Page 114 of House of Ashes
A little sore, which was to be expected, given what I’d heard about how deflowering usually went. But I also felt relaxed and well rested and…well, I couldn’t actually remember the last time I’d woken up with all my muscles pleasantly loose, without the stickiness of night-terror sweat clinging to my skin, with nothing but a general sense of contentment.
It was strange and pleasant and unnerving and I very much wanted to experience it again.
The door cracked open while I stood in front of the mirror, wrapped in a towel and running a comb through my still-dripping hair.
“Good morning, gorgeous.” Rhylan came up behind me, slipping his arms around me and under my breasts, holding me against the stark heat of his chest. “Sleep well?”
Horribly enough, my first instinct was to shove him away with harsh words, to push him back to arm’s length and then some.
But I didn’t want to be that draga anymore. I didn’t want to be the callous, cold creature I’d been molded into by my mother.
So I decided to be honest. “Better than I’ve slept in years. We should…we should do it again sometime.”
Saying it out loud—expressing any desire to be naked, vulnerable, and completely open to Rhylan—was somehow more terrifying than the prospect of throwing myself off the side of an eyrie, but…I had chosen to turn this new leaf.
To be vulnerable to him in a way I would never have allowed before.
He studied my reflection, his brows furrowing, that tiny line appearing between them as he studied me.
I bit the inside of my cheek, wishing I hadn’t said it aloud as I watched his reflection. Maybe that had been too vulnerable. Too honest.
I didn’t know where the line was…had it just been a night of amusement for Rhylan? A way to pass the time, knowing that the mate bond would never form between us—because he already had a draga he wanted, so deeply, so intensely that he wasn’t remotely concerned about it.
It was just for fun. A way to while away the night in a strange place.
After a minute that felt like an eternity, the line smoothed out, and he grinned at me. “Ask me any time you want, Sera. I don’t care what we’re doing, I will drop everything for you.”
I rolled my eyes skyward, relieved that he was no longer examining me like he could read the inside of my skull. “Is that tacit permission? Because I promise you, I will find a way to choose the absolute worst moment.”
“Not tacit, beautiful, explicit. I don’t care if we’re on a diplomacy mission, if we’re flying, in the middle of a battlefield—I will make sure that the princess gets what the princess wants.”
I groaned, tossing my comb back into my bag and finding a leather tie for my hair. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
“In the middle of dinner? Who needs to eat? Planning an attack? That can wait. We could be in the middle of fighting a Primoris and I would call a break for—”
“Don’t joke about that!” I glared at him in the mirror. Mentioning the name of Ustrael’s children right now felt like a bad omen. “Not about…that.”
Rhylan raised his hands in a peace-making gesture, but he was still smiling. “Fine, I’ll leave that one alone. But at any other time, I am all yours. Just say the word.”
“Just get dressed already,” I grumbled, twisting my hair into coils and pinning them in place.
“So…you’re not going to say it now?”
I threw the bar of soap at him. “Rhylan!”
He caught it one-handed, laughing at me, but before I could escape the bathroom he caught me with the other arm and pulled me in, kissing me so intently I almost forgot what I was supposed to be doing.
He finally released me after several long, sunlit moments and left me in a rather pleasant daze.
When he emerged, wearing easily-discarded trousers and his hair dripping, I had dressed in my comfortable warm leathers, with gloves and a soft woven scarf—I no longer had a reason to make any special effort for Chantrelle, and there was no way I was enduring six hours of flight over thin-aired, frozen mountains in the split dress again.
I tied my boots, threw my bag of toiletries in the smaller saddlebag, and grabbed Rhylan’s discarded shirt off the foot of the bed.
While he was looking away, I tucked it in my bag. It smelled like him, cool spices and woodsmoke, and the odds were good that he wouldn’t notice a single missing shirt.
And it was just in time, too—Rhylan took my saddlebag as soon as I’d finished buckling it and slung it over his shoulder, leaving me empty-handed.
He casually dropped his hand in the small of my back as we walked down the corridor. At least last night had accomplished one thing: I was growing more used to his touch, no longer leaning on the gut instinct to jump away like a scalded cat.