Page 127 of I Summon the Sea

My heart feels like it’s being pulled out of my chest, pounding, aching. I’ve never felt anything like it before. I moan against his chest.

A tremor goes through him. He leans back to gaze at me, dark eyes wide. “Makhair?” he whispers, and his voice is hushed.

I blink up at him, my heart racing. “What?”

“Fuck, it’s a miracle,” he breathes, “youare a miracle, but how can it be real, how can you be?—”

“What do you mean?” I whisper back, still fighting that strange pull. “And who ismakhair?”

“There has only been one woman for me,” he says, his voice choked, “only one mate, and that’s fate… No other can take her place. Fate can’t be undone.”

My tentative, faint smile freezes, the quip about his answer not being an answer tomyquestion evaporating in the face of what he’s just said.

“He loved a woman once,”Tru had said.

“Fire and water don’t mix.”

“I see,” I whisper and feel like my heart is cracking in two. My throat tight, I step back, and slowly his arms release me. I pull up my undergarments with jerky notions. “Thank you for clarifying this for me.”

He just went down on me, made me see stars and new dawns, made my body sing and my soul smile. I almost made a huge mistake, committing my body to him, my eager, lusting body, and engaging my feelings.

“Rae…” He’s watching me with those dark eyes, a crease gouged between his brows. “Don’t you get it?”

“Oh, I get it.” I step back when he reaches for me again, and I want to curse him and run away, but the clearing of a throat has me whipping around. “Shit. Who’s there?”

A page boy, a familiar one, bowing from the waist, his face impassive. “My lord Athdara. I have been sent by His Majesty to find Lady Rae and escort her to the audience hall.”

“Well, here I am,” I say.

“My lady.” He straightens. “The king requests your presence. Now.”

You don’t keep a king waiting in his own palace. Much less when you’re a mere human and a contestant sentenced to death in the games. A contestant who left the ball without permission.

But Jai grabs my hand, his frown deepening. “Don’t speak to him, Rae, don’t say a word?—”

A hot flare of fury blinds me. “I’ll decide about that. You don’t get to tell me what to do after what you just told me.”

“What? Rae, wait?—”

But I brush past him—a whiff of smoke and fire, a last damning jolt to all my senses, and an arrow bolt through my heart—and I start down the corridor, leaving the page boy to scramble after me. “Take me to His Majesty.”

CHAPTER FORTY

There’s a strange ache in my chest as I walk away from Jai, as if my heart is splintering and crumbling, the pieces tumbling through my body.

I knew it. I knew that giving in was a bad idea, but I couldn’t stop myself, could I? No, I had to go and kiss him, touch him, let him pleasure me.

It was like taking a sledgehammer to my own walls, destroying my own defenses while asking myself all the time if I was crazy.

Turns out I was.

Or rather, I am. Not a past tense, not when having his mouth between my legs only happened moments ago, when I still feel his gaze on my back, when I can still feel his lips and tongue on the most intimate parts of me, still burning from his mouth, his stubble, his attentions.

He’s a mystery, a puzzle with pieces missing, a chessboard with the pawns scattered.

What do I keep from what he told me tonight? What do I believe? About the king helping him, about the human victims, about fated mates…

The page boy catches up with me, and I let him lead the way, pressing my lips together, my arms at my sides, my thoughts controlled so I won’t look back.

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