48

Revelation

He moves even closer, hands reverent now, tentative with each new part he touches and then not so tentative, all that intensity focused on touching me, exploring, fascinated. He takes a shuddering breath.

I’m on fire.

Like melted sand, red-hot, molten, and malleable—he can form me into whatever he wants. I’m more than willing.

With each bolder touch, tension builds. He brushes the backs of his fingers across a sensitive spot, and sensation starbursts from there. The groan that comes from him, as if my response surprises him in a good way, finds an answering shudder from me.

And a blush. But it feels too good to let the awkwardness make it stop.

I want to touch him. Carefully, I reach out, pressing my hand over his heart, the skin there warm, his muscles bunching. I lift my gaze to his to find him looking at my hand against his skin. I think he likes it.

Swallowing hard, I start to explore. See if I can make him tremble like he’s doing to me.

Then he bends his head, black hair stark against my candlelit skin, kissing his way across my collarbone, then farther down. He does something with his teeth that sends sensation after tumbling sensation through my body.

At my gasp, he lifts his head, gaze concerned. “All right?”

I nod, the heat of blush rising again. “I liked it.”

He grins, devilry in his turquoise eyes.

I reach out, almost can’t help myself, and trace his face with my fingertips. “Where did you learn—”

Maybe I shouldn’t ask.

He grins again anyway. “You saw my library.”

There are books about this? I think my entire body must turn red, flushed with both embarrassment and now wondering what else he learned from those books.

He drops his head, mouth against me again, and I can’t take my eyes from his hand trailing over my stomach, my hip, and down my thigh.

Not over my scar, though. Probably a good thing. The way that shadow-flesh sparks for him, one touch might tumble me over too soon.

Instead, his wandering hand brushes and strokes its way up my thigh and under my one remaining garment, straight to the core of me. No one has ever touched me this way. I close my eyes, holding tight to his shoulders.

“Tell me what feels good so I…” He pauses, shoulders trembling. I open my eyes, not sure if he’s struggling for control or with what to say. He pins me with a gaze so filled with determination that he make this good for me, I sigh. “I want to know what makes you…”

I nod when he searches for words again.

“There,” I breathe as his questing fingers touch a spot.

He does more of that. A lot more of that. “Definitely there,” I moan. And Reven places his lips to my shoulder and groans against my skin, the rumble of it shooting bolts of lightning through my blood, which make me squirm against his touch.

Of their own volition, my hips cant, chasing the touch, and I want more.

He moves his hand, and I mewl a protest.

His hand leaves me, and suddenly shadows swoop me up and lay me down. Cool air against skin tells me the last of my clothing is magically gone.

So is his.

Reven is all sinewy muscle and hard planes to my softer curves. I trace the band of muscle from his stomach to his hip but am too nervous to go farther down. Instead, I lift my hand and trail a finger down the inside of his arm, stopping short of the scars, and smile at the way he shivers under my touch, then grunts when I don’t get to the most sensitive spot.

I’m a little afraid to. What if it brings out the shadows?

“I feel you there,” he says. Almost like an apology.

I meet his eyes, but the hardness there doesn’t make me flinch. “I know. Me too.”

Moving lower, he traces the edges of the silvery flesh on my stomach with the tip of his tongue, and molten, incandescent sensation slams through me. We both moan. He lingers there, building that throbbing again with tongue and teeth, slow, teasing torture until we’re both panting.

The level of this connection…I wasn’t expecting it. I don’t think he did, either. The intensity of it threatens to overwhelm everything.

I think I might be okay with that.

The shadows around us twist, and Reven jerks back. I know for sure he’s reaching for control, his chest heaving with it. “It wasn’t supposed to—”

I cup his cheek, holding his gaze until he breathes easier. “You saved my life,” I whisper. “No regrets.”

He drops his forehead to my shoulder. “Beautiful soul,” he murmurs.

Then his hands are back on me, going unerringly to the spot we found together earlier, moving faster now, pressing harder. He’s a fast learner. I don’t say it out loud, too occupied with the moans spilling from my lips as that wonderful, terrible pressure is building.

“I need…” I stop to bear down on his hand, chasing a fulfilment I’ve never experienced before. Not even sure what I mean. Just that. That I need.

Suddenly, his face is at mine, eyes filled with urgent need that mirrors my own and yet still searching.

“You’re sure?” he asks.

I hesitate, and, feeling it, so does he, starting to pull away. But I hold tighter. “You said Eidolon can’t have children. You can’t, either?”

I feel him relax under me as he realizes what I’m asking. “No.”

I nod, near to frantic. “Then, I’m sure.”

His smile is so blazingly bright I stare hard, trying to commit it to memory. I don’t think that happens often.

He settles between my legs, the feel of weight and his rougher, warmer skin against me only adding to the sensations.

Then pressure. Stretching me, pressing inside me until I’m overflowing with him. Connected to him in a way I don’t understand. This is real, and hard, and true.

He laces one hand through my hair, cupping the back of my head. The other, he entwines with my hand, up near my head so he can lean on his elbow. His gaze eats me up, like he’s memorizing my face.

Warmth spreads across my cheeks again, but in a lovely way. To be wanted so much. I refuse to let a smidge of self-consciousness make me look away. Because in this moment, he is beautiful.

Stark, severe, and beautiful.

He swallows, and only then do I notice how tightly he’s holding himself. Are the Shadows trying to get out? My heart squeezes hard—with fear or something else, I’m not sure.

Jaw flexing, muscles straining, he breathes out, and I almost think he’s going to stop. But then he starts to move.

Oh, thank goddess.

I’m not sure where to put my feet or where to hold on. His crooked smile says he’s working through the same questions, but we figure it out together. Never looking away.

Slowly, those earlier sensations build again, layering inside me, filling me with that pressure. And I’m captured by eyes so brilliantly blue-green and full of what I think might be wonder that the breath in my lungs whooshes away.

It would be easy to tumble fully into love with this man when it feels this way.

As our bodies strain and dance together, I reach for something I’ve never had. I smile, letting him see more than I have before—how nervous I am that I’m doing this right, how much I adore what’s happening right now, even the slight awkwardness. I’m letting him see me and hoping like hell I won’t regret that, but unable to in the moment.

His eyes widen at the sight, then turn bluer, fierce possession lighting his own.

A tingling sets up at the base of my spine. That’s…new. And…and I’m searching for something still out of my reach.

“Reven.” His name on my lips is a plea, a question, and, underneath all that, a total faith that we’ll get there together.

He moves fast, surging into me in such a way that I can only hold on for the ride. And yet that sense of something too far away to grasp is still there.

“Kiss me.”

He obeys immediately. Lips against mine, tongue sweeping into my mouth. Possession and wanting in every touch.

The kisses we shared before had hints of incandescence. But this…this is revelation.

Sensation draws in tight, then ignites outward, lighting up every nerve ending. Lighting up my soul as Reven groans long and loud, and I’m swallowing his passion, crying my own back to him.

Not everyone gets to have this. I may be young, but I know that much.

I drift back to reality wrapped in the cocoon of strong arms holding me protectively close. I flash my eyes open, searching his for any sign of the Shadows.

He’s still tense, muscles hard with it, but he smiles, and I smile back, relieved. Gently, he traces the shape of my face, and I lean into his touch, letting myself relax into the bliss of aftermath.

“Is it always supposed to be that way?” I’m showing my innocence and ignorance.

His eyes crinkle at the corners, but he’s not laughing at me. His expression turns too pleased for that. And cocky. “All I know is what the books say—but I’m guessing only for the lucky.”

Only the lucky. But I’m not lucky. I’m cursed.

Almost like that word in my head triggers a landslide, my vision goes black. I’m still awake, though. Still conscious. I can still feel Reven’s hold on me, steady in the sudden nothingness.

What’s happening?

“Reven?” I call out, but my voice is just an echo in my head.

Then images. Thousands of images flash through my mind’s eye. Memories? But not quite memories. These are all moments in Reven’s life, but I’m seeing them from outside of him like a voyeur. Or a seer. Chaotic and out of order, emotions clouding each one, pummeling me.

Reven in the forest. Alone. Reven peeling away from what looks like an older version of himself. Eidolon standing over a vaguely familiar young woman—soul Enfernae whispers through my mind—then shadows descending on her. Gods, was Reven there for that? The vision jumps to the next scene before I can process.

Reven struggling with whatever lurks inside him, trying to rip it out of his own being and failing. Reven carving those marks in his wrists with claws of night only to pass out and wake back up later with the wounds closed back up like mine. Mother goddess…that’s when he tried to kill himself. It didn’t work because the Shadows performed the same ritual he’s just done on me. Reven opening his eyes to be overcome by light and color. Then people arriving over time, and his taking them in or finding them. A reluctant savior.

He ran. To put a stop to the king’s evil.

There is a stillness in the desert sometimes. An unbreakable kind of unmoving so deep it feels like the world has stopped spinning and the sands that mark time through the eternal hourglass in Allusian are stuck. That’s what this feels like.

Because I know that he believes he is a monster. The same as the Devourers. The same as Eidolon and his other shadows. That’s why he distances himself from everyone.

But all I can see is the sacrifice.

The heart of him. I am seeing his heart. His journey. His truth. He’s…amazing. Goddess, this man.

Holy hells, is he seeing my life?

The amulet still around my neck flash heats, like a shooting star—bright and brilliant, then gone. I come back into my body in a whoosh, right back in the center of the candles where we’ve just made love. Where I’ve given him all of myself.

The flames flicker and go out, the only light coming from the cracks around the door and window.

I take a few deep breaths, trying to reorient. Then I look straight up into blazingly furious, accusing eyes.

“You are not Tabra,” he snarls. “You, princess, are Meren.”