Imperial (Insight #8)(20)
Escorts are in tune with emotions, to every movement of the vessel. Naturally, they know exactly what to say, where to touch, where to caress, and where to kiss to bring forth an even more intense fever. The goal is to pull as much passion as the other soul can give—which is near infinite.
The soul’s essence rushes to the skin, to the waiting vessel of our other. Once that energy is connected, every movement and every touch is electrified to a point where breath and thought are near impossible. A rush is defined and produced when souls are connected. True rushes, rushes that are everlasting, are felt long before the first touch; they are felt at first glance.
The power that an Escort gives its adored is unmatched by any other race. A regal fever accompanied by a rush would last through several moonrises. It is intense and consuming. And if we had any sense at all, we would never leave this state.
Though the movement of the vessel was blissful, enticing, it was nothing compared to the energy that a rush creates within the soul. Each soul is raised to an enraptured state.
Rapture was the state I was in when Vade’s thoughts began to connect with mine. At first I saw this moment. We were reading each other’s desires and honoring them, but as time moved, as I felt the emotions of his touch, I reached deeper into his thoughts. I had to know who had crossed him, who had forced his hand to keep us apart. Who was hurting our kingdom.
He was careful to guard his deepest trepidation, but I could see flashes in my mind’s eye. I saw the moment he was told of my execution. The raging storm that nearly ended creation below us. I saw him call a council of kings and demand that Xavier accept his challenge to a duel. Like a coward, Xavier denied him.
Vade assured Xavier that his demise had been forecasted, but before Vade could strike him he saw something in Xavier’s eyes, something that caused him to smile coolly and to step back and listen to the other kings. What Vade saw, I could not fathom.
The kings openly stated that because I could be destroyed without any fury from our Creator that I was not a sovereign; that in order for me to die my line would have had to have perished first, not be released. They claimed I was a toy sent to appease the mighty king of anger for the time being, that I was a distraction and now that The Realm had claimed me, that Vade should see things clearly, that he should rise and command his line to invoke the emotions we all needed so desperately to survive.
Wrath and anger poured through me as I saw this in his thoughts. Sensing that emotion, Vade’s lips and hands found a new way to distract me. He wanted me in that moment with him. I wanted to be there, too, but the thing is, Vade would never reveal any worry to me, so this was my only way of figuring out clearly what had happened when I was gone.
I engaged the passion he was drowning me in, took control for a moment or two, playfully pinning his strong arms so I could feather kisses across his flesh. That always drove him mad with passion, leading him to fight for control once more. I let him have the control he asked for, let him carry me to a new high.
Once I caught my breath, I dove back into his thoughts, finding the moment I left behind.
The council of kings was something rarely called into place, but when it was, it was by no small feat. Each sat on a throne, gloriously spaced inside of a golden oval room, with the exception of mine and Vade’s, which were side by side. Because he was the king of anger—the one emotion that resided in every emotion—his chair was higher, slightly above the others.
Something happened as the other kings stated their case. Vade’s eyes drifted behind them. In his thoughts, I could only see a blinding light with sky blue eyes within its essence. Our Creator.
If the Creator was not speaking clearly to you, you would not sense Him. That was just how He worked. Plain and simple.
Though all of His children, with the exception of me, were in that room, Vade was the only one that sensed Him, saw Him. And because his gaze never moved, the other kings had no reason to know that the favored king was receiving a sweet revelation from our Creator. They simply thought that Vade was listening to them, that he was silently agreeing with their arguments.
Idiots. You do not cross the King of Anger without some form of retaliation, and that revenge would be just like the king that would deliver it: cool, flawlessly designed, and everlasting.
“Be with me now,” Vade whispered to me, asking me to leave his thoughts be and surrender everything to him.
He’d caught me lurking in his mind again. I felt like a bad lover, that I was hurting him right now. I could not let that happen.
I shelved the sovereign I was and let the girl deep inside rise.
My eyes connected with his, fire to ice. He held my stare as the rhythm of passion carried us away. He wanted my mind, body, and soul at this moment, and I granted him that request.
Breathlessly, we lay side by side. A beat later, his energy had pulled me against him once more. As I lay on his powerful chest and gazed at the endless candles, I tried to understand what thoughts I had seen of Vade’s. I still did not understand why he’d waited so long to come for me. Had he forgotten how beautiful what we had was, how we both allowed the other not to be a sovereign in each other’s arms? That together we could be real, we could let our true selves rise without judgment?
My fingertips traced the defined muscles of his stomach as my thoughts raced in various directions. I’d never shown it before, but I often let what the other kings thought of me tangle with my emotions. I was the last to believe that I was one of them. I knew that it was a dangerous claim. I was content to have risen from death, to be at Vade’s side. But Vade was not. He claimed I was a queen long before Mazing called out to me. Long before any of the other kings even considered me to be more than a passing thought.