A Dawn of Onyx (The Sacred Stones, #1)(85)
He let out a shaky breath, and with unexpected tenderness brought his mouth to mine.
As my lips brushed his, he released a guttural sigh into my mouth, as if he had been holding his breath for days. Years, maybe. Waiting for this very moment. I could relate—feeling his mouth envelop mine, held inside his arms, knowing he somehow felt the same—it was better than anything I could have dreamed.
His lips were soft and wet and searching. He took his time with me, savoring and gently caressing my lips with his, sending shivers into every nerve ending in my body. When his grip tightened in my hair just enough to pull me closer, I lit up and moaned into him. My fingers slid delicately, softly, achingly against his neck, and a groan fell out of his mouth into mine. I caught his bottom lip between my teeth and sucked—I wanted another one of those low, rumbling, male noises. I wanted it more than air in my lungs.
As if he could feel my need, he deepened the kiss, his restraint slipping from gentle into something hungrier, something far more desperate. He brought his hand from my waist to the side of my face, angling my jaw closer, and sweeping my mouth with his tongue until I couldn’t help a gasp and I swore I felt a wicked chuckle rumble through his chest against mine.
And then, it was over.
He pulled back, lips bruised and parted, chest heaving, and looked at me only once with enough longing to weaken my already shaking knees. I felt the absence of him like a chair being pulled out from under me. I swayed with the loss of contact and watched as he walked away all too quickly.
TWENTY-FOUR
I was being cooked alive. The Onyx summer was relentless, and the warmth was intensified inside our stuffy carriage. Mari and I had been assured by Griffin and the four other soldiers with us that Peridot was only a week’s ride away, but by day two it already felt longer.
When I asked Griffin why we weren’t traveling by dragon again, he had said the dragon was ‘more of a symbol for Onyx power than a mode of transport’ in that signature dry way of his.
Still, the dragon would have been less hot.
I watched Onyx’s landscape pass by through the carriage window while Mari slept. I was shocked to find myself missing Shadowhold. Maybe it was the constant smell of lilac in the air, or the gothic library and its wrought iron chandeliers. Gardenia against stone. Velvet chairs and Kane’s grin.
I missed my work in the apothecary and all the faces I’d likely never see again. Dagan’s furrowed brow. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had fought a Fae creature and won with everything he had taught me. I wondered if I’d ever get to tell him of my battle. He would be so proud. I hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.
The moments after Kane left had been a blur. Griffin sent soldiers with me as I threw the few belongings I had in a sack, whirling around my room like a tornado. The burrowroot was still safely lodged in my satchel, and I gathered the remaining ingredients for the concoction from the apothecary before we were rushed out of the keep for good.
On our first night in the carriage, I confessed everything to Mari, who played a masterful game of catch up. We covered the impending doom of the continent, Fae history lesson, horrific wolf-induced wound, Kane’s immortality and overall not-humanness, and the deeply inappropriate corners of my mind that despite all of the above wanted to strip him bare and lick him from head to toe.
Mari wasn’t her usual sunshine self, of course. Upon hearing the news of the war’s advancement—Fae-related details were kept under wraps—her father rode for a small town outside of the capital to gather his sister and her six children. Mari didn’t know if he’d meet her in Peridot, and she was trying to keep the thought from her mind entirely.
Mostly though, I missed Kane. It had only been two days, and I knew I wasn’t missing him as much as preparing to miss him. It seemed very unlikely he would come hide out in Peridot with me anytime soon with this kind of war against his father on the horizon. A chasm had opened in my heart, and I felt like I was drowning inside of it.
The carriage slowed to a halt, shaking me from my longing, and Mari from her sleep. The sun had gone down and we pulled off in front of a strange, lopsided inn with a thatched roof.
“Where are we?” I called out of the window.
“Serpent Spring, and keep your voices down,” Griffin said, before tying up his horse and heading inside.
“He is so bossy,” Mari said, shaking out her red curls. Sleep had set them askew, and she looked like a frayed edge. “Hand me my books? And that cloak? Come on, hurry up,” she added, as she climbed outside into the dull evening heat.
I rolled my eyes.
***
The inn was sweltering and disconcertingly empty. Griffin, Mari, and I ate a late supper at a rickety wooden table. We were alone, save for a snoring older man with a handlebar mustache and two rowdy local boys well into their fifth drinks of the night.
“In this one, I found a few mentions of Fae society, but nothing about a power source,” Mari continued, poring over the leather-bound tome on the table beside her stew. She was over the moon about the new insight into the history of the Fae, and had spent all subsequent waking hours on the journey thus far researching.
“Quieter, please.” Griffin’s jaw tightened as he rubbed at his temples. He was not a fan of Mari’s, it seemed. Even less so when, after needing his expertise on a few Fae related questions, we had admitted to him that she knew about Lazarus and the Fae Realm. I wondered if he resented babysitting the object of his king’s affection and her best friend when a battle such as this one was brewing.