Page 22 of The Phoenix Inheritance

Dane

Whether it’s only been a couple minutes or a few hours, I still feel like the King of the universe. The black around us is leaving way to brilliant strokes of gold, so that means I don’t have much time left before I need to trudge back to Østrom. I don’t want to. I want to make love to Isobel again and again, until half of this burning thirst she awakens in me is quenched.

Earlier this evening I drained down Uncle Thorsten’s potion like a drunkard because for a few blissful moments, it made me feel good about myself. Every time I’m filled with the belief that I’ll finally become what I’m meant to be, only to be disappointed when nothing happens.

But now I want to get drunk on Isobel. She didn’t kill the despair in me for a few short-lived seconds – she cut off one of the monster’s heads for good. Not that my wretchedness won’t creep back the moment I set foot in the fort. But deep down, I know that something about her sweet surrender stitched back a few of my wounds, and I’ll leave the Solenz a more whole man than when I came.

I gaze at her slight form stretched out beside me, a tangle of flimsy white fabric and pale, naked skin. My cock stirs. Fortunately – or unfortunately – enough of my common sense has come back for me to realize that pressing her for a second time wouldn’t be the most considerate thing to do.

So instead I lazily trail an index over her soft cheeks, her delicate collarbone, the slight swell of her breasts and that terrible gash. My finger tenses over the mutilated and greyish expanse of skin. I hate her scar, yet it feels wrong to hate any part of Isobel, broken or not.

As my hand rests over her lower stomach, a sudden thought courses through me.

“Isobel!” I gasp, and her lids flutter open. “Do you think we…”

Her gaze drops to the telltale place where I’m touching her. A twinkle of humor enters those huge brown eyes that seem to haunt me even when she’s nowhere near.

“I’m not that way, you worrywart,” she murmurs with a hint of laughter in her voice. “It’s impossible for me.”

For some reason, my heart drops as the vague visions of Isobel rocking a tiny bundle in her arms are swept away. Having a baby now wouldn’t be a good move by any means. We’re both of age by society’s standards, but I don’t even want to think of the nightmare it would cause with my family. Yet a twinge of disappointment still finds its way into my chest.

“Why?” I croak. “Is it because of this?”

The mirth in her brown beams dwindles slightly as she fleetingly glances at my thumb, gently caressing her mangled flesh. She nods.

“Tell me.”

Her lips curl into a wistful smile. “Not now. I want this to last just a little longer.”

I’m about to insist, but a soft beam of light illuminates her face and I understand her words. As much as we fumbled to arrive at this moment, there isn’t one hesitation, one blunder that I’d change if it brought us here. Isobel doesn’t want the scar on her stomach to slash tonight’s perfection away, and neither do I. So I let my protest die and press a kiss to her temple instead, savoring the feel of her downy skin on my lips.

“Another time then,” I grunt.

We lie like that, on top of the world – or her roof, to be exact – until the Solenz lake looks like it’s been sprinkled with fairy dust. I wince at the turn of my thoughts. Don’t let Warwick catch you saying anything so sappy, I lecture myself.

I sigh heavily, cursing the universe for letting the sun rise so soon. “I have to go home.”

For some reason Isobel finds my foul mood amusing. She laughs as she tucks a finger into the corner of my mouth and stretches it into a grin.

“Of course you do. No need to get so sour over something that’s inevitable.”

The mere sensation of her touch makes me smile. “I’ll be back.” I sweep a last glance over the beautiful form she let me discover tonight. The stiffening in my crotch area makes me croak: “Soon.”

For an instant it seems like she’ll refuse, her lips already forming an unequivocal ‘no’. But something about the look on my face makes her change her mind. Isobel crawls up until she sits cross-legged, tugging her gown down to her ankles in the process.

I repress a groan. I’ll miss the sight of her gorgeous bare self, but there’s a time for everything, I suppose.

“There’s nothing I’d love more,” she tells me so earnestly it makes my heart squeeze.

I want to push her back down and kiss her senseless, but then I’m afraid I may not get up again until nighttime. So I shoot her a stern glance while I tug my clothes back on, hoping to wash away the doubt lurking in her brown eyes.

“If you don’t see me tomorrow, then I’ll be here the day after,” I pledge earnestly.

She beams, and damn the mawkish bard she’s unleashed in me, but her smile is even more glorious than the morning sun.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

And that’s how much of the following weeks went by. I knocked on Isobel’s door almost every day, until her cottage started to feel like a second home. On each of my visits we made love – but we also did so much more. Things I never thought I’d enjoy. Planting a vegetable patch, climbing trees for eggs or just looking for shapes in the clouds.

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