Page 60 of Winds of Destiny

“It really was.” The unamused expression on his face speaks far more than his words do. We stare at each other in silence for a moment before he finally says, “You know I don’t mind, right?”

“I wouldn’t care if you did.”

Kai huffs and runs a hand down his face. “By Carnuatu’s horns, is everything an argument to you?”

I’ve driven him to cursing. There’s a petty part of me that feels good about that, but more of me wants to fix it. Kai is… He’s become a friend, probably a better one than I deserve. He has the right to ask me uncomfortable questions. “Iknowyou don’t mind,” I say. “You’ve got a generous heart. Far more so than I do.”

Kai grins. It’s the first time he’s done that for days, and it makes him look almost boyish. “I’m sure I sensed you plotting my demise more than once on the trip to the Gate.”

“I…” He’s not wrong. “I was jealous. Cam and I…” Shit, am I really going to tell him this? Am I really going to lay my heart bare? I don’t want to, but something in his eyes, some spark of sincerity, convinces me it’s worth the risk. “We fought the night before we left Zephyth,” I confess, dropping back down onto Kai’s chest so I don’t have to make eye contact. “He told me that he loved me, and I know he understood that I felt the same, but when he reached for me, I turned him away.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew that if I let Cam have any more of me, I’d never be able to live without him.” Yet here I am, walking a tightrope between sanity and madness anyway. “I regret denying him. I should have given him what he wanted. It’s whatIwanted, too—I was just too afraid to reach out and take it.”

Kai hummed in acknowledgment. “Yes, I can see how that would be hard. But you shared a tent with us later. That didn’t count?”

“I jerked myself off while telling you how to fuck Cam. It’s not exactly the same,” I say drily.

“Isn’t it, though?” His hand leaves a trail of warmth down my spine. “It was intimate, it was intense, and it certainly seemed like an act of love at the time.”

It had felt that way, too. And nowI’mstarting to feel uncomfortably aroused at the memory of it. I shift my hips back a little so Kai doesn’t feel my erection.

“I think you were meant to wear that black pearl,” he goes on after a moment.

I shake my head. “No, this is Cam’s pearl.”

“Is your city’s god in the habit of giving one marriage candidate two pearls?” Kai counters. “Because from what Camrael has told me, it’s never happened before.”

“That’s true as far as I know,” I allow, “but—”

“And after the ambush, you somehow managed to find it despite all the chaos of the scene.”

“It was easy to see in the sunlight. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Doesn’t it?” Kai reaches down and touches his own pearl. “I feel closer to Camrael just wearing this,” he says quietly. “It’s like a part of me can sense him through it. It eases my fears and makes it so that I can go on, despite the setback we got at Fremont’s Height. Doesn’t yours do the same for you?”

I want to protest again, but the truth is that Idofeel closer to Cam wearing it. More than that, there’s a comfort in having the pearl against my skin—it feels like a part of me. “Does that mean you think I’m destined to be with you as well?”

My question is laced with sarcasm, but the tender look Kai aims my way dries my mouth up.

“I hope to be so blessed,” Kai murmurs. Then his mouth curls up in a teasing smile. “Youareriding around on a ram specifically summoned for you by my god. He didn’t have to give us two of them. We could have doubled up, but it would have slowed us down.” He boops my nose. “Just admit it, the gods love you.”

I open my mouth, tempted for a second to tell him about my black cat companion, but think better of it. It’s too late for a theological discussion right now. “You just want me to fuck you stupid,” I mutter.

“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t sayno.”

I can’t believe I’m tempted to take him up on it. Clearly, I’m so tired I’ve lost my mind. “Go to sleep,” I say instead, firmly patting his chest and shutting my eyes. Kai obliges, and only a few minutes later, he’s gently snoring, dead to the world.

I stay awake much longer, very aware of every inch of his body against mine and very guilty over my own awareness.

If he’s right, though… If Cam and Kai and I really are meant to be together…

It’s a pleasant thought that finally drags me down into slumber.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kai

---