Page 84 of The Stone Curse
“Shit.” I cuddled his waist and dragged him onto the platform as well as I could. He was still held up by chains, but I had him. “Let him go. Get the chains off him!” There had to be an architect here. Someone pulling the strings of this test. No one answered, though.
Derek groaned, his diamond eyes cracking open to focus on me. “My Cameron.”
I kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly. “I’m here, buddy. I’ve got you.”
The chains rattled, releasing him just as the platform dropped out from under us.
I held on to him, secure and safe as we fell into the abyss together.
CHAPTER 38
CURI
Her body burns with need, pressed against me, hips rolling against my groin as I thrust my fingers deep into her wet heat. Her moans make me ache to bury myself in her.
Do it.
Take her.
Disembodied voices fill my head.
She wants you.
She needs you.
You need her.
Take what she’s offering.
I bite back a groan and squeeze my eyes shut, fighting the urge to replace my fingers with my cock.
You can fill her, stretch her, be hugged by her as you give her the release she deserves and claim the release you deserve too.
You’re worthy, Curi. She knows it too. She just needs you to show her.
I want her. I want her so badly it hurts, but I need her to want me just as much. I can’t take what she isn’t freely offering. I can’t take her if she can’t give me her heart.
Then you’ll remain worthless, just like your father always said.
A worthless, pathetic, useless?—
No! I push away the memory, eyes snapping open to gloom lit only by silvery light that seems to come from nowhere.
“You could have taken her that night,” Selas says from the shadows. “You could have claimed her. Made her yours. She wouldn’t have gone back to Serath after that. She can’t be with him anyway. You could have made it easier for her by taking the step her body wanted you to take.”
She’s not saying anything I don’t already know; after all, she’s in my head. “I know.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
I swallow the lump in my throat because this part, this part I’ve kept even from myself.
“Answer me, Curi. Why didn’t you?”
I release the words on an exhale. “Because…because I love her.”
Fuck, it feels good to finally admit it. To say the words out loud, even if they are only in my head.
“Finally,” Selas says. “Maybe now that you’ve admitted that, you can finally accept that you’re worthy of the same. Now for the next phase.”
