Crown of Cinders (Imdalind #7)(80)

My heart tensed painfully, the sounds of our steps growing louder as we turned into the massive stone hallway. They echoed the sadness we felt in their monotone chimes, each beat hitting against my chest.

I tried to ignore it, exactly as I tried to ignore the bloodied footsteps that guided us toward our room, the prints too small for an adult. Too small for what had happened.

My back straightened painfully, and Ilyan’s arm tightened around me as he sensed the sudden change in emotion. Sensed the pain.

“How are you holding up?” he whispered into my hair, his voice soft as his own pain seeped into me.

“I should be asking you the same,” I joked.

He didn’t laugh. I couldn’t even force one out from myself.

“Let’s look at it this way,” I finally said after a moment of silence. “We are both still standing, and we are both still moving forward.”

“Are you calling that a success?”

“This time, I am.” I sighed, leaning my head against his chest, letting the sound of his heartbeat rumble through me.

He looked at me as we walked, sadness and misery lining his face. There was a spark of joy there, but it was masked, the hopelessness of this day overwhelming it.

His finger was soft as he ran it across my face, over the cemetery of tears trailing down my jaw to the bridge of my nose and finally brushing the hair out of my face in an attempt to see me better.

His touch sent ripples of pleasure over my skin and down my spine. The sensations floated through my stomach in a tickle of want that, for a second, made it hard to keep walking, to keep breathing.

“Beautiful woman,” he gasped aloud as he pulled me to a stop right before our door, pressing me against him then leaning down, his movement slow, his touch gentle. With a flutter, his lips barely brushed against mine. The feeling was more breath than contact as he chuckled, his laugh increasing the tangle of knots he had already infected my stomach with.

“Butterflies” was an understatement.

I gasped and tried to pull away, but he came in closer, still not quite kissing me.

I gasped again, not able to find words in the goo of whatever he had left me in.

He didn’t miss that and smiled, the bright blue of his eyes glistening in the dim light of the hallway. The love I had seen before was still there, still strong. It was merely clouded by what was coming.

“Do you want to escape with me?” I whispered, knotting my fingers underneath his shirt to touch the skin of his hip, teasing him with my real meaning.

He chuckled, the touch calming him, even with the pain. The sound made me smile, the bittersweet emotion sneaking in whether I wanted it to or not.

“I would love to escape with you,” he whispered back, pulling me against him as we escaped into our room, tripping over each other on the few steps before we fell onto the bed, our arms and legs tangling around each other from the fall.

“Come with me, m?j kamarád,” he whispered, closing his eyes without another word, his magic prodding me. The invitation to enter the T?uha was clear.

My smile deepened as I, too, closed my eyes, leaning into him and allowing his magic to take me completely. The warmth of him consumed me as his fingers trailed up my arms, over my collarbone, and across the lines on my neck.

I didn’t dare open my eyes.

I shivered from the touch, the ripple of pleasure moving down my spine.

“My Joclyn,” he whispered the moment his finger connected with the raised brand on my neck.

My magic swelled as his wrapped around me in an equal crescendo, pulling me, mind and body, into the sacred space we shared, the place that was even more of a sanctuary in this moment than I could have ever hoped for.

I heard the waves before I opened my eyes, the hot sand against my skin a comforting blanket that I was eager to be wrapped up in.

Ilyan’s hand was a gentle caress against my skin. The soft touch created a powerful trail of desire behind it. It was filled with power as it always was in this space.

Carefully restraining a shiver, I sighed, letting my body collapse into the sand, keeping my eyes closed as I focused on his touch, on the sound of the waves, on the heaven that I had suddenly found myself in.

“Open your eyes,” Ilyan said with a laugh.

I smiled. “What if I say no?”

“Open your eyes,” Ilyan repeated, his laugh growing into a deeper chuckle as his touch continued making intoxicating trails across my back.

I listened to the sound, getting lost in the rhythm, getting lost in the sensation of his touch against my skin.

The soft tickle of his fingers moved down my back, over my arms, across my cheek, touching all of me. Igniting all of me.

“Open your eyes.” This time, he said it softly, and with a soft, little flutter, they opened. Not to the bright sunshine that I had been expecting, but to a beautiful overcast day, like the many that were taken for granted on a beach.

Everyone always wanted the sun; they always wanted the warmth. But warmth could be there even without the blazing rays of the sun. Warmth could be there even if it was hidden. Sometimes, when it was hidden, just knowing it was there could make it all the more pleasurable.

“You should take your own advice.” Ilyan laughed, reading my mind. “Warmth, life, happiness, joy, fear—it’s all the same, my darling. Joy is still there. It’s just hiding behind a cloud right now. Just like Dramin.”