Page 132 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

It had taken me an entire day to check the villages along with Oryn for any trace of dark craft, even with Memphis’s help in the skies. Beside an odd trick and trap, we had not found anything that had resembled the craft we had faced in the Islines.

Oryn and Visha had called them the Eiectus. Crafters who had been expelled out of Eldmoor for toying with sacrifices and blood magic. Question was, how had Iskyla gotten her hands on them? If they had been capable of cutting off any supply of my magic for miles meant we had more serious things to deal with than just Iskyla’s soldiers committing anti-social crimes in our villages—thanks to Thora and her game of dress up, that’s all they had been. A noise disturbance at best.

The castle was quiet when I returned from Modr. And so was the room. Candles were dim, burning just enough light to let someone see her figure. She was laying on the bed, her face buried in her pillow, a white satin sheet haphazardly covering barely any of her. Elias had told me she’d spent all her day training her magic, just breathing and meditating—something she hated fiercely. It only meant that she was still finding it hard to call on it. It was like part of her magic had shut her out, as her head did sometimes.

Carefully not to wake her, I lowered my sword on a table and began mindlessly unbuttoning my leathers, too tired to even form a thought.

A small hand rested over mine, pulling it down and efficiently undoing the buttons for me. I’d not even heard her approach. Every sense in my body had become so accustomed to her that her presence felt like a duplicate of mine. In a sense, she was part of me. Conjoined to my soul. She did carry part of it around her neck. The good half of it. And she didn’t even know it. It was how I’d found her, how I always did, how I always would. I just had to find a way to meld it to her, to convince her to never take it off even if she were to resent me again. Couldn’t have her throwing it back to me again. My soul was safe only in her hands. It was hers to keep. It had been hers long ago when she began bearing all its secrets and pains as if they had been her own.

Her hands flattened against my chest and then dropped to my stomach, lightly grazing my skin—so lightly. It was tentative at first, then it became more than just exploring.

Blood immediately shot south. “Thora, don’t.”

Her emerald gaze rose to me, that ring of gold becoming almost luminescent in the dark. “Don’t?” she asked in a trance.

“Not when I’m like this.”

“Like what?”

“Not in control of what I can do.” Though I was fairly sure I didn't have a single drop of blood on me, an Empath always carried the stains of death a little further inside. Until I calmed that roaring beacon, I couldn’t touch her.

The unusual ring of gold around her green eyes suddenly almost glowed. “What is it that you can do?”

I dropped my forehead to hers, inhaling and drowning in her sweet scent. “Things I shouldn't want to do to you when I'm like this.”

Her hands moved up until her arms were wrapped around my neck. She rose on her toes and pressed her mouth to mine for one small moment.

It was all it took.

I pulled her to my body, and I kissed her how I wanted to kiss her. She was this fine, breakable thing, but in my hands she was iron cast in pure flames.

Pulling back, I buried my face in the crook of her neck. “Fuck.”

The little hellion pressed her body to mine, letting me feel all of her and she surely felt all of me considering the way her mouth pulled to a smile where it rested against my shoulder. “I can help.”

“I don’t want to use you.”

“Haven’t we been using one another since the day we met? What’s one more time?”

“Not like this.”

“Then let me use you,” she whispered in my ear, pulling the hand I had on her waist and bringing it between her legs. A small whimper left her when she cupped my hand against her sex.

“Thora,” I warned, my voice hoarse.

Tentatively, I moved my fingers over her lace covered cunt, feeling her shake in my hold when I repeated the motion a second time. “Fuck, Thora, you’ve soaked them. What do you need, sweetheart, my mouth?”

I could see overwhelm cloud her. In the way her chest rose, how her tongue darted to lick her lips, how her emerald eyes quickly paced back and forth on my face, searching for clues, answers, help. Like they always did when they looked up at me. But I wanted to give none of them to her. I wanted her to find them herself. She only needed to reach for my body to know all she needed to know. To know how much I wanted her back. To know that I’d fall to my knees for her.

Grabbing her hand, I backed away until the back of my legs met the sofa, and I sat down, letting her be the one to tower over me, letting her know she had the control. I wondered how she didn’t know it already. She’d always had it over me.

She bit onto that puffy lower lip that I’d almost bruised, and gathered her soft cotton gown up so she could straddle my lap. “Put your hands on me.”

“Is it an order?”

“Yes.”

“What is my punishment if I don’t obey?”