Page 99 of Aïdes the Unseen
“They weren’t all bad,” I promised. “Some of them were almost familiar.”
“How?” He tilted his head, studying me. The lack of artifice or deception warmed me all over again.
“You were in some of them. Sometimes watching. Sometimes waiting. Sometimes you weren’t you at all, but close enough.”
He tugged the rest of the sheet away before he slid an arm beneath my legs and another around my back and lifted me. In one smooth move, he took my place on the bed and settled me in his lap. The heat of him was a drape wrapped around me.
After plucking a fruit from the tray, he held it to my mouth then traced my lips with it, the sensuous act both erotic and loving. I accepted the bite, never taking my gaze from his. I chewed then I swallowed.
“I don’t regret it.” The words came out stronger than I expected. At the furrowing of his brow, I found my own smile. “What happened between us. I don’t want you to mistake anything that comes next. Whatever nightmares, whatever echoes from before,nothing cancels us out.Nothing changesthisbetween us.”
His expression didn’t change, not at first, then something loosened and he let his hand slide down my side to my thigh. “You don’t regret me?”
That he could even ask that question broke my heart.
“Graven,” I promised him in as solemn a voice as I could muster. “If I’m trapped in some mystical loop where gods and titans and shadows without names want to use me as a pawn, then I plan to savor every glorious moment.” I pressed a kiss to the strong column of his throat. “And you areglorious.”
His breath hitched, then he shifted his head even as he wrapped his hand around my throat and tilted my chin. His mouth brushed mine then he kissed me so deeply, I swore he caressed my soul.
The puppy let out a sound of protest, and flopped over dramatically, as if to say,Again? Really?
We broke apart laughing. The sound of Graven’s amusement proved to be a balm I had no idea how desperately I needed until it washed over me.
“We won’t have much time,” Graven whispered, pressing his forehead to mine.
“I know.” I did. I’d woken up knowing. “They’ll come. One way or another.”
“I’ll hold them back for as long as I can,” he murmured. “I’ll fight the cycle, the gods, the dark, and the system—whatever they want to call it. I’ll burn the whole damn thing down to let you choose.”
With care, I touched his cheek and let my thumb linger at the corner of his mouth.
“I already have.”
Chapter
Nineteen
GRAVEN
She said it like a vow.
“I already have.”
For one, endless moment, I let myself believe. Not because I thought it would save us or because I trusted the wheel to stop spinning.
But because she had chosenme, again. She chose with her whole being, and fire in her soul. For the first time in eons, the choice had not been taken from her. I refused to letanyoneoranythingtake it from her again.
I didn’t, couldn’t, speak. Not right away. Instead, I watched her. The tangle of her dark hair, tousled from sex and sleep. Her mouth, still stained with fruit and laughter, stretched into that smile I adored. Even if her face was not that of my love, she gleamed out at me from the sharp defiance in her eyes. All at once, she shone like every sun I’d ever watched rise over the edge of the Underworld.
I wanted to kiss her again.
I wanted to tell her she owed me nothing.
I wanted to show her she never needed to prove her choice with words or bodies or loyalty.
But Gaia help me, I also wanted to keep her. That desire was at war with everything else, so I said nothing. I stayed still. Stillness, I had learned, sometimes slowed the distortions and breaks from spreading.
If we didn’t move, and if we remained inside the moment, maybe the cycle wouldn’t detect that we slipped the leash.
