Page 154 of Mother of Death and Dawn

She gestured to the room. “There is only one bed in here!”

I exhaled a rough laugh. There was indeed only one bed in here. One wonderful, luxurious bed.

Fine, it was in actuality a tiny, rickety bed that seemed to slant slightly to the left. I didn’t care. It was still the best bed I had ever seen.

“Ah. You’re right,” I said. “That’s a problem.”

Tisaanah turned to me, her wide eyes sparkling with amusement at her own hilarity. “Hugeproblem.” She flailed her arms out, then placed them around my neck. Her accent broke the word up into several sing-song syllables—hu-u-uge!

Fuck. I was gone. Even when I didn’t know who she was, I was gone.

My hands settled at her waist, our bodies aligning. Her smile faded, the ever-present wrinkle of thought returning as she examined my face.

I pressed my thumb against it. “We don’t need this right now.”

“Don’t we?”

We would, of course. There was so much to talk about, think about, worry about that it made my freshly demolished head spin. But I didn’t want to do any of that right now.

Instead, I wanted to re-familiarize myself with her—every part of her. I wanted to trace every scar, the outlines of every shade of her skin, the curve of every muscle or swell of flesh. I wanted to lose myself in her in every sense. I wanted it so much that it overwhelmed me, like a starving man before a feast.

She pressed her hand to mine. Blue-white light shivered at her fingertips. My magic answered that call as if it was second nature. My flames mingled with her cool, smooth light, tickling both of our hands but never burning.

“It’s so easy,” she said.

“It is,” I agreed. The flames intensified, spiraling around my forearm. The lanterns in the room brightened, then dimmed.

“Show off,” she said, even as she grinned and let silver butterflies unfurl from her free hand.

“Me? Look at yourself.”

“I will not deny it. It’s good to finally feel strong again.”

I could not imagine Tisaanah ever being anything but strong. Still… I knew what she meant. For six months, I’d been a prisoner of my own body. I’d forgotten how wonderful it was to speak to magic so effortlessly. I vowed to never take it for granted again.

Tisaanah’s magic reached out for me, and mine met it with ease—a far cry from the walls that had barred us the last time we tried this. I let her reach into my mind. Let her see everything that evaded words. Let all the boundaries between us fall away.

The lanterns in the room flared again.

I couldn’t wait anymore.

I kissed her, hard, and she fell into it immediately, lips parting. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I pulled her closer—still not close enough. She tasted like home. Like everything good about reclaiming where I had been.

We stumbled to the bed, our kisses growing more frantic, my grip around her tightening as my grip on everything else fell away. I didn’t give a damn about Ilyzath or my memories or the Fey or the end of the world. All those things became utterly inconsequential compared to the almost-sound that Tisaanah made when my hand slid over her breast, and the slight parting of her thighs as we collided gracelessly with the edge of the mattress.

No. None of those serious, important things would matter again, I decided, for a very long time.

My hand slipped between us, my fingertips barely brushing the apex of her thighs over the too-thick fabric of her trousers, and Tisaanah drew in a desperate gasp against my mouth.

If I was a stronger man, I could be patient. I could take my time to re-familiarize myself with her slowly, inch by inch, over the course of hours.

Her hips lurched, and she fell back onto the bed, pulling me with her. Our kisses never broke. I reached for her shirt, closed my fingers lightly around the seam.

I decided that I was fucking weak.

The fabric was thin. The buttons tore off easily. Tisaanah wore no undergarments, her beautiful breasts exposed to the chill of the air, peaked by the cold. I abandoned her lips to taste each one, a louder, so much more satisfying moan escaping her as I swirled my tongue around each peak.

Even herskintasted like citrus.

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