Page 108 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Holt hummed. “Something like that.” He rounded the crates, arms wrapping around her and his mouth finding hers, Zylah’s fingers knotting in his hair as her lips parted for him.

It wasn’t wine he thirsted for. Zylah echoed the sentiment, her tongue sliding against his before he nipped at her lower lip, a hand brushing down her body and resting over her core.

Holt’s affirmation slid down her spine.It’s you I need to taste.

And then they were moving through the aether, the kiss turning into something wilder, hungrier, neither of them pulling away when they reappeared wherever Holt had taken them to. It didn’t matter. She trusted him to take her anywhere. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were glazed, chest heaving, raw devotion written across his face. He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, his thumb tracing her cheek and her swollen lips, emotion thick in the air between them.

The pain of almost losing him was still too real, too raw for what she knew was coming. “Don’t,” Zylah whispered, her voice a rasp, her chest heaving just as much as his as she braced herself for whatever he was about to say. “Don’t make this a goodbye.” They’d had far too many of those already.

“I would never break one of our rules,” Holt told her, the corner of his mouth tipping up a fraction.

No dying on each other. Zylah punched him in the arm and was met with solid muscle against her fist. “Not funny.”

He took her hands in his, healing magic pouring from him to her as he kissed her knuckles, all traces of humour gone. A soft blue light made his hair seem inky black, his eyes almost navy as they scanned her face. “There’s so much I want for you, Zylah. So many experiences you deserve to have. So much living to be done.”

“Holt, please.” A lump formed in Zylah’s throat, but she shoved it down. She knew what he was doing. Why he was doing it. There was every possibility none of them would walk away from the palace, a thought that had followed Zylah day and night.

“This isn’t a goodbye,” he told her gently. “I think we’re long past those, anyway.” He took a step back, waving a hand at the little space they occupied; Zylah followed his gaze. They were in the bell tower above the tavern where they’d lived together, the blue tinge of the orblights that lit up the façade bleeding through the open archways, the Pedlar’s Charm far below. Chain ivy wove around the pillars holding up the tower, stitching itself through cracks in the stone. It looked like living lace, turning the tired old spire into something wild and beautiful.

“Perfect,” Zylah murmured, fingers reaching out reflexively to brush over the dark green foliage.

“I always wanted to bring you here, and on so many nights…” Holt said, following her as she trailed the chain ivy. She studied his face, the anguish written there. He thought he’d never get the chance. Because of Jesper’s compulsion. Because of the life he’d resigned himself to. Because of the vanquicite in her back.

A dip of his chin was all the confirmation he gave. “I never thought I’d see the other side of this. But then I met you.” Zylah pressed a hand over his heart as he spoke. “When I told you living here with you was the first time I felt like I had a home, I meant it.” His brows pinched together for a moment, his arms wrapping around her. “I didn’t think you’d want to go back to the tavern, but I wanted to give you something that’s just yours for a few hours before we have to face everything tomorrow brings. A night away from dark tunnels and soldiers and rations.”

“I thought you said this isn’t goodbye,” she whispered, tilting her face up to his.

“It isn’t.”But it was never about living forever, remember?

Just living free.Zylah hummed as he pressed a kiss to her lips.

I promise we’ll find each other, Zylah, no matter what happens.He deepened their kiss, his tongue finding hers, pulling her body flush against his, the strength of his love easing some of her apprehension. He was afraid too, but he didn’t try to hide it from her. And she knew whatever met them at the palace, they would face it. Together.

Holt backed her up against the parapet, nipping at her bottom lip and tracing kisses along her jaw to her ear, murmuring words of devotion against her skin, kissing her until her fear melted away. This was exactly what she’d needed, and he’d known it. The location, the space, the air, him. He couldn’t have chosen a more perfect place.

“Look,” he breathed against her lips and she turned in his arms, her body flush against his, their ragged breath clouding the air. Together they looked out across the city, dark and quiet in a way it never had been when they’d lived in the tavern. The sky was clear and bright with stars, and even the palace lights in the distance looked beautiful against the inky night. Only there was nothing beautiful about what lay within its walls.

A little of Zylah’s fear still lingered, but not as all-consuming as it was before, replaced instead by Holt’s steadfast resolve that whatever happened, they would find each other at the end of it, just as they always had. His magic rippled over her skin in response, her threads rising to meet it, her body arching into his at the sensation.

“Something that’s just mine,” she murmured, heat simmering beneath her skin.

Holt’s hands trailed her body, raw need in each of the kisses he traced against her neck, in every brush of his fingers over her centre, stroking, teasing.

I want all of you,she rasped in his thoughts, the last of her fear snuffed out and replaced with white-hot need as the thick, hard length of him pressed against her backside.

Here?he asked, one hand lifting her tunic, the other sliding inside her trousers and finding her wet and wanting. The low rumbling sound of approval he made had her pressing her thighs together, her breaths turning into pants as he slid two fingers inside her.

Now,she rasped in his thoughts, a whimper escaping her as he moved his thumb in slow circles over the most sensitive part of her, his fingers sliding in and out deliciously slowly as an aching pressure had her writhing against him for more.

“Hands on the wall,” he commanded. “And don’t let go.” Zylah did as he asked, the need to reach back and feel him warring with the desire to do as he asked. “Just for you,” he murmured in response to her thoughts, his other hand curling around her throat to hold her against him as his fingers and thumb moved faster.

He was rock hard behind her, hips rocking against her as he coaxed her pleasure from her, her body coiling tighter in his arms. Zylah would never tire of the way his body responded to hers, the way they drove each other deeper into a frenzy of scorching need and desire. The way his soul spoke to hers, their bond so taut between them it had tears pressing at the corners of her eyes.

The rough stone bit into her fingers, her breaths clouding in front of her with each of her broken gasps, that delicious pressure building and building until she came apart in his arms and he held her through all of it.

Zylah could hear him removing his belt with his other hand, felt the evening air nip at her skin as he slid her tunic higher, fingers easing out of her to pull her trousers down her legs. He nudged them apart with a knee, and she knew he was pausing to take in the view. Her fingers twitched with the aching necessity to take him in her hand, but he still hadn’t told her she could let go of the wall, and she loved being like this, being utterly and completely at his mercy.

“So fucking beautiful,” he murmured against her neck, his warm breath dancing over the shell of her ear. He eased into her slowly and they both groaned at the tight fit, both of them panting and trembling when he filled her to the hilt.

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