The Silent: Irin Chronicles Book Five(71)

She was silent for a long time, thinking of what he asked. “And if I don’t?”

“If you don’t find your magic?”

“What then? Will you go through life half as strong? If I can’t give you your half of the mating ritual, will it make you weak?”

He squeezed his arms around her. “You make me strong.”

“You’re not answering the question.”

“Because I cannot imagine a future without you finding your magic. The Creator wouldn’t have put all this power in you with no way of your using it for good.”

Kyra closed her eyes and leaned back, laying her head on Leo’s shoulder as he pressed his cheek to her temple.

She loved Leo so much, but she also knew he could be naive. Kyra knew the world was far from fair. Not everything happened for a reason. Some fates were unavoidable. Evil did win. Not always, but often. Children died. Women suffered. The powerful ruled, and the powerless tried to survive.

But she loved him too much to say it. She loved him too much to darken his optimism. So she’d try. She’d pretend. Maybe if she loved him enough, it wouldn’t matter. He had powerful friends. She had powerful family. If they lived quietly, maybe they could find peace.

Kyra wanted to try, even if ultimately they failed. She needed to try. She didn’t have much hope, but she clung to what she had because the thought of losing a future with Leo hurt too much.



She fell asleep in the tub and woke on the bed with his kiss between her legs.

“Softly,” she whispered.

“Yes.” He’d shaved after their bath, and his smooth cheeks were warm on her inner thighs. He stretched across the bed, taking his time, luxuriating in her taste, and Kyra lay back and let the lingering ecstasy from the magic drift in her head. She closed her eyes and saw stars, but not the stars in the sky. These were a rising and falling pattern that grew brighter as Leo loved her.

Creation and destruction. In the heady moment of release, she saw the stars burst in her mind, raining around her without fading. They scattered and reorganized, chasing each other across her mind’s eye.

“Kyra,” he whispered.

Leo held her on the edge again; he didn’t push her over. When she came, it was because she reached for it, reached for the scattered, pulsing light. She grabbed it and tugged it to her lips.

She climaxed on a sigh.

Do you see it yet?



When Leo made love to her before dawn, it was in the glow of a single candle. Every other light had sputtered out.

Kyra pressed her palms to his hips and felt the steady rhythm as he moved in her. She looked up, watching his eyes devour her face, her breasts, her belly. Watched him as he watched himself move in her, awe and hunger parting his lips. He wet his bottom lip and clenched it between his teeth. She felt his muscles harden beneath her fingers as the tension built. Sweat dripped down his chest and abdomen. Kyra felt it drop on her belly as he moved faster and faster.

He was so beautiful.

At the last minute, he looked up and met her eyes.

Awe. Pleasure. Pain.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He gasped out her name and came, his marks lighting the dark room as the candle flickered out. In the darkness, he kissed her mouth, running his hands up and down her body as he stole her breath.

She slept with his arm and leg draped over her, his palm a pillow for her head. Kyra slept more deeply than she ever remembered before. In his touch was complete and utter silence except for a single voice.

His voice.

And it was whispering reshon.





Chapter Twenty





Leo slammed the Grigori’s head into the wall and watched him crumple unconscious to the ground as Niran held another up by his neck.

“Tell us where our sister is,” he said calmly, “or I’ll let him do that to you too.”

The young man was dressed as a monk, but Sura said it was only an insidious cover for the Grigori in this village. They dressed as monks to gain the trust of pilgrims, then took advantage of them. Many young women had disappeared in this secluded river valley. And though Niran, Sura, and Leo had searched the temple complex, they’d found no survivors.

“We haven’t seen your sister,” the Grigori said.

Niran tightened his hold on the man’s neck.

“But we’ve heard rumors!” he choked out.

Niran relaxed his hand.

“There was a woman. One of the untouchables. Two of our kind brought her to our brothers in the north. She was to be a gift for our father. They were only there for two days when they moved on. The brothers there said she killed one of them. He was bleeding from his ears. They said his mind exploded.”

“Where did they take her?” Leo asked.

“I don’t know.”

Niran’s hand clenched again.

“I don’t! She… she’s dangerous. We don’t want her here. We have a good relationship with the village.”

“Your ‘relationship’ is nothing more than a front,” Niran spat out. “You fool them into trusting you, then take their energy without their knowledge. You disgust me. You are a demon and an offense to heaven.”

“Most of them come willingly,” the Grigori said. “The girls like our attentions.”