Page 167 of Children of Fallen Gods

I didn’t give him time to speak before my arms were around his neck, and my mouth crashed against his.

For a split second, Caduan went rigid with surprise. But he recovered quickly, his arms folding around me, his mouth returning my kiss with ravenous hunger. Our bodies were flush. He wore no shirt, and I was wearing that ridiculous Wyshraj gown — so little separated us, and yet it was still too much. Our heat tangled in the space between us, skin to skin, as our kiss deepened, as his tongue tasted mine, as his grasp tightened around me as if on feral instinct.

I yanked the door closed, clumsily. He pushed me against the wall, my legs lifting and parting around his waist, a serrated breath escaping me as our hips aligned.

I was surrounded by him — a presence I had come to know so well. But I hadn’t been expecting this, the sheer hunger of it, the way that the desire would overwhelm us both so quickly.

Far in the back of my mind, a part of me whispered,This was a mistake. I had come here to escape myself, to drown in the touch of another. But it was too late that I realized Caduan’s touch made me more myself than I ever was.

His hands slid over the bare skin of my back, around my sides, as if he wanted to memorize the way my muscles felt beneath my skin. His thumb, just his thumb, slid just beneath the hem of the fabric around me, brushing my ribs. Barely a touch, and yet it felt so intimate that I broke our kiss with a fractured moan.

Every part of mewanted. And I knew he did, too. I could feel his desire pressed against me, in a satisfyingly obvious way, but also in the way he held me, like a dying man clutching life.

For one suspended moment, our trembling breaths mingled, our lips nearly touching. And then he kissed me again, this time slower, more tender, his lips and tongue and body all asking a gentle question. It was all so achingly innocent — the kind of innocent that erased the pretense that I could build around our primal desire. The kind that promised,This isn’t about bodies. This is about me, and you.

That was too much — too terrifying. I broke away from his kiss and dropped to my knees. My hands worked at the buttons of his trousers.

“Aefe.”

Gods, I had always hated the way he said my name.

Is hate the word?

I ignored him, but I only made it one button down before he stopped me. “Aefe, stop.” His fingers tilted my chin up. I didn’t realize I was crying until I looked up at him and couldn’t pull his features into focus through the blur of my tears.

His face changed immediately. He dropped to his knees, bowing his forehead against mine. One hand brushed my cheek.

“What happened?” he whispered. “Tell me what happened.”

I wanted to. I so wanted to.

But how could I? How could I say aloud that I was not my father’s daughter? That everything I had worked for my entire life was gone? That the stories tattooed on my skin weren’t even mine?

How could I tell him that the blood that ran through my veins was that of the people who slaughtered his?

I opened my mouth and garbled sobs came out. I couldn’t stop. I was weeping so hard that I barely felt myself keel over, or Caduan shift so that his arms were wrapped around me, my face buried against his shoulder. He was murmuring something into my hair that I didn’t understand. Perhaps it was old Stoneborn. The words had a smooth, comforting cadence.

“I can’t,” I choked out. “I can’t—”

“It’s alright,” he murmured. “You don’t have to say anything.”

I hated how easy it was. To believe him. To stay here, enveloped in him. To keep the truth buried inside of myself, where he could not judge me for it.

We stayed like that, intertwined, for minutes into hours. I breathed the scent of him in and held him, long after we fell back against the floor, and the hours crept towards dawn. I memorized the way his body felt against mine, the beat of his heart and his breathing, the way his limbs wrapped around me with the same deliberate steadiness with which Caduan approached everything else in the world.

It occurred to me, as sleep began to blur my senses, that all the things that made Caduan seem strange to the world were what made him perfect to me. And that perhaps, when he looked at me, he saw everything the world judged me for. Saw it, and still loved it, even though I didn’t deserve it.

Get up,a voice inside me begged.This is dangerous.

But I didn’t.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Max

Ididn’t even remember making it back to the Towers. The next days passed in a blur. I woke in small bursts, minutes at a time, of which I only remember fragments. The pain was breathtaking. I remember looking at my hand, and the black veins that covered it. I remember Sammerin entering the room, taking one look at me, and stating, matter-of-factly, “You look like shit.” I remember sitting up just long enough to look over at Tisaanah, in the bed next to mine, her eyes closed.

I didn’t dream. Not of my family. Not of Reshaye. Not even of Ilyzath’s whispers. My mind was mercifully silent.

---