Page 52 of The Last Hunt

Maeve reaches forward and pushes his hair back over his head, her fingers tangling in it. “I came for you because you’re - because you make me feel -” she clenches her teeth together. “Why is this so hard?”

“I just want to be as far from you as possible,” Aethon says. His voice gets caught in his throat as Maeve slides a hand down his cheek. “In another galaxy.”

“Probably a good idea,” she murmurs. Her face tightens and she shakes her head, looking down at their entwined hands. When she looks back up, Aethon feels like his heart is going to beat out of his chest. “Because when I’m with you,” she whispers. “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

You make me feel like I’m going to die," he replies.

Chapter 15

Artrenn

Maeve

Aethon’s whisky gold eyes pin Maeve in place. She feels like every inch of her skin is aglow when he looks at her like that - with such sincerity and intent. He bares her with that gaze - body and soul - and sees to her very core. She wants him. That grasping feeling rises again in her, and Maeve realizes it’s more than want. It’s more than desire. It’s more than lust. Something in her had cracked open when Aethon had burst through that door on Valley Starbase. Her carefully constructed walls had crumbled under the weight of his presence. She lets the feeling permeate her body, warming her from the inside out. She’s afraid that if she examines it too closely it will evaporate like ether, so she just lets it be.

Maeve leans forward and grabs his jaw, careful of the bandage on his neck, but letting him feel the scrape of her nails. She slants her mouth over his and kisses him. He tastes like coffee, and his lips are hard against hers, demanding in a way she relishes. She hopes he understands that she can’t always verbalize how she feels - but she tries to say it all with the way she kisses him, deep and fierce. Aethon groans and wraps a hand around her neck, his fingers strong, his thumb sliding up the column of her throat. When they break apart, she presses her forehead to his.

“Mai’atha gen a nystra dotoir - ma’chriss artrenn a la croi.” The Tellamari words flow out from deep inside a long dormant part of her heart. Maeve hadn’t known that those ancient words still held space in her mind. They spill like water over her tongue, easy and pure. An invocation of desire. A claiming of the truth that she isn’t quite ready to speak aloud in any other way.

“Tell me what that means, chrissah,” Aethon breathes.

The Tellamari term fits now. What had she done to earn this man’s adoration? Maeve has no idea. The intensity of him - of this glowing ember between them - still scares her. The idea of losing him scares her. But the events of the last few hours have proven to her that she can’t ignore this. She can’t avoid it, or run from it, or deny it. So she only has one option left.

“It means - fuck me, artrenn.”

Aethon grins - that huge, charming one that makes her feel a little weak. “It would be my absolute pleasure to fuck you until you’re a quivering mess,” he replies, arching one brow. Maeve’s stomach drops.

He pulls her braid in front of her and tugs the tie out of the end, carefully undoing the painfully tight rope. “I’ll tell you right now, Bladesy - I’ll do pretty much anything you want. You want a cabin built in the middle of the desert on an uninhabited planet? I know a lumber guy. You want strawberries? I’ll find a fruit smuggler. You want me to start a religion that worships you as a goddess? Already on it.” He digs his hands into her hair, pulling out the rest of her braid. “God - you’re so fucking beautiful.”

Maeve catches his hands, stilling him. She can tell he’s practically vibrating out of his skin with emotion. He lifts their hands and presses a kiss to her inner wrist. He’s so good at expressing how he feels. At telling her all the ways he cares for her. She wants to tell him how much he means to her - but she can’t quite find the words. “Do you know what artrenn means?” she asks. This at least, she can explain.

“Tell me,” he murmurs.

Maeve turns and pushes Aethon back against the pillows. She rises and settles her knees on either side of him. His hands dig into her hips, his fingers rough in a way that makes her wet.

“On Tellamar, the desert was a dangerous place to be at night,” she says. She presses her hands to his face and smooths her thumbs over his cheekbones. His eyes seem to glow with heat and he wraps his arms around her waist. “There were wild animals, and traps laid by the gangs - leftover dangers from the wars that never ended. But people still needed to cross the desert at night. Either to get from town to town, or to escape the violence. There were guides who laid out trails of bioluminescent rocks along paths they’d determined were safe. The guides were called the artrenn.”

Aethon’s arms tighten around her and Maeve leans down, her curtain of hair falling around his face, wrapping them in silky darkness for a moment. Her chest feels tight with emotion. She kisses him softly, tenderly. Kissing Aethon feels so right, and Maeve wishes she’d been doing it for longer. It makes her cheeks flush and her chest spark.

“I’ll do everything in my power to live up to that name,” he says. His hands slide up her sides, caressing the outer curves of her breasts and making her shudder.

“You already have,” she replies.

She settles down onto his lap and pulls her shirt off. Aethon tugs her down with a hand around the nape of her neck and kisses her. His other hand slides up her back and with a deft flick of his fingers, her bra is undone. He flings it aside and tugs Maeve closer, ducking his head down to take the peak of one of her nipples into his eager mouth. It hardens for him, turning into a point of sensitivity.

“God - Aethon -” she purrs. She leans closer to him, her neck arching back. Little thrills of pleasure ride down her body as his teeth graze against tender flesh. He kisses up between her breasts, his hands tight on her ass. His mouth is hot on her collarbone, his tongue tracing a line of fire across her chest.

Aethon pushes Maeve back slightly so that he can pull his shirt off and toss it aside. She leans down, eager to get her hands and mouth on the broad expanse of his chest and shoulders. He’s covered in combat scars, the most notable being three puckered circles in a line down his right side. She traces her fingers over them.

“From a trident,” Aethon says. “Got it on Santathion chasing a pirate.”

“Mmm.” She tucks that story away in the back of her mind to ask him about later. Aethon on a ship at sea under a blazing sun? Sounds positively delicious.

Maeve kisses down his chest, her hands admiring the planes of his muscles she never got to properly appreciate all those years ago. His pecs are particularly biteable, and Maeve indulges in a few nips that draw small chuckles from Aethon.

She traces the tattoos that run down his sides with light fingertips.

“What do these mean?” she asks. She’d wondered for years.