I pulled away just enough to look at him, even though he strained to keep me close.
Purple bruises bloomed like overripe petals over his skin, some as large as my fist. A red, angry cut that looked to be a few days old, dark with clotted blood, arced over one pectoral.
My lips parted, but before I could say anything, Max’s mouth was on mine again.
“It’s fine,” he muttered, between kisses. “I’m fine.” And his hands were at my clothes, yanking my sweat-soaked sleeveless tunic over my head. Then the camisole below it. His touch, warm and demanding and tender all at once, drowned out all coherent thought. All worry. Anything but the all-consuming need to have as much of him against me, touching me, inside me, as I possibly could.
We staggered to the bed. I fell back first, and he started to follow when he paused.
His entire expression changed. A wrinkle wrenched between his brows, a downward twist forming at the corner of his perfect mouth. His eyes drank in the sight of my bare body, starting at my hips and dragging up, but there was something darker than desire that doused his gaze.
“It is fine,” I echoed. “I’m fine.”
And I didn’t give him time to respond before I yanked him to me, gave him one long kiss, then pushed him to the bed and climbed over him, my thighs on either side of his hips, his hands at my waist, my breasts, the curve of my hipbone, as if memorizing my form.
“Where did this come from?” he murmured, brushing an angry circle of purple beneath my left breast.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Me? Look at you.” I leaned down and kissed his shoulder, at a red welt there. “How did this happen, hm?”
I lowered myself over him, savoring the warmth of him against me. I took a moment to appreciate the exquisite shape of him, the topography of his muscles beneath his skin. Moved down, down to what looked like a halfway-healed scrape over his ribs. I ran my lips over it, smiling against his skin when I felt him twitch, clearly biting back a laugh. “Or this?” I murmured.
Lower. Down to a mark on his hip, partly obscured beneath the waistband of his trousers. Slowly, I unbuttoned them, peeling them off to reveal the full injury. Among other things.
“Or this?” I whispered, pressing my lips to the bruise.
“I told you, it’s— fuck.”
The word was so ragged it was barely more than a mangled moan, spat between his teeth as I ran my mouth up his length. Tasted the tip, lips and tongue soft, my movements slow and languid. Relishing the taste of him. Relishing the sound of his quickening breaths. Relishing the way that I could tell, even without looking, that every muscle in his body was tensed.
Then he was pulling me back up to him, pressing his mouth against mine in a long, desperate kiss as he rolled over me and pushed me to the bed.
“Why do I always get the interrogation?” he muttered. “From the minute you showed up at my doorstep, it’s always me. What about you?”
He broke away, and ran an analytical eye over my body. “Where’d this come from?”
He pressed a kiss to the two-week-old slice over my shoulder — a gift from Nura’s rapier in sparring practice.
“Or… this?”
His lips moved lower, to a large purple welt across my ribs.
“Looks like you’ve been busy.”
My abs were tight, core burning with desire, breathing quick. But I said, as casually as I could manage, “I had things to do.”
“Things, hm?” He reached the burn at the outside of my left hip, still tender enough to make me suck in air through my teeth when his mouth brushed it, pleasure mingling with pain.
“I like to lead an exciting life,” I choked out.
“Right.” I felt a silent chuckle against a bruise on my leg. “Part of your charm.”
“You cannot deny it.”
His breath came next against the inside of my thigh. Higher.
Oh, gods. Gods.
Time suspended, need pounding in my veins.
I craned my neck to look down, and Max met my gaze. His hair was messy, falling over his forehead. A smirk twisted one side of his mouth — the left, as always. From this angle, I could see the cut of his shoulders, the muscled definition of his arms, the way the light fell across his silhouette. He was beautiful. But the thing that took my breath away wasn’t that. It was the sheer, all-consuming affection in how he looked at me.
“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t.”
And then he lowered his mouth to me, and pleasure suffused me all at once, so intense that I couldn’t breathe. My back arched, my fists clenching handfuls of the bedspread. A helpless moan escaped me, one that I didn’t even realize I had made until Max’s lips stopped just long enough to let out a groan.
“Tisaanah, make that sound again.”
His voice was low and raspy, practically begging. I couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe. And yet, when his tongue resumed its long, torturous path, I found a way to comply. Were those words that spilled from my lips? Thereni, Aran, both? Prayers, curses? I didn’t know. Didn’t care.
“Good girl,” he chuckled, against my skin, but I couldn’t pay attention to his words — couldn’t pay attention to anything but the movements of his tongue making love to me, too much and not enough at the same time, too gentle and too rough.
Two fingers slid into me, and my hips bucked, and that was the end. I unraveled, a wave of pleasure cresting and crashing, and I was still shaking when Max gave me one final kiss at the apex of my thighs and crawled over me. I was nothing but nerves, nothing but instinct, as my limbs encircled him again, as my mouth found his. It wasn’t enough. I needed more, needed him closer, needed his breaths timed with mine.
He pushed into me easily, my hips rising to meet him. Gods, I had forgotten, how good it felt, how right, to be together like this — to be so full of him. He kissed me deeply, the taste of both of us mingling on our tongues just as his fingers clutched mine, as our limbs tangled, as every part of us intertwined. Our movements found a rhythm that was as natural as it was hungry, his strokes firm and demanding, my body meeting him at each one. Already, I could feel another wave cresting, pressure growing where he touched the deepest parts of me, his thrusts growing harder, his breath more ragged against my mouth.
“Again,” he said — commanded, begged. “Let me feel you again, Tisaanah.”
And as if to give me no choice but to comply, he pushed deep, sinking his teeth into my throat.
My climax hit me so hard that for a few incredible seconds, I separated entirely from the world, connected only to him. I returned just soon enough to open my eyes to see him follow me, his head thrown back, his muscles taut. I grabbed him and pulled him to me in a rough kiss as his climax shuddered through me, riding out the aftershocks of my own. The kiss softened, slowed, as our crescendos faded.
Softened, yes, but did not break.
We were not ready to let each other go. And still, we did not speak. He kissed me, and kissed me, hands roaming each other until he slipped into me again. I could not be close enough. I wanted to feel him everywhere.
And I knew — surely, we both knew — that soon enough there would be words and worries and reality.
But for now, there was only this. Nothing but each other, sharing our bodies and our breaths, and everything that words were too weak to explain.
I felt boneless and dazed by the time we exhausted ourselves. I was used to being tired by now — I was now always, always tired — but this was the pleasant sort of exhaustion, aching and satisfied at once. Once Max and I untangled ourselves from each other, we staggered to the washroom, filled the bathtub with water that Max ensured was delightfully scalding, and lowered ourselves in with groans of weary satisfaction. And now, there we both sat, Max leaning against the back rim of the tub and me in turn against his chest, his arms encircling me and his chin against the top of my head.
“This feels nice,” I said.
Not the warm water. Him. Being beside him. Feeling him a
ll over me. All these weeks, and I hadn’t even allowed myself to dream of this. Didn’t allow myself to dismiss the uncertainty that he would make it back alive.
And now that he was here? I never wanted to let him go.
“Let’s stay here for a very long time,” I said, making a show of stretching. “I will not move, and so, neither can you”
“Yuck.” I couldn’t see Max’s face, but I could hear the wrinkle over his nose. “You recognize that we’re essentially marinating in our own filth right now.”
I eyed the water, tinged grey. Fine, he wasn’t wrong.
“Our filth?” I said. “Your filth.”
“A bold assertion, considering that you just came from the training ring.”
“And you just came from…where, exactly?” I craned my neck around to eye him. “You have much to tell me.”
“Were my letters not detailed enough for you?”
“Your letters were good. But I like your voice better.”
“Likewise.” And yet, I felt the way his arms tightened slightly around me, and the unspoken hesitation of all it implied. When he let out a long breath, I knew he was clearing space for all the words he needed to say.
I knew it, because I was doing the same thing.
He kissed the top of my head.
“You first,” he said.
The words poured out of me. I had spent these weeks in a state of constant performance. I had Serel and Sammerin, but there were so many things that I couldn’t tell Serel and so many things that I didn’t want to show Sammerin. With Max, words came easily — and even the ones that didn’t, he heard anyway.
I told him of the battles, and how I won. I told him of Eslyn, and what Sammerin and I had done to buy time for the slaves that my own actions had endangered. I told him of every feat, and every fear. I told him everything.
And for his part, he did the same. I listened as he told me of the battle in Antedale, and those that followed. I had heard all the stories here, of course, when they were spoken of in terms of victory and strategy and numbers. But rendered in Max’s voice, the wins and losses weren’t matters of statistics. They were human.
I loved that about him. I loved it, and gods, I had missed it.
We talked for hours, so long that we didn’t even notice that the water had gone tepid by the time we trailed off into silence. When we finally decided it was time to end our bath, I stayed behind for a few minutes to wring out my wet hair. Then I went to the washroom door and leaned against the frame, watching him.
He was standing at the window, hands tucked into the pockets of the pants he’d thrown back on, profile outlined in the waning light. The view overlooked the Farlione estate and the mountains beyond it. Max’s face was tilted to the east — towards the house.
“It is beautiful,” I said.
“Hm?”
“Korvius. Korvius is beautiful.”
A shadow passed over his expression.
“It is,” he said.
I crossed the room and stood beside him, taking in the view.
“I know it’s hard for you to be here,” I murmured. “But I’ve liked seeing the place that raised you. While you were gone, it was like I could find pieces of you here.”
“I don’t know if I like the parts of me that were left in this house.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder. I couldn’t help drawing in a long breath, taking in his scent. Ash and lilacs. And a little hint, I had realized, that was from here, from this place, as if it was in his blood.
“Not the house. The city. The scenery. The flower gardens at the edge of the grounds. The trinkets in the libraries. There’s a bookstore in town that made me think of you. The owner is very unfriendly. He snaps at you if you even say a single word.” I gave him a coy smirk. “It seemed like the sort of place you would enjoy.”
His eyebrows lurched a little, a distant smile curling his lips. “Mathilda’s.”
“Yes. That was it.”
I was satisfied that my instincts were right. I knew him. He reached out and brushed the small of my back, as if this was satisfying to him, too.
But his smile faded quickly. I watched him fall into serious thought.
“Is it just as difficult?” I murmured. “To be here, again?”
“I’ve never been able to face this place.” He swallowed. “When the Syrizen brought us here, that was the first time I had looked at those gates since… Well. All of it. Brayan tried to find me, for a few years. Tried to get me to come back, but I just couldn’t.”
Brayan. Max’s older brother, and the only other remaining Farlione. The only one who had not been present that day. I rarely asked about him. I knew it was a particular sore spot, for many reasons.
“Do you ever think about finding him now?” I asked, quietly.
“No.” He said it fast, like it was a ridiculous thought. “No. I don’t even know where he is. As far as I know he hasn’t been back to Ara in years. And… he doesn’t know the truth, of what happened that day. He was fed the same story as everyone else. I can’t look him in the eye knowing what I know, because if I were him…” A muscle feathered in his jaw. He still stared out at the landscape. “Like I said, there are a lot of things I haven’t been able to face.”
I squeezed his arm. It was a long moment later when Max spoke, and said something that I was not at all expecting.
“Would you come with me to see the house?” His eyes slid to me — a little wide, as if he had surprised himself, too.
My brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”
A pause, like he himself wasn’t sure. “I need to,” he said, at last. “It’s loomed in my memory for so long. I need to…”
His voice trailed off, but he didn’t have to continue.
“Of course,” I murmured, and reached for my clothes.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Max
I could have shown Tisaanah the impersonal beauty in the Farlione estate. I could have showed her the artifacts, the artwork, the precious valuables, all the things my parents used to present to guests on tours of the house. But those were not the stories that were burning in my lungs, desperate to be released. And those were not the things I needed her beside me for the strength to face.
Instead, we wandered through the living quarters. It was utterly silent here. Zeryth and his leadership had taken over every wing of the house but this one — the place where we had lived our innermost lives, now carefully closed off to visitors. Perhaps even my miserable aunt had boundaries as to what she would allow him to use. When we walked through those doors, I felt like I’d walked into the past.
Tisaanah and I went upstairs, to the bedrooms. Neither of us spoke, but Tisaanah’s hand was tight around mine. I was grateful for it.
The first door I opened was to Kira’s room, and when we stepped inside, I went suddenly still.
The room was a frozen, dust-coated monument to the girl that had lived here, untouched for nearly a decade. Her insect books were scattered on the ground. Her hairbrush sat on the bureau, strands of black hair buried in its bristles. There was an indentation on her bedspread, as if someone had carelessly leapt from it in too much of a hurry — because she was always in too much of a hurry.
I couldn’t speak.
I hadn’t expected this, for everything to remain so preserved. Was it intentional? Had Brayan instructed that everything stay exactly the way it had been, when they died?
Or had the world just moved on without them, and no one thought to look back?
“Are you alright?” Tisaanah murmured.
That was a complicated question.
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure that was in fact the correct answer. I stepped back, closing the door gently behind me.
I went to Variaslus’s room next, and as soon as I opened the door, the scent of dust and old charcoal greeted me. Three easels stood throughout the room. Two were blank. One housed a half-finished sketch, one that I immediately recognized as depicting S
hailia reading a book, charcoal still waiting on the tray as if the artist had stepped out and never returned.
Then, we went to Marisca’s room — all immaculately neat, long-dead flowers still petrified in their perfect arrangements — and Shailia’s, which was decorated with everything and anything that once sparkled and now hung dully in the darkness.
Walking through the rooms was like stepping into a grim, greyscale version of my memory. And yet, there was an odd comfort in it, too. In allowing myself to see the marks they had left on the world. Tisaanah asked little, innocuous questions — “When did he start drawing?” or “Why did she like these books so much?” — and while at first, my answers were stilted, soon I slipped more easily into the past. For so long, my grief had overshadowed their lives, an insurmountable wall between the present and any happiness that had once lived in the past. For the first time in a long, long time, I found myself peering over it.
Atraclius’s room was last. I opened the door, and stopped short.
I was expecting his to look the way the others’ did, preserved in the past. I was ready to see a room that was messy, an unmade bed, trinkets scattered across the floor. Instead, it was immaculate. It took me a moment to realize why.
Because Atraclius had died here.
The room had been cleaned and purged of all that made it his, because it needed to be, when his body was taken away.
My eyes drifted down. Burn marks peeked out from beneath the carpet.
I suddenly felt ill. I stepped backwards, closing the door too quickly. I glanced at Tisaanah, and I saw her wince, her fingers going to her temple. I wondered if Reshaye was whispering to her, awakened by the memory of what had happened here.
This had been a mistake.
I was halfway down the hall before I even realized I was moving, then down the grand staircase. I didn’t stop until I flung open a door and felt the rush of cold mountain air against my face.
I let out two shaky breaths and opened my eyes.
Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Page 24
