Wait, what?
My hand tingles.
I open my eyes cautiously, unsure what to expect.
Axel’s black eyes hover inches above me.
“God, I didn’t think I’d see you again!” I reach for him, but he pulls back with a grin and a laugh.
“Whoa, easy there. Drop the sword first, please. I’d like to keep my wings intact!”
I push myself up with a grunt and look at the hand that’s still tingling. “Sword?”
“Sword. Bright shiny lightning thingy you’re holding. I don’t know where it came from, but Thor is going to be incredibly jealous when he sees it,” he adds with a wink.
I don’t think my brain made it back from the soul world. I just stare at it.
“Earth to Kendry.”
I set the sword down on the bed and look at him, still in a daze. “How did I get out?”
“You had a body to return to.” Ramiel stands across the room, pale white against the dark stone. I didn’t realize before that he has three sets of wings. It seems odd, but it fits, too.
I shake my head, trying to clear it, but it’s Axel’s touch that does it. He sweeps me up in his arms, spinning me around. I can’t believe I’m here. That I made it back.
I can’t believe it’s over.
“It is over, isn’t it?” I ask as he sets me down.
He smiles in silent response, and slides his hand under my shirt. I shiver at his touch, but I understand when it glides across smooth, unbroken skin. My injuries are gone. I can’t help myself. My hands wrap around Axel’s neck, pulling him down to me. I haven’t felt this good in days. Weeks, maybe. He pulls me in tight to him as we kiss, hungry for each other.
Ramiel clears his throat, and I stop myself, looking at him with a chagrined shrug.
“I’ll leave you two alone. Eventually, though, I’d like you to tell me about what happened in the soul world.”
I nod in agreement. “I will. Ramiel,” he pauses, already turned to go. “He can’t come back again, can he?”
“No, Kendry. He can’t.”
“Thank you.”
He smiles, and walks out, leaving me in Axel’s arms. I stay there, content to breathe him in. Outside, the daylight is beginning to fall.
“I saw Shelly and Caleb.”
He holds me a bit tighter.
“I asked her to come back with me, but…” I shrug.
“It wouldn’t have worked, Kendry. Even ghosts require the will to stay beyond the grave. Most prefer to pass on.”
“I know. I think she knew that, too.”
We stand in silence again, watching the sunset spill golden and pink light over the crisp autumn colors of the mountains that surround the castle.
“I’m glad I got to say goodbye.”
“So am I.”
His face turns to mine, the look in his eyes so deep I could get lost in them. There aren’t words to express everything I see in his face. I don’t need words to hear him. His hands pulling my face up to his, the tenderness in his touch, and the drowning emotion in his eyes tell me everything I need. His lips close on mine with the barest of touches, while his hands fold me into his arms. But his gentleness has an underlying urgency that thrills me.
And when he backs me down onto the bed, I know he’s thinking the same thing I am.
His shirt disappears as soon as I stop clutching at it. I push him back, and we’re both tugging at mine until it’s gone. My hand on the bare stone of his chest thrills me. I hold him back for a moment, so that I can admire him.
“God, I love you, Axel.”
His stone lips crash into mine in response, hard and warm, and smoother than I expected. It’s not like kissing a statue. His solidity has an unexpected give, and so much heat. Like he has a molten core. His smooth roughness against my lips makes me want more, and he doesn’t stop until he’s forced me back down, his weight pinning me. My hands run through his hair, down the muscle of his shoulders and back. And as our legs tangle together, and my arms clutch at his back to pull him even closer, the last light of the sun blinks down behind the mountains. Axel’s stone burns to skin, and I feel his change wash over us both. We break apart, gasping from the unexpected ecstasy of it.
I slide my hand down his flesh and bone back and under his waistband. As amazing as he is in a flesh body, deep down I can’t stop thinking what it would be like to have him as his stone self.
Oh God. Talk about hard. I can’t help the giggle that accompanies the thought.
He gives me an ear-to-ear grin, and a now-flesh hand slides down my side until he hooks a finger under my pajama pants. He nibbles at my earlobe. “What was that for?”
I moan. “Thinking.”
“About?” His breath is hot on my neck.
I reach my hand down between us, rubbing him through his jeans until his jaw clenches. “About this. And what you’d be like during the day.”
He stops for a moment, staring at me, and then gasps as my hand closes on him. “You don’t… It doesn’t bother you?”
I laugh, shocked, and then kiss his jaw. “Really? No. It doesn’t.” I rub my hands up his chest and pull him back to me. “It kind of turns me on, actually.”
He growls, and then he’s kissing me again, pushing my mouth wide open to him. His hands are everywhere, touching and teasing. Pulling off the rest of my clothing.
His wings fold down to eclipse us again, and I don’t have attention for anything but him as he pushes into me, hard and thick, and everything I want. I’ve never felt more alive, or more whole. His body rocks me, his hips dragging me with him, and there’s nothing in the world in this moment, but the two of us. Nothing but him filling me, his mouth on mine, and the rhythm we share.
And it doesn’t take much. There’s too much energy between us, too much need, and pleasure, too much friction and heat. It’s forever, and it’s an instant, and I’m screaming his name, clutching him to me as an almost painful ecstasy washes over us.
*
The moon is high when I wake up. It takes me a minute to figure out what woke me, until I realize that I’m cold, and Axel isn’t holding me anymore. He’s back on the balcony, drenched in silver moonlight, staring out into the night. I lie there for a minute, admiring him. He’s beautiful, and I can’t help my grin, because he’s mine.
I push up to join him, wincing at the delicious soreness. His size will clearly take some getting used to, and it doesn’t bother me in the least. Still, it doesn’t stop me from pulling the sheet up and walking over to him.
“Nice boxer briefs,” I tease. And they are. Nice black well-fitting ones. Makes me want him all over again, sore or not. He grins at me, his perfect hair all mussed up for once.
“Gotta keep the goods just for you.” He smiles, and winks.
“Mmm. Yes, please.” His arm wraps around me, settling me against his chest. “What’re you doing up?”
“Thinking. I didn’t want to wake you. Why are you awake? I thought you’d be sound asleep for hours still.”
“I got cold.” I stick my tongue out at him. He grins, and leans in to nuzzle at my neck. His teeth nip at my neck, and I’m suddenly not cold at all anymore. And then I catch the moonlight glinting off of something on the balcony.
“Axel…”
“Hm?”
“What is that?”
“What?” He sounds disappointed as I pull away, tugging my sheet with me.
“This.” I hold it up, a carved beetle, so black it glints faintly blue in the pale light. “What is it?”
Axel’s fingers pluck it from mine. “It’s a scarab.”
“What’s it doing there?”
“I—” He doesn’t finish. Instead, the back splits open at the wings, revealing a folded piece of paper, old and brown. He unfolds it and reads, his teeth clenching.
“What does it say?”
He hands it to me without a word.
Grittanus was only a games-piece, and I have many. The next throw of the bones is min
e.
I look up to meet Axel’s eyes, but he’s staring out into the growing darkness. I trace the line of his sight to the tree line at the edge of the battlefield. I can barely make out a lone figure standing there. It’s hard to tell in the moonlight, but while the body is a man’s, the head seems oddly misshapen. A strange, curved snout with erect, square-tipped ears, and behind him, and odd, forked tail.
Axel growls behind me. “Seth.”
The figure turns away, melting into the shape of a hound, black twin to my father’s hunters, before disappearing into the night.
“What does it mean?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“It means this war isn’t over.” He pulls me close. “Not by a long shot.”
Coming in 2014
The story continues...
Acknowledgements
There are so many people that go into the writing of a book. And some books have so much help that when it comes to thanking all the amazing people that had a hand in it, it’s a little hard to know where to begin.
To Ashley Rhone, Momo Xiong, Bri McBride, Mia Hayson, Kat Ellis, Ashelynn Hetland, Jani Grey, Bridget Sheperd and Leigh Ann Kopans, the first people who ever read Uprising, thank you. You made it real, and made it what it is. Thank you for reading and for shredding and gushing and for putting up with multiple versions and query summaries that sucked.
Thanks to Amalia Dillin, for answering all my weird questions about mead and being my mythology buddy. You get to meet Thor in book 2, I promise.
To my twitter cheer squad, Megan Whitmer, Leigh Ann Kopans, Kat Ellis, and Dahlia Adler: I still have a ton of favorite tweets from when you first read. I love you girls.
To Krystal Wade, who wanted to publish ParaWars so much that she read it in one day and then became my favorite stalker—thank you for believing in it. Saying no to you was one of the hardest things I’ve done, and I can’t tell you how much your support means.
A huge thanks to Momo at Books Over Boys and Hafsah at Icey Books for such an amazing cover reveal. I owe you girls so much. You’re amazing. And Hafsah, thank you for the cover help. I know you don’t think you did anything, but you did.
To Leigh Ann Kopans, thank you for so much more than I can put in an acknowledgements section. I wouldn’t be here without you.
To KK Hendin, Tamara Mataya, and Nazarea Andrews, who critted the revised version when I pulled it out of the closet again, you girls rock.
Major thanks and props to Tam for my copy edits and Nazarea for helping me out with a blog tour. You two are fantastic and amazing and I don’t know what I’d do without you.
And Tam, my best email-every-day friend, you know I love you. Thank you, thank you.
To all of my twitter friends, you guys are the best. The retweets, the support, the hugs on bad days, the cheers on good days, the funny comments and pictures of hot guys (I’m looking at you, KK), and most of all just being there—I wish I could name you all, except it would be worse than the credits at the end of the extended version of the Return of the King movie. But you know who you are, and if you’re not sure, yes, I’m talking about you. You’re all amazing.
My eternal love and gratitude to Laura Whitaker, my best baby sis. I couldn’t ask for a better sister. Thank you for your love, and your unending support. I love you so much.
And last, to my family, who put up with me typing in the corner every night, and who have given me nothing but support. Thank you. I love you. Even when you’re too loud or won’t leave me alone.
About the Author
Cait writes Young Adult and New Adult stories that range from sci-fi and fantasy (because she loves making worlds and things up), to contemporary (because she kind of sort of fell into it and discovered she’s not half bad). Her best friends growing up were the combined works of Robin McKinley, Madeleine L’Engle, Anne McCaffrey, Andre Norton, and too many others to mention.
She drives a Jeep, loves the outdoors, takes pictures of everything she can, and writes obsessively. A martial artist and a former teacher, Cait is owned by two cats who started out incredibly small, and are now incredibly huge.
Cait currently live in the mountains of Utah, but Virginia will always be home. Her first novel Eyre House, a New Adult Southern Gothic Romance, is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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