforward and unafraid.
Clio’s quiet laugh fills the room like a memory of better days. “No. But I know someone who does. It’s an annoying power,” she amends. “If I ever see him again, I’ll ask him to help you learn to control it.”
The pounding in my head, combined with exhaustion, drags me back to sleep before Kaira’s whispered response fills the room, and I welcome the darkness. It’s a place where worry and pain don’t torment me. A place where I can summon images of a Myron without bruises and cuts covering his skin. A place where no magic is holding me back when I touch him. A place where Erina doesn’t exist, or tomorrow. Just us.
His scent fills my nose, earth and moss and brine weaving together in a texture I want to use as a blanket as I nestle deeper into my dream where his form becomes near tangible. My shoulder tingles as I murmur his name, the sensation like a summoning, but I’m too exhausted to follow, so I hold onto it, relishing the sense of connection where pain and silence dominated for so long.
I’ll get him out. A few hours of rest and I’ll be ready to get him out.
Reality rushes back to me much faster than I’d hoped when a pair of hands pins me to the ground so hard the breath is stolen from my lungs. My eyes fly open, and I find myself staring at endless, fathomless wrath.
Thirty-Six
Ayna
A tapestry of rain and wind tunes out the whispers in the corner before it’s swallowed by the ravaging pace of my drumming heart.
“Ayna—” His voice is breathless, his eyes wild, his lips pulled back in a snarl.
And my heart. Fucking. Shatters. As I realize I’m not about to die at the hand of the male hovering over me. At the look in his eyes as he assesses my face as if he can’t believe I’m here, whole.
“Ayna,” he repeats, softer this time. A whisper. A plea.
“Myr—”
His lips crash down on mine in a brutal kiss before I can finish his name, and the world around us vanishes—simply ceases to exist. Energy rushes from the place our mouths touch, thundering through my veins, my bones, until all I can feel is the warmth and the darkness coiling within me—his warmth, his darkness. Or my own. It’s hard to tell when I no longer know what we are, where we are, who we are. All I know is that he’s here and I can feel his breath on my skin and his heartbeat against mine. For a moment, there is no past and no future. There isn’t even a present. It’s him and me, and we’re eternal, starting at the point where his fingers graze the bare skin at my collar and where his mouth tastes mine.
It’s everything and nothing like I remember him because it’s not just his touch that sets me ablaze; it’s the sensation of him settling in my tissues. One single touch—one kiss—and I’ll never be the same. I thought I was ruined before—from trauma and loss and pain—but it’s this moment—this earth-shattering kiss that is my undoing.
I have the vague idea that there was someone else in this room with us, that we’re not in my dream, but that’s about as far as my mind gets when I’m about to drown in the sensation of his kiss, of his mouth molding over mine, his tongue flicking against my lower lip as his hand releases one shoulder to fist my hair.
Opening for him, I savor the slide of his tongue against mine, the heat of his body where he half-covers me on the floor.
“Ayna,” he murmurs between kisses as they turn softer as if he’s starting to believe I’m real, that he is truly kissing me while I’m still unsure if I’ve ever left my dream. “Ayna … Ayna.”
“Fucking pull yourselves together,” Herinor’s harsh voice sounds from nearby, kicking me out of the blissful moment of surprise and instant, desperate want for the male whose mouth won’t leave mine. “I’d like to keep my dinner down, thank you very much.”
Myron ignores him, ignores Kaira and Clio, who are shadows at the edges of my vision. In my shoulder, a zinging sensation replaces the tingling, almost like it’s aching for skin contact.
It’s that thought that brings me back to reality, making me pull away an inch while groaning my frustration as cool night air replaces the heat of his breath on my face.
“You’re alive.” I take in his face, bringing my hand up to cup his cheek where a bruise was blooming the last time I saw him.