Page 49 of Path of the Dark
His touch brought her over the edge again, and she cried out, her body shaking from the pleasure that pulsed through her. Ryana sagged back against him—but he wasn’t done yet either. Shifting her forward so she could brace herself against the wall, he pulled her hips back and began to take her in slow deep thrusts.
Ryana gasped. The feel of his strength, thrusting into her, consumed her. She pushed back against him, her legs trembling. Coupling had never been like this for her, not even at its best. She’d never felt so vulnerable, so wild, so free.
When he reached his own peak, his body shuddering from the force of it, she sobbed his name.
Afterward they collapsed upon the room’s sleeping pallet and lay together, limbs tangled.
Ryana rested against his chest, listening to the rapid beat of his heart. Her wits felt completely scattered in the aftermath—as if she’d been torn apart and put together again.
Tracing her fingers over his broad chest, she noticed a tattoo—an inked line of cursive writing upon his ribs.
“Vadaras, Onoras, Leadalas,” Ryana murmured, reading the words aloud without understanding them.”
“In the common tongue it means ‘Valor, Honor, Loyalty’,” Elias replied. “It’s the Anthor military motto.” He paused here, and glancing up, Ryana saw the edges of his mouth lift. “I got it was I was sixteen … after a night on the ale.”
Ryana smiled. “Do I detect a note of regret there?”
He snorted. “Not really … only, at that age life is simpler. For years, I lived by those words.”
“And now?”
A pause stretched out, before Elias replied. “Now … I don’t think that a man’s purpose in life can be summed up by a motto.”
He fell silent then, and Ryana didn’t speak either. Instead, she buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder and breathed him in, content to let the conversation lapse.
As he lay there, Elias gently stroked her hair, his fingers sliding through the heavy waves. Outdoors, voices filtered up from the street below. A couple was arguing. She was in tears, and he was belligerent.
Ryana listened to it, a little of her contentment ebbing.
Happiness was a rare thing. She knew her friends had found it—Lilia and Dain, and Mira and Asher—but she didn’t think she ever would.
For one thing, she had a habit of giving her heart to the wrong men.
Releasing a soft sigh, she traced the patterns of hair on Elias’s chest. She didn’t want this moment to end, yet already reality was seeping in, like the dawn light filtering through the cracks in the shutters.
Sadness rose within her, casting a shadow over the room.
All her worst decisions in life had been the result of reckless impulse. She’d wanted Elias, had burned for him. At the end of their dicing game, the thought ofnotlying to him had filled her with despair.
But, in the aftermath, she realized it was a mistake.
She could pretend otherwise, but the fact was that she’d given more than her body to him. The Shadows curse her, she actually cared about the man.
Ryana’s throat constricted as the realization settled in a cold blanket.
The reality was that they came from different worlds and were about as ill-suited as two people could be. Soon Elias would finish his peace negotiations and ride from this city without a backward glance.
It had been lust for him. He’d been honest about that.
The specter of loneliness rose then, constricting her ribs.
Like it or not, she’d soon be back where she started: alone and restless, with a void within her that she had no idea how to fill.
