“And down here.” His hands continued to travel down my leg, and his body moved to crouch on the ground. His hand stopped at my kneecap. “You have a small scar, just above this bone.”
“How do you remember all that?” I whispered as he moved back up to stand behind me. I was fully dressed – there was no way he’d be seeing all this. If it was from memory, then he must have really studied my body the night we’d spent together in Hellswan…
“How could I not?”
I bit my lip, feeling his body move closer to mine. I leaned back against him, my fear and awkwardness slowly seeping away to be replaced with the need to be as close to Tejus as possible.
His hands moved down to the hem of my top.
“Shall we see if I was right?”
I smiled, lifting my arms upward. He removed the shirt, letting it drop to the floor. He ran slow kisses along my neck, unhooking my bra. Instead of lowering my arms, I reached backward and upward, wrapping my hands around his neck, feeling the dampness of his hair between my fingers.
His hands ran down the sides of my body, and I exhaled sharply at the tremors that shook me in response to his touch. He stepped back, removing my pants while I balanced myself by placing my hands on his shoulders.
“It worked.” I smiled.
“Then will you come to bed with me?”
I nodded.
He stood, and then lifted me up into his arms in one swift movement, carrying me over to the bed. He didn’t let go of me until we were both beneath the covers, our legs entwined.
The moonlight shone through the bars of the window, creating ever-shifting lines across our bodies. Our lips met, our kisses instantly deep, each one causing me to surrender my breath entirely. I arched toward him, not wanting an inch of space between us. His body felt so solid, so reassuring, anchoring me to our reality as every other part of my being seemed to melt away.
As we made love, I started to feel our minds melding together, my thoughts running into his and every exhale and breath of his seeming like it was my own. I could see myself through his eyes, startled by the vision of my hair fanned out across the pillow, my skin beading with perspiration as I moved to his rhythm—my eyes wide, pupils dilated in desire.
“Are you doing this?” I breathed in wonder.
“We’re doing this.”
I exhaled, my mind and body feeling like they were going to implode. I’d never known it was possible to feel this close to another living thing—as if where I ended he began, our nerve endings connected, every touch felt by us both and amplified so that when his lips grazed the curve of my shoulder, I felt it in the tips of my toes, on the base of my spine, in the blood that screamed through my veins.
His mind whispered through mine, the wisps of thought familiar and strange at the same time. I could hear his voice, flowing like water into me.
I love you…I love you…be mine.
It sounded like a prayer.
“Tejus,” I responded out loud in a breath, looking up into the black pools of his eyes. “I… I love you. I’ll always be yours.”
It was only afterward, lying in Tejus’s embrace, that I finally understood why I’d thought that tonight was the end of something.
It was. It was the end of an old life—one that I’d outgrown without realizing it. My human life. It was over; my body had known before I did, becoming stronger and more resilient as I transformed into a sentry, knowing desire, love and rage in quantities I’d never experienced as a human. Now my head was playing catch-up, and it had taken seeing myself through Tejus’s eyes to finally realize what I had become.
I also knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was no longer alone. Wherever I was, whatever I was, part of my soul would always be searching for his.
Benedict
“I’m freezing,” Yelena whined.
“This was your idea,” I retorted. We had been waiting in the cold for hours, crouching low behind the back of the stables so that none of the ministers or guards would see us. There was a thorny bush digging into my back, and no matter how many times I shifted about I still couldn’t get comfortable.
We had taken one grumpy bull-horse out of the stable and covered it in a blanket and our robes in order to keep him warm. So far it had been quiet—it had caused a bit of fuss when we tried to take it from its pen, but after we’d fed it hay and Yelena had insisted on brushing its coat, the creature had settled and then fallen asleep. Dawn was fast approaching and I hoped that the guards would be here soon.
“Keep your voices down,” Julian whispered. He had been irritable all night, and I worried that at any moment he was going to change his mind and go back to the castle. I hoped not—there was no way I was doing this without him. I kept expecting to hear Ruby or Hazel calling out to us from the castle, but they must have been busy with the kids or sleeping, because I hadn’t seen them since we’d eavesdropped on the meeting.