Page 53 of A Monsoon Rising

“Alaric,” Talasyn said cautiously, “what’s wrong? You’ve been in a mood all morning.” He made no response. She brightened at a possible solution. “We haven’t had breakfast yet, we should—”

“I’m not hungry.”

Talasyn was fast coming to the unfortunate conclusion that she couldn’tstandit when Alaric was mad and she had no ideawhat she could have done to goad him. At a loss, she recalled Niamha’s lesson on how to make a man melt. She was hardly dressed for the occasion in her salt-encrusted garments, with her bedraggled hair and the cave grime sticking to her skin, but the Nenavarene Lachis’ka was still the Lachis’ka no matter what she looked like. She could do this. She could harness her people’s legendary charm and soften her husband’s temper.

“Maybe you’ll be less cranky once you’ve had something to eat,” Talasyn suggested. Remembering what Niamha had taught her, she allowed a vague smile to soften the corners of her lips as she peered up at Alaric through her lashes.

The stare that he leveled at her was one of abject confusion. “What’s wrong with your face? Are you in pain?”

She had experienced her fair share of embarrassing gaffes where he was concerned, but this was by far the absoluteworstof the lot. This went beyond the hot flush of humiliation and beyond the paralyzing stab of regret and all the way out the other side into the desire to immediately become one with the spirit world.

It was also the end of her patience. Not that she’d had a lot to begin with.

“Never mind!” Talasyn snapped. “You’re impossible!”

Alaric’s brow creased. “What—”

“You don’t—you don’t react appropriately to anything!” Her irate tone mingled with the beating of the waves. “I bandage your wounds and you kiss me, then fall asleep when I kiss you back and you forget it ever happened. I write you a letter and you have your aide reply. I go to rescue you and you call me asinine”—she was jabbing an accusing finger at him as she listed his transgressions—“and you get annoyed because we didn’t discuss the time we humped each other while half-asleep, but when we finallydostart discussing it, you talk aboutotherwomen. I wake you up and you smile becauseyou’re dreaming I’m someone else, I show you how you’ve really been helping my aethermancy improve and you grunt, I thank you for catching me and you practicallydropme, I offer a way out of our predicament and you tell me toleave, I invite you to eat and you get snippy, I flirt with you and you ask mewhat’s wrong with my face—” She threw up her hands. “I’ve had it! Stay here and rot for all I care!”

Shaking, Talasyn spun on her heel and stomped away along the waterline, kicking up spray and wet sand. The wind picked up again, dragging brisk fingers over her form as a wash of dark clouds spread from the horizon. The surface of the Eversea was speckled with a million goosebumps as the clouds headed inexorably toward the coast.

Talasyn glanced over her shoulder with the intention of yelling at Alaric to get his fool head to shelter before it poured, but then she stopped walking and turned—he was running to her. The shifting sands made his frantic pace difficult, but he charged through with bullheaded determination and reached her just as it began to drizzle.

“Nowwhat?” Talasyn grumped.

Alaric worked a muscle in his sharp jaw. “First of all,” he said through gritted teeth, “I don’t knowhowto react to you. You are infuriating and self-righteous and you get under my skin. Secondly, there have never been any other women—there was neveranyonebefore you—and much to my dismay you have provoked me so much that you’ve wormed your way into my dreams. You are theonlyone who plagues them. And one last thing”—his voice lowered into a growl—“the next time I kiss you, I want torememberit.”

Raindrops dotted his cheek as he bent down. Lightning streaked the sky as he pulled her to him. The Eversea’s dark waves slammed against the shore as he crushed his lips to hers.

CHAPTERTWENTY

Very few aspects of Talasyn’s life had ever been as lovely as this moment, Alaric’s bear hug of an embrace keeping out the worst of the wind, his mouth so warm slanted over hers, the surf and her heartbeat pounding in her ears. At some point during the last few seconds, she’d looped her arms around his neck, clinging to him else the world spin away from underneath the soles of her worn boots. She deepened the kiss and he rumbled a sound of approval in the back of his throat, his fingers tracing the spur of her hip.

This kiss felt different from before. There was a lick of anger in the way they moved, yes, but there was also something that Alaric was trying to tell her with his lips and his tongue and his hands—something that her own body echoed back to him.

I need you.

Let’s forget everything else for now.

Talasyn was certain that they would have stayed like that forever had the rain not started pouring down in earnest. A loud clap of thunder heralded the deluge that cascaded from the sky in heavy sheets, and she untangled herself from her husband with a sound strangled somewhere between ashriek and a laugh, with water dripping into her eyes and the spray from the turbulent waves pounding into her side. She glimpsed a trace of genuine amusement on Alaric’s face before they broke into a run—back to his lopsided airship, where they shielded themselves from the downpour under the overhanging portside that now served as a roof.

He wasn’t done with her. With a gleam in his dark eyes, he mouthed at the slope of her neck and her knees threatened to collapse as her toes curled. She leaned back against the shallop’s battered wooden interior, running her fingers through his hair, the blood in her veins wild like thunder, caught up in the giddy delight of it all.

“You should never flirt again,” he said. “It might be the end of me.”

She’d have been far more embarrassed if his tone weren’t so unsteady, if he weren’t falling upon her like a man starved. “I don’t know,somethingtells me it was a success.”

He nibbled at her throat. “I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

Talasyn pulled at Alaric’s hair and claimed his mouth with hers. As sheets of rain poured down on the deserted beach, his hands greedily explored her figure while she practiced this kissing thing with a concentrated enthusiasm that she usually reserved for learning new aethermancy techniques. She impatiently worked through the clumsy clacking together of their teeth and the inopportune gulps of much-needed air, forging ahead with a crazed determination that he matched until they rediscovered the rhythm from their wedding night. His large fingers ran over her spine, stroked her thighs, cupped her bottom—and eventually they latched onto the hem of her tunic.

And tugged it upward.

She let him, in service to some primal instinct that clamored forcloser,more. The fabric bunched between her collarbones and her chest, and his fingers crept up her exposed ribs, leavinga trail of goosebumps in their wake, stilling once they reached the bottom edge of her breastband.

“Take this off, Lachis’ka,” he whispered.

Talasyn should have bristled at being ordered around by the likes of him.

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