Page 91 of Aïdes the Unseen
He didn’t speak, not right away.
I saw the war inside him, etched into the lines of his face, carved into the tension in his jaw. The want, yes. But behind it, something darker. Something clawing at the edges of him.
"Are you sure?" he murmured, so low I barely heard it. Not because he doubted me. He doubted himself. The flash of insight carried nothing but certainty. This wasn't just a man giving in to desire. This was a creature carved out of myth, who had lived with fire under his skin for so long he was terrified of burning me.
But I couldn’t let him hesitate. Not now. Not when I finally understood what I wanted, even if I didn’t understandeverything else. Not when the pull between us felt older than names and stronger than fear. Despite what he believed, I had nothing to fear from Graven.
I looked up at him and asked the only thing I needed to know. “Areyousafe here?”
Some part of me, some rational, flickering shard, remembered the way we’d arrived. How the air had crumpled and bent around us like space itself folded. How he’d whisked usaway from the confrontation at the cafe with nothing but a look and a whisper of power.
Magic.
Something else.
Something more.
But I refused to focus on that.
I was too full of him. Of this.
“Yes,” he said. There was something in his voice, low and molten and dark enough to scrape against the edge of danger. “We’re safe.”
It wasn’t a promise. It was a warning. A warning not just to anyone who might come for us, but to anyone whowould dare.
May all that was holy help me, itignitedme.
Before I could second guess it, I pulled my shirt off in one smooth motion and tossed it aside. I didn’t look away. I didn’t flinch.
His breath stilled.
I reached for him again, my voice steady now, sure in a way my soul hadn’t been in days.
“Yes. I’m sure. I want this.” I curled my fingers into his shirt. “I wantyou.” I leaned in. “And I want itright now.”
Even the puppy, curled in a ball near the corner of the room, didn’t stir. As if the world itself knew this was a moment that couldn’t be broken.
A growl—not quite human—rumbled from Graven’s chest.
He surged up from the floor and swept me into his arms with a force that made the breath catch in my lungs, and before I could blink, he was carrying me toward the shadows of his bedroom.
We didn’t look back.
The door slammed shut behind us with a thrum that echoed in my bones, but I barely registered it. Graven’s mouth was on mine again before the sound faded, a collision of want andwildness. He kissed like he was trying to memorize me—no,markme—as if each brush of his lips could anchor me to this moment, tohim.
I clung to him, wrapping my legs around his waist as his hands found the backs of my thighs, holding me like I weighed nothing. But to him, I knew I wasn’t light. I was everything. I could feel it in the way he carried me. Reverent. Desperate.
He laid me on the bed like I was something sacred, and then justlookedat me.
That stare undid me more than anything else. It wasn’t hunger, not entirely. It was worship. Awe. A grief so deep it had nowhere to go but through his fingertips.
His hand trembled as he brushed my hair from my cheek. “You don’t know what this means,” he whispered.
“I don’t care,” I whispered back.
He bent to kiss the hollow of my throat, and I felt his restraint like iron shackles—held so tight, it nearly shook him. His lips moved over my collarbone, then lower, tender in a way that cracked something raw and trembling inside me.
It wasn’t just passion.
