Page 31 of Reign of Light
“My point is, I felt like it was just another part of my life decided for me, and it was hard. Then, when I found out everything you hid from me, I was so angry that you took away yet another choice. You didn’t let me decide whether to hate you or believe you. I was angry.”
He opens his mouth to speak again, but I shake my head, cutting him off.
“Again, I know now why you did it. You thought I wouldn’t believe you, and who knows, maybe I wouldn’t have. But I was always taught to take in all information before I make a judgment, and you didn’t let me do that. That is part of who I am, and with everything Dane was doing to manipulate me, I wanted to decide for myself. That’s why I left, why I did what I did, because I wanted to choose how I could help. I finally had some freedom to belong and be me, and I don’t ever want to go back to how I was before.”
“All this is to say.” I shift my hips on the rail, turning my body so I’m facing him. “I think we give them the choice. We tell them where the entrance is, and they can choose to go inside or not. They can decide if knowing matters more, even if they can’t ever bring it home. Whatever decision they make, to go in or not, they will have to live with, and then the island will take it from there.”
He leans forward and brushes his lips against mine in a tender but brief kiss.
“I hate hearing you talk about how hurt you were back home,” he says, leaning back just enough so we still share a breath, “but you’re right. I’ve protected it for this long, but ultimately the island showed the Voyagers where we are. It trusts them. They deserve the right to choose, so they don’t have to spend eternity wondering.”
“I wouldn’t want to,” I whisper.
His forehead presses into mine, but his eyes stay locked on me.
“I’m sorry I made you feel you didn’t have a choice. You know my intention never was to hurt you.”
“I know,” I say, a soft smile playing on my lips. “Just don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.” One corner of his lips turns up in a playful smirk. “It’s funny you think you had a choice with me, though.”
I squeal as he grabs hold of my hips and hauls me over him, setting me onto his lap and wrapping my legs around his torso. I drape my arms around his neck and smile, impressed that he never so much as wavered on the edge of the ship.
“Even if I couldn’t fully have you,” he says, his thumb stroking the underside of my jaw reverently. “To the depths of my soul, you were always mine.”
Warmth explodes in my body as I stare into his eyes that dance between mine, finding them filled with tender devotion and desire.
“I’m always yours, Weston. And you’re mine. For eternity.”
The grin that splits his face melts away any worry I had that his previous reservations about being with me were surfacing again, and I can’t help but return it.
“For eternity,” he repeats back.
The sky flashes above us, and this time the quick rumble of thunder that follows is much louder. Weston tears his gaze away from me and looks toward the coming storm before throwing his legs back over the rail and depositing my feet on deck.
“I want to take you somewhere. I want to get there before the storm hits.” He looks me up and down, and I can only imagine how I look right now. I slipped only his shirt over my naked body before leaving the room to find him, and my waves are tangled from the wind. My cheeks heat as I glance down, finding my bare legs and at the way open buttons expose the curve of my breasts. Anyone could havewoken and seen way more of me than I would be comfortable with, especially when we aren’t swimming.
“While I love seeing you in my shirt,” he says, his eyes gliding up and down my body, catching on the exposed skin of my chest and causing desire to throb between my thighs, “we need to get you some pants first.”
CHAPTER TEN
Thick storm clouds blanket the sky when we leave the ship, making it difficult to tell how late in the night it is. From the absence of any noise or movement in the ship, it can’t be anywhere close to sunrise. Weston refuses to tell me where we are headed, but as we weave through the tunnels it becomes clear, especially with the cutout in the rock ahead of us.
Lightning fractures the sky, lighting up the dark fissure over the Oasis as the storm gets closer, although the winds don’t seem to pierce the magic that keeps this place hidden. The tiny paradise is so different from the last time we were all here. There’s no chaos or looming sadness following Jorn’s incident. Instead, it’s quiet and calm as Weston leads me across the soft beach toward the far rock wall. He grips my hand as we ascend a set of steps carved into the stone. They aren’t hidden, but they aren’t obvious either, unlike the ones I watched Fin climb repeatedly before jumping into the pool below.
“There’s more to the Oasis?” I ask, trying to peer past his broad frame to see where the steps lead.
“Not much more. We mainly stay below. I don’t know if anyone else has even discovered this yet, but I found it one day. Sometimes I come here when I can’t sleep.”
“So it’s fine for you to put yourself at risk and leave the ship alone in the middle of the night, but no one else can?” I raise my eyebrows in a challenge, and he glances over his shoulder at me, smirking.
“I’m the captain.”
I roll my eyes, and his chuckle echoes off the stone walls.
“You didn’t have to come alone. I’m sure Jorn would have gladly come with you,” I say as I take the last step before the stone flattens, the pathway curving around a bend and opening into a cavern. Jagged rock walls surround us, and stalactites drip from overhead into a pool below, but that isn’t what makes me suck in a breath.
The far side of the cavern is open, and the pool flows over the wall, dropping off the cliff into the sea below. And theview. The sea expands before us, and the never-ending waves disappear off into the dark horizon. The storm brings a different feeling to it, an exhilarating power as the lightning cracks in the distance, but I can only imagine what it looks like from here with clear skies and the suns dipping below the skyline.
