Page 84 of The Duke and the Disciple

“After everything we’ve done, it’s a few words that worry you?”

Aesylt shrugged against the pillow and turned her eyes toward the ceiling. “I don’t have the experience to know why the pain brings me even more pleasure... why it heightens it.” She rolled her head to face him, her brows fused in earnest, endearing concern. “Am I broken? I am, aren’t I? I’m constructed all wrong. Maybe I was born in the wrong part of the moon cycle. I know you think it’s superstitious nonsense, but I’m telling you, there’s something to it.”

“Broken?” Rahn lay next to her with a reproaching scowl. “Aesylt, don’t be ashamed of what brings you pleasure. Ever. If it’s receiving pain, so be it.” He was hard again.

“And if it’s inflicting pain...” She drilled him with a knowing look.

Rahn averted his eyes with a soft laugh. “I gave that away, didn’t I?”

“I felt you reading me. I read you too.”

“So now I’m readable?”

“Only when your guard is down. Only in the celestial realm.” She laughed. “And you did actually confess it, so...”

Rahn didn’t know how he felt about any of that.

“But would you not say that makes us the perfect pairing for these experiments?” Aesylt propped herself up on one arm, wincing. “There’s nothing I can imagine you doing that I wouldn’t welcome.”

“We should eat. The food is already cold.” He bounced out of the bed, his heart messy at the turn in the conversation.

“You don’t think I know what you’re doing? Do I need to whisk us away to another world so you can face me again?”

Rahn’s hands hovered above the tray. He closed his eyes, stilling. “I don’t know where the boundaries are, Squish. All I know is there aren’t any in the celestial realm. But here... I just don’t know. I’m sorry.”

He heard her slip from his bed, followed by the soft patter of her feet as she went to hers. His chest caved in failure. He’d said the wrong thing, though it had been the full and honest truth.

“Then we’ll speak of it again when we’re in the land of no consequence,” she said, her voice soft and groggy. His heart eased. She wasn’t upset after all. “Good night, Scholar. And thank you. We should misunderstand one another more often if it ends like that.”

Chapter18

Letting the Dark in

SIX WEEKS LATER

As she passed the curtain on her way to the rack, Rahn grabbed Aesylt, drawing a delightful shriek he swiftly sealed with a kiss. An adorable moan rolled up from her throat. She smiled against his mouth before pecking him and sliding away.

“Wouldn’t want to be late for morning meal. First thaw hunt is a taxing day,” she said, then squealed when he palmed her ass from behind to give her one last kiss on the back of her neck. Her stiffness eased off, as her words drifted into a sigh. “Or... We could not eat.”

“I cast my vote for starvation,” Rahn murmured, snapping her back against him.

“With me, you’ll never go hungry, Scholar.” Aesylt winked with an impetuous and utterly calculated drag of her teeth against her bottom lip. The sultry dusk in her eyes lingered a moment longer. She’d never exactly been shy with her desires, but over the past six weeks of exploration, she’d shed every last bit of self-consciousness. She was clever, intoxicating, and insatiable. He wondered if it were possible to be in a state of longing for enough duration to actually die from the effect, but if so, he’d already be in the ground.

Say the words,he nearly demanded, but it was Pieter he was thinking of when he straightened, kissed the corner of her mouth, and said instead, “The gods are testing me today. But you’re right. We still need to visit the blacksmith to seal our notes for the scout as well.”

Pieter had been their “ally” for weeks now, secreting their notes out through his personal scout, who then hand delivered them to the Reliquary in the Easterlands. Helpful Pieter, always ready with a solution to every problem. Rahn had been vehemently against his involvement in any way, until Aesylt showed him the exact method they used to carry messages that required extra safeguard. A metal tube, sealed by fire on each end, that could only be opened once without destroying the container. If tampered with, the Reliquary would know.

It still made Rahn nervous, but Aesylt had insisted she and Pieter had made peace after what had happened that day in the tower. She was smart enough to decide for herself, but he still didn’t trust the man’s helpfulness. It wasn’t jealousy—not anymore. He didn’t think Pieter was interested in Aesylt that way, but the manwasinterested in her work, more than he had any reason to be, and it was worrisome.

If Pieter ever found out what they were actually doing, there’d be war of another kind.

Rahn had lost mental count of how many times he and Aesylt had consummated their work under the hazy light of the celestial skies. Only in his notes, most of which had already been sent off to the Reliquary, did the numbers live. All he knew was the beautiful blur of frozen time and perfect symmetry. Losing himself in the work... in her... watching the soft snow paint the land through the last throes of wintertide, he’d let go of his guilt and embraced every beautiful, torturous moment with her in the land of no consequence.

They’d experimented plenty within the bounds of the final rung, slipping into the ballroom level of their research: mutual release, sex while inebriated, tracking the changes in stimuli during the different phases of the moon, and trialing positions he’d not realized were possible. There were other variables to test, but there was nothing keeping them from ascending to the battlefield level either. She’d made it clear from the beginning that nothing was off-limits, but there were things on the list that seemed dredged from his darkest, most forbidden fantasies. Things he’d never done with any woman.

Rahn would happily drown in the abyss with Aesylt, which was the problem.

“Meet you at the stables, Scholar.” Aesylt snatched the roll of paper with a silly grin and skipped on ahead of him, her pale hair swaying with her hips as she disappeared out the door and down the long steps.

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