Page 22 of Each Their Own Devil

“I have to agree with that, dove. Your instincts have always been your strongest asset. The Otherlanders are not typically known for their faith—quite the opposite, really—but I have faith in you.”

“I don’t have faith in myself.”

“Faith in yourself is the only kind of faith worth having. Come on. Let’s go home. We should be well-rested for whatever is to come tomorrow.”

“What about them?” she asked, nodding to a group of soldiers consoling each other on the field.

“Let’s give them their privacy.”

When Nicolas kissed her next,the bond between them throbbed with pain. It was a beautiful pain—the kind that only existed when Aleja knew she had something precious to lose. As they had returned to the palace wordlessly from the battlefield, she had been unable to keep herself from reaching for him; the fight had been enough to make her forget about the Messengerand the Second and the whole damn Avaddon. All that remained was what she was fighting for.

When she kissed him back, it wasn’t with tenderness. She wanted Nicolas to hurt as much as she did, and he seemed to welcome it. Her teeth clamped down on his lip, and he groaned in response. He reacted with a nip of his own, but Aleja didn’t shrink from the sting. She surged into it, as if pain were the only language they both understood.

Nicolas pulled her closer, his skin burning. They weren’t on the battlefield, but their bedroom felt like one.

“What do you need, dove?” Nicolas asked, as he pulled away from her mouth to trail rough kisses down her throat.

Aleja couldn’t answer—she didn’t know—but the marriage bond seemed to communicate for her. Nicolas turned her by the shoulders until her back was pressed against his chest, forcing her legs open with his knee. One hand remained on her hip, the other trailed between her legs, dragging a moan out of her. It seemed impossible for her to be so eager for this when there was such heaviness in her, but Nicolas washereand so was she, and that could change at any moment. And if that was the case, then she had to pour as much love into him as she could while she still had time.

“Like this,” she muttered. “Fuck me like this.”

“Hands on the bed.”

He left her briefly to reposition their bodies. A moment later, she felt the pressure of his shaft between her legs as his fingers returned to her clit. The ache of him pushing into her was so welcome, so familiar, that she sighed with the relief of it. “Fuck me hard, Nic. Don’t hold back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

It seemed impossible for him to pull her closer, but he did, until even the backs of her thighs were pressed against him. Shehad to use strength to keep his first thrust from pushing her onto the bed, but she found her rhythm a second later, arching into him. She had never been able to come like this before, but the pressure on her clit and the fullness of him made her feel like something was being drawn out of her. Aleja didn’t try to fight it. It would have been as useless as fighting the beat of her own heart.

She said something out loud without being sure what it was. Nic’s name, perhaps, or a word in the ancient language of their kingdom by the sea. With it, came a slow explosion that started low in her stomach, moving through her in pulses.

She had opened herself to the marriage bond without entirely meaning to, and Nicolas’s deep sigh was evidence enough that he had picked up the sensation himself.

It bounced between them, amplified each time it moved through the bond. Sparks danced at the tips of Aleja’s fingers—accidental magic. It had been months since she had last lost control. Nicolas’s shadows clamped down on them, but then his control slipped as well, unable to keep himself from climaxing either. As if they were extensions of his hands, those shadows raced across her body, as she felt his orgasm both inside and outside of herself.

“Aleja,” he gasped.

Three syllables that wavered in the air, as if they were an unholy blessing.

“Good job, Wrath,”Orla said. It was one of the nicest things the Dark Saint of Envy had ever said to Aleja. The reaction wasslightly more subdued than Taddeas’s, who scooped her into a hug so crushing it might have collapsed a lung if she weren’t a Dark Saint.

Aleja and Orla’s brief camaraderie dissolved as soon as they returned to the palace, where Amicia and Bonnie had been preparing defenses for a battle that had never come. Bonnie’s eyes met Aleja’s just long enough to ask a silent question: had she seen Violet?

Aleja’s brief head shake was met with an expression so complicated that she couldn’t begin to make sense of it.

“I don’t like this,” Orla said. “That troop was disorganized. The Messenger isn’t above making sacrifices, but it’s not like her to send mages to the slaughter. They never had a chance of taking the palace. If this was her push to get her son back, it was a miserable attempt.”

Aleja decided not to point out that this critique canceled out Orla’s earlier compliment. “What if it was a distraction?”

“It’s possible, but to what aim? They didn’t attack any other front when they had the chance. All they did was lose two Thrones and a handful of mages. Our scouts haven’t reported any other breaks in the wards.”

The unmistakable rustle of Nicolas’s wings interrupted their conversation, the twin peaks casting jagged shadows across the ground as he approached.

“Where did the librarians go, Knowing One?” Orla asked without missing a beat. She had always had a talent for making someone feel cornered with her words.

“I sent them away,” he replied.

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