Page 98 of Kissed By the Gods
I don’t understandwhy sometimes I slide into the darkness and sometimes I fight it. Some nights, it claws at me—smoke and shadow and screams I desperately want to forget.
But tonight … tonight, I slide. No resistance. No fear. Just a surrender to something quieter, softer. And when the darkness clears, I’m not in Sol’vaelen, or a field of wheat, or back in the ruins of home.
I’m in Ryot’s tent … or at least, something like it.
The sensation of the furs beneath me is familiar even if it’s not quite real. The space smells like him—leather, cinnamon, and salt. I’m naked, stretched out on his bedroll, my body warm and thrumming like it already knows what's coming. I’m already touching myself, slowly, lazily, not in a hurry to chase the heat building under my skin—only to savor it.
The flap opens, and Ryot steps inside. His eyes find me instantly—those deep, storm-dark eyes going wide and raw with need and possession. He moves quickly, snapping the tent closed behind him with a hard tug.
“Master,” I whisper, breathless. I don’t know why I’m not surprised to see him here.
His eyes burn into mine as I freeze beneath his gaze, my fingers going still. There’s a moment, suspended in silence, where I could pretend to be embarrassed, to cover myself. But I don’t. I can’t. Because I want him to see me.
He brings his eyes from where my fingers play, tracing a path up my body until his eyes burn into mine. “You’re the master here, rebel girl.”
He drops to his knees, and crawls toward me. “Don’t stop,” he says, his voice rough and low. “Don’t you dare stop.”
I should feel scandalized, but I don’t. I’mpowerful.
I circle my fingers again, slow and deliberate. I drop my eyes to watch my hand, but he growls low in his throat. “Eyes on me, rebel girl. You watch me when you stroke yourself. You think of me.”
“I always do.” My heart stutters at the truth of it.
He shakes his head. He’s already between my thighs, sliding his hands up to their juncture, pinning me to the furs with reverent strength. “I know,” he murmurs.
His mouth is on me before I can speak again, and my body bows in answer. Heat rolls through me. He licks with long, leisurely strokes, tasting me. My hands tangle in his hair—gods, I don’t even know when I grabbed him—and I hold on because the world might disappear if I don’t.
He watches me while he works me apart. Eyes dark, demanding, worshipful. Every flick of his tongue builds me higher. Every press of his fingers brings me closer. And when I come, it’s with a cry that shakes me open—something real and terrifying in its intensity. Something very not-a-dream. He groans and presses his mouth onto my stomach, breathing hard. I carve my fingers through his hair, still shuddering, and it hits me—how tender this feels.
How dangerous this is.
“I don’t know what you’re doing in my dreams again,” I say, breaking the silence. “I usually dream of darkness or fire. The screams of the dying or the silence of the dead.”
“Mine are the same. Dreams are where the dead live,” he says, voice muffled against my skin. He’s unbearably sad in that moment, until he flashes me a wicked grin. “This is better.”
The darkness twirls around my ankles, wrapping around my feet with phantom fingers. Has it come to take me away? I tense.
“Do I need to give you another orgasm to make that worried look go away?” he teases.
I laugh. Soft, breathy, surprised. “That’s what Faelon said I needed, too.”
His smile drops. His whole body tenses. “Faelon is not for you.”
His fierceness distracts me from the shadowed fingers that have twirled around my wrists. “What?”
“If he so much as looks at you like this, I’ll kill him.”
It should scare me, the possessiveness in his voice. But it doesn’t. Not here. Not in this place. I shake my head, still laughing. “No, not like that. He said he wants to take me to a brothel. The Crimson Feather.”
Ryot crawls up my body, wraps me in his arms, and buries his face in my neck. He breathes deeply, inhaling my scent.
“The Crimson Feather is not for you, either,” he growls.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around him.
“I can try,” he says, a laugh in his voice. “At least here, I can try.”
Here. In this place that’s not real—where nothing is real, not even us. Only darkness. Here, the rules don’t exist.
