Page 73 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

“I think you can do better,” I said, taunting him despite the lack of breath in my lungs and the burning pleasure along each and every nerve in my body.

Narrowed eyes spoke of a challenge accepted, and any sign of restraint—out of either misplaced concern for me or caution for his injury—was gone. Tallon slammed into me with abandon, taking us both higher and higher as our pleasure spiraled together. My heart was pounding; every sensation, every touch was that much more than before.

The hand around my neck tightened at the sides as his thrusts grew faster and impossibly deeper. “You are mine, Odyssa.”

I nodded eagerly. Yes, yes, I was his. And he was mine. The edges of my vision blackened, but I was powerless to look away, to pull away. “Yes,” I breathed.

“Say it,” he demanded, his pace faltering. “Say it, my wolf.”

“I am yours.” Removing my grip from his hip and using the leverage of his shoulder, I pressed myself up to sitting. The change in position had us both writhing in pleasure, but I continued my path, kissing across the marks on his chest and up to claim his mouth. “And you are mine.”

He stopped altogether; his chest heaved as he stared at me with wild, silver eyes. The disbelief, the vulnerability, the awe there… “Odyssa.”

“You are mine, Tallon,” I repeated. I kissed him again, squeezing his wrist and moving my own hips against him. A reminder of what we were doing, as if he needed it.

“I am yours,” he murmured. His body pressed me back to the bed, the hand on my throat moving to my breast where he squeezed and groped on his way down to grab my thigh. Hoisting it up around his hip, he dug his fingers in as he drove somehow even deeper inside me. Faster, harder, until my own climax shuddered through me and my nails dug into his skin, no doubt drawing even more blood than already covered us.

He thrust into me for a moment more, his mouth open in silent rapture as he spilled inside of me. Panting and sweaty, he hovered above me. He was the image of a god, not his herald.

My hip ached in protest as he lowered my thigh from around his waist. He shifted back, unable to hide the wince as his hand flew to his injured side. Cursing both of us, I slid from the bed, ushering him to lie down instead.

“Foolish man, you’ve started bleeding again,” I muttered. The bandage was spotted with red, and I cursed myself for forgetting his injury, for seeking my own pleasure in him while he was injured. I should have known better. Ignoring the feeling of his release trickling out of me and down my thigh, I peeled the bandage back, intent on replacing it with a new one.

His hand caught mine, affixing the bandage back in place. “I will be fine, Odyssa. Come lie with me, please.”

“Let me change?—”

He shook his head and pulled at my wrist until I was back in the bed with him, settled against his side. He wrapped his arms around me. “Let us enjoy this moment, my wolf, while we have it. Please?”

“Rest, Tallon,” I murmured. My mind still warred with wanting to slip from his embrace and care for him, but that wasn’t what he wanted. And if I was being honest with myself, this right here—lying in his arms and reveling in the pleasure we’d found in each other—this was what I wanted. His breathing evened out, growing deeper as his arm around me grew heavier. “I am here.”

“Stay with me, Odyssa. Please?” he whispered into my hair as he finally drifted off. “You are all that I’ve been searching for.”

I bit down on the inside of my cheek and embraced the stinging pain as I curled deeper against his body, seeking out the warmth and comfort I’d likely never feel again. Our time here in the Beyond was running out. We would have to return to Auretras soon, and Prince Eadric and his cursed castle would never let us both out of it alive. That much I was certain of.

ChapterThirty-Four

“You are thinking too hard,” Tallon muttered, drawing me closer to his chest. Shivers went down my spine as he ran his fingertips over my arms, tracing the marks there. “You should be resting. We will need to get up soon enough for the damned party.”

“I cannot rest,” I admitted, clinging to the warmth and safety of his arms before it was taken from me as everything else had been. “My mind is racing. We should not have done that.”

His hands froze around me. “Why do you say that?”

My words stuck in my throat, too jumbled and messy. “I… We…” I swallowed hard, trying to fit together the thoughts swimming through my head. “I failed. Failed my mother, and now Emyl is going to die, and I’m going to be alone. No family. Nothing to show for all the sacrifices I’ve made. I shouldn’t be allowed to have this, to feel this, to waste this time with you when I should be finding another way to save Emyl. You say you’d give me everything, but the castle would snatch it from us before we even had the chance. It already has.”

“If you think I will let anyone in that castle take this from us, you do not know me at all.”

“You’re right, I do not. We’ve barely known each other a fortnight.”

The muscles in his jaw flexed. “This was not a mistake, Odyssa. And it certainly wasn’t a waste of time,” he said as his hands resumed their path. “You deserve something good in your life. You deserve someone who thinks you worthy without you having to do a godsdamned thing for them.”

“You were injured, too, protecting me because I am too weak to protect myself,” I protested. His words were nice, but he couldn’t mean them. Our bargain ensured I’d do something for him at some point.

He fell silent for a moment, and then shifted and I was beneath him. His knees bracketed my hips as he sat tall above me. My mouth dried out. Golden skin and dark tattoos, the herald of Death indeed. He grabbed my hand and placed it along his side where the wound had been. “What do you feel?”

I ran my fingers over the skin, but felt nothing. Where the stab wound had been, jagged skin and gaping flesh, was smooth and unblemished, albeit still bloodstained beneath my hand. “How?” I demanded.

“I told you, I heal quickly here.” He traced his fingers over my shoulder where the gouges should have been. “So do you, it seems.”

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