Page 73 of Godsbane
“I broke Marks’ direct orders to get to Emerald as soon as I heard about the king’s death. I was never supposed to be there … but if there was even the slightest chance your full magic might manifest on this journey, I knew I had to be with you. The Ascension Vote could have been that catalyst, and I would never have forgiven myself if you had been forced to navigate this alone.”
The Ascension Vote could have been my catalyst, but it wasn’t. Marks’ raid on my home and my father’s death were. They broke the chains I kept around my meager magic and propelled me into power.
And that will be Marks’ fatal error.
His own inability to recognize me as a worthy opponent will ruin him. If he hadn’t raided the Emerald Region, I might have shown up at the Ascension Vote unable to do more thanparty tricksand he would have his throne. But I have the power of a god now, and with Cal’s help, I’ll be able to use it to take him down.
A thousand questions fill my mind, but there’s only one more that I have to ask tonight. One more answer that I have to have before I can begin to process this.
“Why?” A single word holding endless meaning.
“You know why, Ivy.”
The ache in my chest opens into a cavernous hole. I’ve been avoiding this since the first moment he gave me his name. I have lied to myself over and over again, but my magic has always known. It ripples within his hold even now, undulating like waves from the places where our skin touches.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t feel it too.” A single, tan finger moves to rest across my open lips. “And don’t fucking lie to me.”
Denial hovers on the tip of my tongue. The emotion I’m not capable of feeling is written so plainly across his handsome face that it steals my breath. We are dangling dangerously close to the edge of a cliff—and I can either run away with my tail between my legs, or I can leap off, face-first into the waiting arms of something designed by fate itself.
“No matter what you say, I am yours, Ivy. I will go to the ends of every realm for you.” Cal grabs my hand and places it on his chest, my fingers splayed over the serpent twisting above his heart. “I?—”
“Don’t say it,” I interrupt. Every fiber of my being knows exactly what words are about to fall from his perfect lips. “I don’t want to run away from you.”
His gray eyes darken with a possessiveness that causes my breath to catch. “You think I would let you run? There is not a path you could take that I would not follow, in this life or any other.”
The heavy patter of rain sounds on the tent overhead as the hold on my magic dissolves in my grasp. Power sweeps over me in ethereal waves, the cosmic pull of Cal’s blood to mine toostrong to deny. He may very well be a siren song sent to tempt me, a poison created to control me, or a false prophet meant to pull me from my true path. Whatever the gods designed him to be, they designed him to be mine.
I should be stronger. I should distrust anything orchestrated by the gods. I should resist him.
But what if I didn’t?
My entire life has been a resistance—against the magic in my veins, against the fated name from my dreams, against the gods forced down our unwilling throats.
What if I want to break all my rules? What if I want to deny the voice that tells me I’m poisonous, the voice that tells me that no one could love who I’ve become? What if I gave myself over entirely to the man from my dreams? If only for a single night.
The kiss we share is claiming, consuming, devouring, as if we’re dying and our only hope for salvation is the other’s soul.
This coupling is different. It isn’t yielding to lust or giving in to insurmountable sexual tension. It’s two destinies converging, two intertwined fates meeting at a crossroads and choosing to collide.
There is power in this choice, as pure and raw as the white-hot magic coursing at breakneck speed through my veins. And that power is hungry.
I push Cal backwards, lowering him onto the floor of the tent as I move to straddle him, my knees resting alongside his hips. I’m already naked and the blanket slips off my slick skin easily. I lean over him, pressing his wrists into the ground above his head.
Breaking the kiss, I run my lips across his jaw as I speak. “I choose to be yours for tonight. Don’t make me regret it.”
Cal moves to break my hold, but I don’t let him. I call to my magic and a low rumble sounds in his chest as vines of ivy tighten around his wrists, securing him to the floor. His pupilsflare, black overtaking the gray irises. Heated blood pulses through my flooded core and it only takes a moment for me to realize that he’s using his magic on me in wicked ways.
“You want to play, princess?”
His sensual voice rumbles against my skin as his power sends another throb of need through me.
“Use me. Fuck me with every power you can summon. I am yours.” His tongue slides up the column of my throat in a slow, tantalizing stroke.
“You are mine,” he growls into my ear, “and you will never regret it.”
I slide my palms across the expanse of Cal’s chest, pausing over the sea beast’s head to take his nipple into my mouth. I suck gently, calling to the wind in an attempt to conjure a quick burst of air to nip at the delicate area. The guttural sound that escapes his lips quickly wipes away the disappointment I feel at my failure to summon the elusive element.
I drag my nails down the length of his tattoo, red scratches marring the inked skin. Claiming marks designating him as mine from his collarbone to the waistband of his pants. Pulling them down, my tongue finds the dip of the beast’s tail and traces downward slowly to the base.
