Page 30 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams
I open my eyes. “How did you know?”
He shrugs. “Just a feeling. And I know you. You’d want to shield her from the worst.”
“Or shield myself,” I say miserably.
He takes my hand, holding it gently in his. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault,” he says.
The certainty in his words splits me open, and the truth comes pouring out.
“I killed him, Leon. I cut his throat myself,” I look away, unable to meet his gaze. “Caledon was torturing Kit—draining his magic away. He did it to me just for a minute, so I could know what it was like. But with Kit…it keptgoingandgoing. He was in agony. And that bastard said he could keep him like that for days, hovering between life and death, unless I talked. I didn’t want him to have to go through that, so I tricked Caledon and ended his life myself. I made it quick, but still…”
I see the life draining from Kit’s eyes—the life I took from him—and I’m too ashamed to look at Leon. He takes my chin and turns my face toward him.
“Look at me,” Leon says sternly. “You did what you had to.”
“But—”
“Don’t you think I’ve done the same myself? When I see a brother- or sister-in-arms on a battlefield, fatally wounded but dying slowly and full of pain, begging for the peace of the Eternal Realm, of course I end it for them. Kit needed mercy in that moment, and you were brave enough to give it. Not everyone can do that. You acted with honor and compassion. You should be proud.”
His words stitch me back up, holding me together just as I was ready to come apart entirely.
“What would I have done, if you hadn’t come for me?” I murmur, mostly to myself.
“You don’t need to ask yourself that,” he says. “Because I’ll always find you.”
“In this world or the waking one,” I finish, echoing the first time he said those words to me.
A dream. I could treat everything that happened to me in Qimorna as a dream. I could let the pain and the memories slip into the dark corners of my mind and stay there, hazy and undefined. I don’t need to bring them out into the light to examine—at least, not yet.
“Kiss me,” I say to Leon, finding my anchor in his endless gray eyes.
He doesn’t hesitate to pull me to him, lifting my chin and claiming my mouth. I sigh into him, letting him merge us together so I no longer have to exist alone in this body. He’s right there with me, sharing heat and touch and taste.
We stumble to the bed without separating. The brush of his lips against my jaw, then my neck and collarbone chases away all the tightness in my throat. I fumble at the buttons on his shirt as he lifts the bottom of my tunic, his fingertips lightly touching my stomach. I stiffen, remembering the last time I was touched there, when my skin was just a checkerboard of open wounds.
“Leon…”
He senses my hesitation but doesn’t pull back. Instead, he slides his whole hand across my stomach, leaving it resting there. I squirm, uncomfortable, but he simply says, “Nothing will stop you being the most beautiful woman in the world to me, Morgana Angevire. Every part of you is precious to me, including your war wounds and scars. Because they are part of you.”
I relent, letting him pull my tunic off me, leaving my stomach exposed. I look down at the silvery lines and pink patches of healed skin. I can see the emotions in his eyes as he takes in the damage, cycling through rage, sorrow, and tenderness. Leon bends his head and kisses me gently just below the navel, trailing soft touches all along the ugly lines of scars.
His hands go to the top of my pants next, pulling them down. As his thumbs graze the inside of my thighs, my breath hitches, desire jolting through me.
He meets my gaze. “Is it too soon? Do you need more time to heal?”
“No,” I say, almost violently. I push myself up onto my knees and climb into his lap, straddling him. I can feel his erection pressing hard against my ass, but he simply lays his head against my breasts as I stroke the nape of his neck.
“I need you, Leon. The thought of you kept me alive in there.” I lift his head, staring into his eyes to emphasize my point. “Now make me forget it all. Wipe it from my memory so it’s just you and me here, now, in this bed.”
I press myself into him, grinding down against his erection, showing him exactlyhowI need him. The movement pulls a low growl from him, and he leans forward, laying me back down on the bed. His pants are quickly discarded, and I sigh with anticipation as I spread my legs for him, guiding his hard cock into me.
The hunger I feel for him isn’t just physical, it’s in my very soul. I’ve been so alone for so long. I need him to reach inside and touch the deepest parts of me. Only then, when he strokes them back to life, will I truly know that I survived—that I’m really here, safe, with him.
He cradles me in his arms as he enters me, holding me against him so I can feel his skin against mine, his breath on my cheek. But something is different. As his cock slides home inside me, filling me in exactly the way I crave, it’s like my pleasure is doubled. The first wave of delicious sensation is joined by the echo of another, and it pulls a gasp from my throat. My body shudders with the intensity of it and my head drops back.
“Ana?” Leon’s voice is low and rough, struggling to speak through a haze of lust. “Are you alright?”
“Whatisthat?” I ask breathlessly, pushing myself up on my elbows. It shifts our position, causing him to slide deeper inside me. The ripple of sensation strikes again, once, then twice, making me moan.
