The Bound (Ascension #2)(107)

Cyrene felt herself drifting off. Him playing with her hair was like a lullaby. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. Nothing else existed in the world, except being with Dean right here, right now. He bent down and kissed her forehead, and then she succumbed to her exhaustion.





Cyrene stretched her arms out and yawned exaggeratedly. Light filtered in through the window, and she peeked one eye open in protest. She was so tired. Every part of her body hurt. Sleep was her new best friend.

She yawned again, kicking her foot diagonally across her bed when she encountered a body. She squeaked and sharply sat up. She wasn’t in her bed, and she had woken up next to someone else.

Creator! How tired was I?

She glanced down at her figure and saw that she was still in the Eos dress she had worn to the party, but it was rumpled and a disaster after the hours of it being soaking wet and then her sleeping on it. She glanced over at the body with rumpled light brown hair—almost blond in the early morning light—a five o’clock shadow against a strong jawline, and the bare back of a very handsome and sleeping Dean Ellison.

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight, and she scooted a little further away from him. How did I end up in his bed? The last thing she remembered was Dean running his fingers through her hair on the couch. Not good. She had been so out of it that he had transferred her into his bedroom without her even waking up.

Then, her head snapped to the side as realization hit her. “What time is it?”

Dean’s head popped up, and he looked over at her with a crooked grin on his face. “Good morning,” he breathed.

Her heart melted a little bit more at those words. Creator, he is attractive and distracting, and I’m late!

“I’m late! I was supposed to be at the docks at dawn!”

Cyrene jumped out of bed and rushed for the door. Dean followed after her. He grabbed her hand before she reached the door.

“Let me go! I have somewhere to be. I’m late!”

“Do you really want to be seen running out of my bedchambers in the morning in the clothes you wore to the party?” he asked.

His hands slid down her arms, and she shivered.

No. No, I do not want that. She shook her head.

“Come on. Go this way.”

Dean shrugged on a shirt, and she couldn’t help but stare at the rippled muscles before they disappeared from view. She was not sad to see him put a shirt on. Definitely not. She was late…not thinking about how defined his chest was. Okay, she definitely was thinking about that.

Dean took her through a back passageway that led her through a much quieter section of the palace and dropped her off right at the corridor where her rooms were.

“Thank you,” she said.

She threw her arms around his neck without thinking about it, and he dipped his head down to kiss her. Her breath caught in the early morning. She was seriously reconsidering this leaving thing. She had woken up in his bed after all…and he was making it very hard to walk away.

“I have to go,” she said regretfully. “I’m late.”

“I start security procedures soon. I won’t be around as much,” he told her.

“I know you’ll find me,” she said with a smile before dashing to her room.

She changed as quickly as she could before practically flying down to the docks. Matilde, Vera, and Avoca were standing around a gondola, looking less than pleased, to say the least.

Cyrene was out of breath when she reached them. “My deepest apologies. I don’t know how I didn’t wake up. I’m never late,” she insisted.

“You weren’t in your room,” Avoca accused.

“Um…”

“And your face is bright red.”

“I just ran here!” Cyrene cried.

“What were you doing out all night? You were supposed to be sleeping!”

“I was. I just woke up.”

“No one knew where you were,” Avoca chided. “So, where were you?”

Cyrene looked to Matilde and Vera for backup, but they seemed perfectly fine with Avoca’s methods. “Dean’s, but—”

“Cyrene!”

“It wasn’t anything bad. I just slept!”

“If anyone had seen you though—”

“Well, no one saw me. Can we go now?” Cyrene asked.

“Yes,” Vera said. “I think that is a good idea.”

“Agreed,” Matilde said. “As long as you are here at the right time tomorrow morning, I don’t care who you’re sleeping with.”

Cyrene put her hands over her eyes and grumbled under her breath. Today was off to a bad start after waking up in Dean’s bedchamber.

The worst part was that, in her haste, she hadn’t had time to eat, and by the time they made it to the island to train, she was starving and knew today’s work would only increase her hunger. She placed her hand on her stomach as she took a seat next to Avoca in the sand. Today was going to be a long day. But when Matilde and Vera began to speak, she put all thoughts of her grumbling stomach out of her mind. This was why she was here in Eleysia after all.

“We’ll begin where we left off,” Matilde said. “But, this time, instead of Cyrene picking up the water and moving it by herself, we want you two to link and move it together.”