Page 183 of The Demon Tide

Jules lets out a sultry laugh at this. “Well, it’s high time we put an end to that.”

Lucretia returns his heated look. “Agreed.”

An affectionate gleam lights his eyes. “I’m teasing you, you know.” He reaches up, his fingertips gently skimming the edge of her jaw, his expression warmly serious. “It’s an honor to be your first.”

“Andonly,” Lucretia adamantly states, the events of the world clamoring at the edges of their happy Xishlon moment.

A shadow passes over Jules’s features, his caress of her cheek stilling as his expression grows ardent. “That would be my fondest wish.”

Lucretia returns his passionate look, then glances at Jules’s messy, unmade bed, suddenly nervous. Yet ready to cross this threshold after so many years of wanting him.

Clearly noticing her hesitancy and where her gaze is drawn, Jules pulls her into a closer embrace and kisses her temple as he rubs a deft line down her spine. “I’ll treat you with care, Lu.”

The threats bearing down on the Realm are suddenly rearing up inside her. “Don’t,” she counters, moving back a fraction to meet his gaze, acutely aware of what a bright, shining, and possibly tenuous thing this moment is. “I’m not fragile,” she insists. “And Vogel’s coming for all of us. So, don’t hold back. I want to knowexactlyhow much you’ve wanted me all these years.”

Jules studies her, his brow creasing. “Are you sure?”

Lucretia nods as heat blooms all along her skin, eddying through her lines. “Show me what you’ve imagined during all those late nights together.”

Jules lets out a short laugh, looking at her now with a speculative heat. There’s a stronger hunger in his eyes, like a curtain has been brushed away, and it sends a swift current of desire straight to her toes.

Ah, Lucretia thinks.I always imagined there was more to you than the private, contained Jules.She’s seen hints of it, this passion in him. Fleeting looks through the curling steam of the tea that sent quick flares of heat through her—looks always so quickly composed she’d find herself wondering if she’d imagined them.

She glances at his bed again. At the pile of books on the bed table beside it and the two strewn on the covers—two books she recently gifted him. Military histories of the Realms, one written by a Zhilon’ile Wyvern, one by a Noi sorceress.

A warmer current runs through her.

How she loves hismind.His delicious mind, the two of them having been on such an intimate level with each other intellectually for years now. Staying up all night sometimes, over steaming pots of tea, lost in heated discussions about history, philosophy, religion. But always keeping that careful distance.

Lucretia moves closer to Jules. “What is it you want?”

Jules reaches up and begins to slowly undo the buttons down the front of her lavender floral Xishlon tunic. The sound of their deepened breathing against the backdrop of sinuous, muffled drumbeats stokes a feverish, anticipatory heat in Lucretia.

Jules coaxes her tunic open, his brown eyes meeting hers for a brief, searing moment, before his gaze slides back to her thin, lavender camisole edged with embroidered violets. Jules stills as he takes in the curves of her breasts, visible through the slightly translucent fabric. He lets out a shuddering breath, his gaze becoming blurred with longing.

Their eyes meet and heat ignites to fire.

Lucretia pulls Jules in at the same time he grabs hold of her, his lips claiming hers with such urgency, warmth shoots straight through her lines. She clutches his worn, woolen shirt as he deepens the kiss, his tongue brushing hers in such a surprisingly seductive way her knees threaten to buckle as she realizes that quiet, intellectual Jules is fiendishly skilled with his tongue. Ocean waves of want break through her lines, his hands all over her now, frantically unbuttoning her camisole as she unbuttons his shirt with trembling fingers.

A huge explosion rattles the walls. They break the kiss, their eyes widening at each other.

Together they rush to the window...to find war has come to the Eastern Realm.

Lucretia blinks at the nightmarish scene, her throat clenching as Wyvernguard alarm horns blare and she takes in the gash along the top of the Vo Mountain Range, the line of gray runes above it, the tide of darkness flowing down.

“Oh, gods,” Lucretia murmurs, horrified as the moon’s purple light begins to fade. “I thought we had time.”

“Vogel was in the mountains all along,” Jules says flatly. Their eyes meet with a look of grim, mutual reckoning.

A chorus of shrieks sound from the mountain as broken dragons pour from the exploded peak, the crowds outside beginning a panicked flight away from the harbor.

A veil of cold purpose descends over Lucretia, water magic rising as her shock gives way to that familiar, hardened rebellion. Rapidly rebuttoning her clothing, she turns, picks up her wand, and holds out her free hand to Jules as a distinctive Vu Trin alarm sounds.

“That’s my battalion’s call,” she says. “Come with me. I’ve more than enough water magery to kill dragons.”

Jules grins as his gaze takes on a fierce light. “Well, it’s a good thing, Lucretia, since I can’t do much but throw a book at them.”

Lucretia returns his smirk, amazed they can be joking at a time like this, the two of them always having possessed an odd talent to default to extreme calm in the midst of the most horrible situations.

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