Page 45 of Wicked Queen

My hand comes up to touch her breast through her t-shirt, and Athena takes my hand, bringing my wrist up to her lips. She kisses my scar, brushing her mouth along it, her tongue flicking over the faint ridge, and I gasp, sucking in a shuddering breath. “You can’t leave me, Jaxon King,” she says, looking up at me with eyes gone dark and fierce. “I don’t need you to protect me. But I do need you.”

“I need you, too.”

There’s no more words that need to be said between us after that. I bend to kiss her, my hand in her hair, the soft black strands tumbling over my fingers as my tongue tangles with her, her mouth warm and sweet as I reach between her legs, pushing her panties to one side. She’s wet for me, and I part her with my fingers, my lips never leaving hers as I start to push myself inside of her. I feel her shudder as I move, the pleasure rippling down my spine as I feel her around me, wet and hot and so fucking tight, and when I’m inside of her as deeply as I can go, I feel her arch against me, her hands gripping my shoulders.

I bury both of my hands in her hair, holding her mouth to mine, and I start to move.

It’s slow and sweet, unlike anything I’ve done in years. I haven’t been with someone like this since Natalie, haven’t thought the wordsmaking lovein my head, and I wait for the cold guilt to twist in my stomach. I’m with another girl, here in our meadow, and it’s so like it used to be that it would be easy to forget that it’s Athena. But I don’t.

I keep myself here, now. I look down at Athena’s face, at her grey eyes and her dark hair and her parted lips begging for more, and I let go. I know some of it will always be with me. A grief as deep as the one Natalie left me with isn’t one that can ever be shaken completely. But like I told Athena, I can leave some of it here.

And now this is our place, too.

I don’t know what we all plan to do, if we make it out of that labyrinth beneath the Blackmoor Estate. But I know that whatever happens, if we stay or go, a part of me will always be here.

Part of me is buried with Natalie, and a part of me is here in this meadow. And everything that’s left, Athena holds in her hands.

She shudders against me, clinging to me, and I hear her whisper in my ear that she loves me.

I love you, Jaxon King.

I love you.

I reach for her, pulling her into my lap as I lean back on my heels, one hand behind her head and the other wrapped around her waist as I thrust up into her, my mouth on hers, whispering the same words back to her, lost in the kiss. “Mine,” I whisper, my hand tightening in her hair, and Athena nods, her legs wrapped around my hips as she rocks against me.

“Mine,” she whispers back, and I kiss her again, hard and fierce and deep.

It doesn’t last long enough. It never could. I keep fucking her like that for as long as I can, her hair spilling over my hands and her face glowing in the moonlight, her mouth soft and warm under mine, until she starts to tremble against me, her hands clutching at me, and I know she’s coming for me.

I spill her back on the grass, my hips rocking against hers as I come too, pouring myself into her in a rush of pleasure so strong it bows my back and makes me dig my fingers into the ground, bracing myself as I bury myself in her as deeply as I can. She leans up, kissing me again fiercely, her hands in my hair as she takes everything that I have to give her, and I moan her name aloud into the cold night air until it’s all over, and we fall into the grass together, breathless and sweaty despite the chill.

I don’t know how long we lay there. We might have fallen asleep for a little while in each other’s arms, because the sky is starting to grey by the time I find Athena her jeans and help her get them back on.

“We should go back.” I look up at the sky, where we can still see the half-moon even though it’s beginning to lighten. “If Cayde or Dean wakes up and we’re already gone, they’re going to think something happened.”

“Yeah, we should.” Athena pushes herself to her feet, and we walk slowly back to the bike. As she puts on her helmet, I glance back once at the meadow, and I realize that for the first time, something inside of me feels lighter.

I know there will always be a part of me that can’t entirely heal. But for the first time, I feel like when this is all over, there might be a future for me. Forus.

I swing onto the bike, and start the engine. And then I drive us away, into the growing daylight.

19

ATHENA

If I’m being honest, the last thing I want to do the next day is go to a rugby game. But it’s the last one Cayde will play before Halloween, and Dean insists that we should go—all of us. So I find myself out at the field after class, with Dean and Jaxon sitting on either side of me, and Mia sitting in front of me.

I can tell that Mia hasn’t been sleeping well. She looks paler than usual, with bags under her eyes, but we try to steer away from any topics involving our research on the town or what’s going to happen very soon. I haven’t told her all of our plan, so that she has some plausible deniability if it all goes wrong. She won’t be there—there’s no reason for her to be, and I don’t want her to suffer because she’s my friend, if I don’t make it out.

I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because they love me. I already spend too much time terrified for Mia as it is, because the pool of people who can be used against me is shrinking. And if it is the boys’ fathers, and they don’t want to hurt their own sons, Mia is all I have.

I’ve tried not to let her know how much danger I worry she’s in, but I think she already does. She’s smart—smarter than I am, really, and I’m sure that’s why she looks as if she hasn’t slept in days.

I have a hard time following the game, if I’m being honest. Just being out here watching Cayde has me preoccupied, thinking about the other night in the study, and how Cayde and I haven’t really talked since then. Unless it’s as a group, talking about the upcoming ritual and our plan, he’s mostly avoided me. It’s not hard to figure out why, but just like Jaxon and I out on the cliffside, I need Cayde to open up to me. We can’t do this if we don’t trust each other. I’ve trusted these three boys with everything. I need them to do the same.

I have some idea of what happened to Cayde, why his back is scarred, why he’s so full of rage. But I need to hear it from him. And I want him to say it.

He almost had, in the study. He’d been so close to telling me he loved me. And I know that deep down, he does. He loves me in the only way he knows how to love—possessively, obsessively, dangerously. He’s wanted to break me since the day he saw me, because I’m willing to bet that there’s never been a single thing he’s wanted so desperately or loved that didn’t hurt him in the end.

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