Page 146 of Silvercloak

He rested his hand on his belt buckle. “Do you want to …?”

In response, she wrapped her long legs around him and tugged him toward her. He fumbled with his belt—the sound of yanking leather and metal buckles sending another wave through her—and then pulled down his trousers. Angling his hips, he plunged deep into her, so hard and sudden that her hands jerked against her bonds, her lips begged to part, and there was the seethe of rope burn and the intense fullness and the lingering tingle of her orgasm and she felt like she was falling off the edge of the world.

He thrusted his hips slowly at first, then sped up so fast his pupils dilated, his forehead glistened, and he dug a hand into Saffron’s hair. With his other hand, he picked up his wand, pointed it at her hips, and whispered raggedly, “Sen ascevolo.”

Her hips lifted as though suddenly weightless, and the shift unleashed a whole new sensation inside her, as though constantly pressing down on a taut knot of pure, raw pleasure.

Through the glittering haze, she saw a perilous expression appear on Levan’s face.

He pressed hard against her chest and whispered in her ear, “Fair’s fair, Silver.” He pulled back slightly and pointed his wand tip between her legs. “Et aflan.”

The raw magic was like a thunderbolt, a fork of scorched lightning, and she could barely see from the explosion of stars behind her eyes. She whimpered against her clamped lips, and moments later, his hips shuddered, digging into her inner thighs, and he sighed into her neck. Their chests were pressed together, frantic hearts beating through their skin, and she felt his every breath echo inside her.

Eventually he pulled away, and she missed the feel of him immediately.

“Ans oriloquan.” Her lips came unstuck. “Ans arrenodan.” The ropes replaced themselves around the bed curtains, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to return her clothes.

“That was …” she gasped.

“That was,” he confirmed.

They lay breathless in each other’s arms for a while. Saff’s wrists were red and tender, and her legs still shook from the intensity of the pleasure, but his arms were so strong and firm around her that she felt safe, steadied.

She felt safe in the arms of a Bloodmoon.

She had tofocus,damn it. She was here for a reason. And that reason was not pure, animal pleasure.

Just refilling the well for what’s to come,she told herself.

A neat little lie.

“So what now?” Saffron asked at last. “You’re free, and you don’t want revenge against your father. So we just … carry on like nothing’s happened?”

“We’ll find another necromancer. But first we need to retrieve the lox I stashed the night we were raided. The gamehouse is running low.”

“You said you’d stashed it near Novarin?”

“It’s actually nearer Lunes, just on the Bellandrian border. I grew up in hiding, in a tiny hamlet of wooden shacks in the Havenwood. My mother’s ancestors were slain centuries ago, but still her parents would not risk civilization. The shacks are abandoned now, but I still go up there, sometimes. It’s like she’s still there.”

Her heart stuttered on the fresh details. He had grown up only a few miles from Lunes, fromher.They had always orbited around each other, and again this idea gave her an unsettling retrospective foreboding, as though there had been monsters lurking in the shadows all her life.

“How will we get there?”

“We’ll have to use ourportarigate. I’ve been playing too fast and loose with theportariin my wand. Leaves too much of a trace, and the Silvercloaks seem to be getting much better at the art of tracing.”

Saff’s throat was dry. She was going to have to relay all of this to Aspar. She was going to have to fulfill her mission. And with every detail Levan entrusted to her, the closer she was to that inevitable moment. “When?”

“Tomorrow.” He rolled the half-golden wrist stiffly, grimacing. Now that the heat of the moment had subsided, his face had once again paled, and the skin around his eyes was lined with discomfort. “I’m going to find some pain relief that isn’t lox. I need my head to be clear.”

Now that he’d trusted her with his hurt, Saffron wished he hadn’t. It would only make it more terrible to betray him.

“Who will go?”

“Just you, me, and Rasso. Maybe Segal, though he’s Risen now … Castian? A small crew anyway. Easy enough toportarius all away if anything goes wrong.” He sighed and sat upright, pulled on his trousers, then checked his watch. Saffron arranged the blanket around her, cold in his absence. “I’m going to go and run and spar and bathe, then reach out to my Silvercloak rat. Leak them some false information so that they’re far, far away from the Havenwood tomorrow night.”

Saff’s stomach flipped over, as though her body had only just remembered that Tiernan wasdead.Because of her. And sometime very soon, Levan was going to discover his informant was missing.

“I’ll see you later, alright?” Levan whispered, pulling on his tunic and bending back down to kiss her on the forehead.

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