Page 39 of What Beats Within the Tunnels

“Are you watching me sleep again like a creeper,” she murmurs, peeking at me through lowered lashes.

I chuckle, “I think you like when I’m being a creep.”

“Maybe.” Her lips quirk up on one side, and she pushes off me, sitting up to look for Chepi. He’s already jumping into her arms, pressing against her chest while she kisses his neck and murmurs sweet good mornings to him, lucky bastard.

“When do you want to leave for the tunnels?” she asks while rubbing Chepi’s belly as he rolls around on the bed. Little Glyphie gets all the good attention.

“Whenever you’re ready. I imagine you’ll want to say your goodbyes to Euric and Anika before we go.”

“Yes, and Athalda,” she says. That cranky old woman doesn’t deserve anything from her. Lyra goes into the bathing chamber, and I can’t help but stare after her gloriously naked body. Man, practicing restraint every night in bed with her has been a true testament of my strength. I hear her get into the bath and decide she’s going to be a while, so I pull on my pants, give Chepi a pet, and head to the kitchen for some coffee. Everything in the godsforsaken place tastes weird. The coffee and whiskey are the only tolerable things. I can’t wait to be back home, can’t wait to show Lyra the Dream Forest. For someone who’s never been before, I know she’s going to love it and all the creatures there. They’ll love her too.

“You haven’t even left yet and you’re already slacking, letting her have a late start,” Euric says, coming into the kitchen behind me.

“Give her a break. She’s been killing herself for you for weeks.” He’s lucky Lyra loves him, because if she didn’t I would really enjoy beating the shit out of him one of these days for what he put her through.

“It’s for her own good. Now you’re tethered to her like you wanted, so you better make sure she makes it back here in one piece. Don’t waste any time. Once her dark magic awakens, you must come.” He tries to stand in front of me, but I’m in no mood for him right now. I push past him and search for a mug.

“I’ll make sure Lyra survives her dark magic for her, not for you, and we will return when she’s ready,” I say simply while pouring a cup of the dark liquid into my mug. I love pissing Euric off, him and Athalda both. It’s too easy.

“If you don’t, I’ll tell her your little secret, and we both know where you’ll end up then. We saw what happened when Nyx was caught in too many lies,” Athalda says from behind me.

“This is different, and you know it. Nyx lied about everything, and I’ve only told Lyra the truth. I will tell her when the time comes,” I say, not looking at the sneaky bitch.

“I’d love to see the look on Elspeth’s face when that secret comes out. Your poor mother is going to be so disappointed in you,” Euric says, and I grab a couple of weird pieces of fruit for Lyra and head for the door.

“She’ll be down soon to say her goodbyes,” I mutter on my way out. I can only imagine the scheming the two of them have been doing all these years in Zomea. Now with this fucking bridge unlocked— at least they both seem to think they need to stay here until we return with Lyra’s dark magic activated. After that, I’m hoping Lyra will be strong enough to close the bridge somehow. I know it can be done, and the last thing I want is Euric coming back to rule over Cloudrum. I’ll play nice for now, for Lyra’s sake, but if there’s one thing Nyx did right it was killing Euric. Lyra may trust him, but I think she’s too damaged to face the truth. She doesn’t want to see that her father might not be a good man. I believe he wants to save Zomea, and that’s the only reason I’m playing along right now, but I know his reasons are purely selfish.

My shadow has been through enough, all these treacherous men. Thinking about Samael or Aidan gets my blood boiling. In my free time, I’ve been searching Zomea for either one of them, and still I come up dry. It’s so much land to cover, and not being about to channel here is screwing me. Anika said she’ll keep an ear out for me as well. If they are in Zomea, I want my time with them. The things I will do to them, slowly… I have no problem admitting I’m a sick fuck when it comes to torturing pricks who prey on the innocent. I will especially enjoy the pain I unleash on them.

I push the door open to our room, and Lyra’s perched on the edge of the bed, running her hands through her wet, wavy hair. I want to tangle my hands in that hair and take her on the bed right now. Instead, I settle for tossing her a piece of fruit and heading to the bathing chamber. I need cold water this morning.

“Thank you,” she says from behind me as I close the door. I start to fill the tub with water and hear her leave the bedroom, probably going to spend time with her father before we leave. I relax in the cold water, and it instantly eases my muscles but does nothing to erase my erection.

Last night keeps playing over in my head. I stroke my cock and think about how it felt pressing my fingers inside her. Those perfect pouty lips and the way her teeth tugged on my bottom lip. Fuck, if there was ever a perfect woman, it’s her. Her breasts and the way her nipples tightened beneath my touch, every little breathy moan I coaxed out of her with my touch. She was so wet for me and so tight—fuck. I stroke myself until I find my release. Maybe now I can get through the day without thinking about being inside her…not likely.

I get cleaned up and dressed, ready to leave this place finally. I look over the room one last time, not like I can forget anything since I didn’t bring anything with me. I think I will miss this bed though. I’ve grown quite fond of the bed we’ve shared together first by force and now by choice.

I find Euric and Lyra in front of the fireplace talking, but as soon as they see me the conversation dies off. Lyra gets to her feet. “Ready to go?” I nod, moving closer to her.

“I’ll channel you as close as I can get to the bridge without getting sucked into it,” Euric says, placing a hand on my shoulder. Lyra wraps Chepi in her arms, I wrap my free arm around her waist as the icy chill of Euric’s wind sweeps up, and darkness consumes us.

We land in the tunnels. I don’t take my hand off of Lyra in the dark, not wanting to risk anything happening to her. Euric pulls her into a quick hug, and his eyes harden on me over her shoulder. I nod at him, and he vanishes. The dank smell in these tunnels is far worse than the smell in the Lamias’ hive, and even that takes some getting used to.

“What do we have to do?” she asks, clutching Chepi and taking the hand I extend to her.

“I imagine we walk closer to where we first fell and something will happen.” I don’t feel any fear coming from her, maybe anxiety.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as we start walking in the direction of the bridge.

“You can’t hear it?” she says, and I’m immediately on guard.

“Hear what?” I ask, slowing my steps.

“Nothing,” she shakes her head, brushing me off. I want to demand she tells me what she’s hearing, but then the ground starts to tremble beneath our feet. She has a frightened look in her eye for a moment, but I pull her and Chepi close to me, wrapping my arms around them. Then the weightless feeling takes over, and I can feel the wind pushing past us. It’s the opposite feeling of falling. It feels like we are pushing through a barrier, and then my back hits the grass and the sun blinds me.

“Always one to gain the upper hand, aren’t you, enchantress?” I taunt, narrowing my eyes playfully. She smiles down at me then. I’m hurling her and Chepi aside moments before an explosion of fire roars where we were. I jump to my feet, pulling her with me as I take in the scene around us. The Lamia realm is under brutal assault. Demons, mortals, and Lamia engage in a frenzied battle of death and bloodshed.

“Stick to me,” I urge her, my voice a low growl. But the glint in her eyes speaks of defiance and a readiness to unleash her fury. Splitting my essence, I summon two duplicates of myself, dispatching them to find Drew. With Lyra at my side, we weave toward the castle, desperation mounting as I struggle to make sense of the carnage that has befallen the land during our time in Zomea.