Page 178 of A Baron of Bonds
I smiled as tears fell down my cheeks. I traced his with my fingers, cupping his face. “I wish to be able to save this man from any more pain. Somehow, some way, I wish to be able to keep him happy, and safe, and loved.”
The earth stilled. I swore time truly did stop for just a moment. One small moment, before we both heard the last three words on the wind. “I will try.”
The rush of power was great.
Revich’s shoulders dropped. He leaned into me at the same time I felt I could move the stars, which shone brightly in the sky.
His breathing was heavy and mine was expansive, spreading over every treetop, every inch of the space between, through their core, down into the earth, through even the smallest droplet of water as it fell from the tip of a leaf thousands of acres away from where we sat on the ground below my first charred maple tree.
“Rev…” I breathed, the fulfillment of power through me too great in that moment.
“I know.”
“I can…”
“I know.”
I pressed my hands into his chest. “Are you alright?”
He nodded, looking back up at me. “I feel like I’ve been split in two, but otherwise fine.”
My new power begged to be used, begged to be wielded in the forest which synchronized with my every sense of being.
“It needs a release,” he continued. “Something to pull you back down from its force.” He kissed my neck lightly, moving up to the base of my jaw.
“How did you release it before?” I rasped, knowing he was right. I couldn’t keep it here like this inside of me.
“Tears. I kneeled on the steps of the Fortress and wept.”
I closed my eyes and melted into the brush of his thumb across the bottom of my lip, the stroke of his fingers as they slid across my shoulder in a light graze. I sighed, falling onto his mouth, tugging on his lower lip, mumbling, “Let me find a different release, Rev. Let me find it with you.”
I burned. I flew. I saw the entirety of the isle, spread over miles and miles of forest, and marsh, and plains, and mountain.
I held onto him with every ounce of strength I had left, for if I should let go for even one single moment, I would disperse into the wind, forever riding upon it, forever holding no place to land.
His mouth, his hands, the hard length of him inside me kept me grounded, a place in time I could stay and accept all of what I had now become.
The Blightress’s given power and the power of the Baron of Felgren fused and mixed. As I slid my body over Rev’s, each of these parts of me warred and loved, raged and embraced, like two lovers reuniting, forgetting all that had been said and done in what was the past they’d rather forget.
He wrapped an arm around my waist as I felt I could float into the night. He slid his other to the nape of my neck, convincing me to stay with him, keeping me from spreading into the sky as something entirely new, something entirely different than the woman I was.
My power sought more than release. It sought chaos and precision.
The earth underneath our merged bodies rumbled and my hips responded in ravenous pursuit of the one finality over my lover’s body that could ground me, keep me solidified.
He watched my face with love and awe, vigilance and pride.
And as my eyes filled from emerald green to the abyssal black, I knew.
His face was pain, remorse, as if he knew that by my accepting what he offered, he’d lose a little part of me in return.
But I had made a condition. I’d have the power to make him happy, make him whole.
I slammed onto him again, taking it all, closing my eyes and shoving aside all the dark, all the black, my eyes flicking open once more to watch his face as they refilled with brilliant green.
He grinned and I kissed that grin, the roots of the charred maple tree coming to the surface to wind over the earth in a knotted headboard and four sturdy legs.
I grew the grass, I released my power to form a soft mossy pillow under his head. Our bed of the forest held us up off the cold ground, our bodies bare, our bond seeping over our hands, clasped in remembrance of the day we’d bound ourselves together until the day we no longer breathed.
