Page 80 of Daughter Of The Ninth Line
Embarrassment flooded my cheeks. Was he regretting the kiss? Was I bad? I narrowed my eyes, hiding my self-consciousness behind bravado that felt like a mask. “Why did you bring me out here then, Hayle Taeme?”
His eyes were running across my face again, and he slumped down on the blanket beside me, gathering my stiff body into his side until I was tucked along his own like I belonged there. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel it too?”
His rock-hard bicep that I was using as a pillow? I felt that. The way he curled my body over his so my hand was resting on his abs, and my knee was resting on his thigh? Those things I felt down to my core. But I didn’t think that was what he meant. I had a feeling I knew, but I didn’t want to guess and look like an idiot. Because what if he didn’t mean this thrumming energy in my chest? I would be devastated.
“Feel what?” I asked lightly.
Grunting softly, he tugged me until I was blanketed over his body. “This connection between us. This feeling like fate has put us together, that we’re meant to be one.”
My thighs slid to either side of his waist as I pushed up to look down at him. I did feel those things. Like a golden string was attached from my chest to his.
Vox Vylan’s face appeared in my mind. I felt that draw to him too. How did I tell Hayle that I felt that connection too, but notjustfor him?
Maybe we were feeling different things.
Maybe I just had wind?
But when he buried his hands in my hair and pulled me down to kiss me again, I realized that it wasn’t gas or any other bodily function causing this. It felt like my soul was reaching for him; there was no denying it.
I just had to work out why it was reaching for Vox Vylan too, and who I was supposed to choose.
And I had to choose, right?
We kissed and kissed, as the sun set and the stolts returned to their burrows, and the calls of the day birds gave way to the night creatures. Until I knew the taste of his lips, the feel of his body, the sounds of his pleasure.
He stopped me from taking it further, though. He twined my fingers in his when I tried to unbutton his pants and pulled my hands up until they were caught between our bodies.
Finally, the cold was permeating the air, making me shiver, and Hayle pulled back. He looked… ruffled. His lips were swollen, even as they curled into a satisfied smirk, his eyes hooded and his hair standing up at odd angles.
“I could kiss you forever,” he murmured, brushing a hand down my back. “But we should get back.”
Nodding, I rolled away from him, curling up on stiff muscles. Hayle glided to his feet like he hadn’t spent who even knew how long pressed between my body and the hard ground. Reaching down, he lifted me to my feet with ease. I stood as he gathered up the blanket, along with the remnants of food—which had some suspiciously Epsy-shaped nibbles around the edges—and put it all back in the pack.
Wrapping my hand in his larger one, he walked us slowly back toward the gates of Boellium War College. I ran my hand down my hair, trying to smooth it so I didn’t look like I’d spent the better part of the afternoon dry humping in the woods like a horny rabbit.
As we stepped through the gates, I expected Hayle to drop my hand, but he didn’t. He walked beside me, his chin raised and a smirk on his face, no matter how many people turned in our direction to openly stare.
I knew what it was. It was a claiming.
Eyes burned against my skin, and when I looked up at the second floor of the atrium, I could see Vox staring down at me, his expression turned down into a frown. My heart clenched in my chest, but I pushed the feeling down. I meant nothing to Vox Vylan, and he meant nothing to me.
Liar,my brain rebelled. I didn’t understand it, but I was drawn to the Heir of the First Line the same way I was drawn to Hayle. No, not the same, but equally as intensely.
As we walked down the stairs toward my dorm room, I pushed thoughts of Vox from my mind. That wasn’t fair to Hayle, who’d just given me the happiest afternoon of my life.
Stopping outside my door, Hayle leaned down, kissing me gently once more. I gripped his shirt in my fist and leaned back. “Hayle?”
“Mmm, yes, Avie?”
I smiled at the nickname. I didn’t think anyone had ever given me one. Though Father had called me a murderous demon regularly, I doubted that counted.
“I feel it too,” I whispered, and he sighed happily against my lips.
“I know.”
chapter fifty
Vox
