Page 101 of Midnightsong
A long pause sat at Kaden’s end. “You’re right. But that doesn’t hide my meaning.”
Angie rested two fingers over the seaflute’s smooth, cold body, imagining it was Kaden’s soft skin she was touching. “Speaking of your family. How’s Cyrus?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like he’s getting better, others, he seems to regress. But when he’s healed and it’s safe for us to see each other again, I can take you to see him?”
“I’d like that. But maybe have another mer give me breath?”
“I hope by the time that happens, I’ll be healed.” Kaden’s voice sounded far away.
“Howareyou doing?”
“Marginally better. Still can’t swim too fast or for too long, and I’ve been doing my best not to use magic.” Another moment of silence. “I’ve also been thinking a lot about what would happen if I succeeded in taking the throne.”
“Talk to me,” Angie urged him.
“I’m terrified the queendom is too divided and Uncle Saeryn did too much damage for me to repair. I miss my parents terribly. I wish Cyrus was able-bodied. I fear for Queen Cassia and King Varin in our sister queendom. I have no guidance with ruling, and that’s likely my own fault for not paying more attention to their lessons; I assumed they were for Cyrus anyway. He’s been teaching me, but I’m sure it won’t compare to having tobeking. I only do this for the mer, since Adrielle can’t take the position. Nor would I ask her to with her responsibilities.”
Ancestors, Angie couldn’t imagine how it must feel for him to be carrying his thoughts around like rocks weighing his mind. “It can’t be easy for her with Cyrus sick and two babies,” she replied. “Hmm. All this talk is making me miss you more.”
“Do you–do you think we could try to meet up? Even if I could see your beautiful face, gaze into your eyes for the briefest of moments...” He stopped. “No, we can’t. It’s not safe and I would never forgive myself if I put you in danger.”
Angie took a deep breath and filled her lungs to the fullest. “You’ve changed a lot in the past few months. I understand it has to be this way, but I hate that I can’t see you.”
“Our time will come, and it will be so much sweeter when it does.” His tone was sultry, laced with warm honey. “But that doesn’t mean we have to deny ourselves tonight.”
Angie’s fingers curled around her oversized night shirt’s hem, sliding it up her legs. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Forty-Four
Kaden
They wereabsolutelythinking the samethings.
Kaden rolled to his side and used his tail to back himself against one side of his hammock. He imagined she was there with him, her soft lips grazing his, the brush of her breasts against his chest. A fiery blaze raced through him. “Angie, you hold entirety of my heart and soul, and I can’t take all the politics and insanity anymore.” The fire spread, and he dropped his hand to his pelvic fins. “I want nothing more than to lose myself in you.”
“I’m thinking about when you were here last. The way you touched me, kissed me. The way you use your hands and your lips.” She spoke in between quickening breaths. Angie’s voice was ragged, her breaths hitching. “How you know exactly where to put your hands and fingers and tongue to send my heart racing.”
Kaden’s heart raced and he moved his hand to the thickened scales between his pelvic fins, and he strained to break free of them. He let himself go, filling his hand. Ecstatic shudders raced haphazardly through his veins and nerves, and he imagined it was Angie’s hand working him, and he let out a throaty moan.
“Keep going. Tell me what you would be doing with me.” A soft whimper from her.
Goddess. The sensations rushed to his head, and he firmed his grip, his body pulsing and nerves shooting in jagged spurts.
“Anything. Everything. Feeling your warmth on my hand, my mouth, and imagining myself enveloped in you...” He let himself descend into bliss, his pleasure riding and building higher and higher on the husky timbre of Angie’s voice and luscious words.
The seas felt unbearably hot when Kaden awoke.
No, it wasn’t the sea. It was him; his blood still warmed from hearing Angie’s voice.
Still wrapped in euphoria, Kaden moved away from his hammock.
He stopped at the palace archives; he made the two seamile trek there, pausing at the pantries for a kelp and salted sea grapes.
He hesitated when a wiggling motion caught his attention from below. The sentries had gathered a litany of information, but he had to know for himself if there was something they missed. That couldn’t have been all there was to Saeryn’s records.
A dull pink and black-spotted creature with a paddled tail slithered on a rock under him, meandering between corals and making their way to the seafloor.
The mangman stopped and looked in his direction and Kaden backed away. Slime was already emerging from their sides, and he didn’t want to be in their way when they finally decided to expel their mucus.
