Page 48 of Rising Out of the Darkness
Reaching over to the table beside me, I grabbed the heavy keys and unlocked the shackles chaining both of us together. Releasing the heavy iron weight from around my wrist should have felt freeing, but instead it felt more like a loss. Like a severing of the connection between us. The way Elena longingly smoothed her hand over the empty space around her wrist made me believe she felt similarly.
The pull within me took over, all other fears tossed aside, as I cupped her chin. Lena’s eyes went wild as I pulled her towards me, leaving her lips hovering inches from mine. Her mouth barely opened to accommodate more air for her increasing breaths. I dragged my thumb over her bottom lip and watched the skin pebble across her arms.
We lingered in silence, our chests rising and falling against the tension that sizzled between us. I ran my thumb over her lips, inwardly groaning as a meek whimper fled from her.
“Wildfire,” I rasped as I continued to trace her pouty lips. “Do you know how much I think about these?” I pressed my thumb harder against her bottom lip. “How much I crave to find out what they would feel like against mine? How they would taste?”
Desire clouded my gaze as her body shivered in reaction to my words. It only fueled me further. My hand left her lips and leisurely trailed down the sensitive skin of her neck.
There was nothing I wanted more than to cross the line, to rip it apart and tear it to damn shreds, but reality started to claw its way back into my mind. As I pulled away, the lusty haze in Elena’s eyes fell, replaced with one laden with disappointment.
“Time to go, Lena.”
The silence in the room was stifling. We shifted tentatively around one another as we got dressed. With my satchel thrown over my shoulder, I opened the door and motioned Elena towards it.
As she walked past me, the air filled with the scent of her. The sweet scent of lavender overwhelmed my already sensitive senses. I’d watched her place the lavender oil behind her ears for the past few days, and the scent had become uniquely her.
I closed the door behind me, and her shoulders slumped as she walked down the stairs. As I tilted my head towards the ceiling, I prayed to all five gods to give me strength.
It was going to take divine intervention to keep me away from that woman.
Chapter 18
Elena
There were no words. None.
Nothing could describe the way that I felt as I walked down the creaky stairs of the tavern. Overwhelmed, I tried to make sense of everything that had happened last night, and this morning. Particularly this morning.
I was baffled by the man stomping down the stairs behind me. When he wasn’t brooding over his Lord of Shadows ego, he was capable of being tender, kind, and even humorous at times.
When I was at my lowest last night, he hadn’t punished me for trying to escape. Instead, he’d offered to help me, and the anxious part of my brain wondered why.
Once outside, I leaned against the outside wall of the tavern while the guards prepared the horses for the rest of the journey. None of them were anything like the guards I’d met at home. Every single one of these men smiled as they packed up their horses. A few politely nodded their heads towards me.
For a moment, I wondered if this was some kind of elaborate ruse to get me to like them, so when I got to the kingdom I would bend the knee willingly. However, their actions were far too genuine to be feigned. Even those who appeared to have a carefully constructed mask, like the Lord of Shadows, whosegaze had found its way to mine. As he motioned for me to come to him, butterflies quailed inside of my stomach. No one could act with that level of sincerity.
Right?
“Ready, Wildfire?”
His voice was low as he said the nickname. The one he had given me last night in the stables. With a nod, I grabbed the horn of the saddle and made extra sure I placed my foot in the stirrup before I lifted my leg over. As I did, warm palms connected with my thighs, supporting me into the saddle.
“Thank you,” I squeaked out as I adjusted myself forward to make room for him behind me.
“Anytime.” He leaped up in the saddle behind me. As he adjusted into the saddle, I swore every part of his body collided with mine. His thick thighs brushed against mine, his arms swept against the pebbled skin of my arms, and the heat of his chest scorched my back. My dynamis swelled inside my overly sensitive body, and I suddenly wished those chains were still wrapped around my wrists.
Hells.
I might not survive this journey…or this man.
It was an excruciatingly quiet ride until Declan finally spoke. As he did, the tension in my shoulders released, along with the swirl of my dynamis.
“Time to learn how to ward,” he said while placing both reins into one hand.
“On the horse?” I asked. My voice was a little higher pitched than I expected. “The last time horse and dynamis mixed, it didnot end well. Or did you forget the part where I ended up in the land of dreams for an entire day?”
“Your sarcasm knows no bounds.”
