Page 54 of Heart's Escape

Alindra makes a sound that’s not exactly a word. Her shoulders curl forward, and her head presses into my shoulder.

“Y-Yes,” she stammers.

I grin into the darkness. Voids below, I can’t remember the last time I groped someone like this, with raw urgency and fumbling in the dark. Someone who wanted me so badly they were trembling against my chest.

My fingers curl forward, plunging between her folds, and Alindra makes a noise like a sob. When I stop, she shakes her head against my neck.

“Don’t,” she gasps. “Don’t stop.”

Something deep inside of me rings out a warning, some half-remembered argument I’d made to myself against doing exactly this, but suddenly my fingers are moving again, my thumb making slow circles inside her folds, tracing a path up until—

There! Alindra’s entire body stiffens as I find the hot, hard nub at the head of her sex. She cries out, a harsh, pleading moan, and I think of doing this to her all night, spreading her out across my bed and teasing her with my lips and tongue, my fingers and cock, until the glowsoft orbs fill the windows with their soft light.

But she’s pressing her hips into my fingers, her hands clenching tight around the bright pulses of my illusion magic, her breath coming in low, desperate moans, and voids help me, I don’t want to stop. Not even to press her to the bed. Not even to make this last all night, to draw out her orgasm for so long she forgets how to speak.

I bend down, catch her lips with mine, and pull her into a kiss as my fingers plunge inside of her and my thumb presses against her clit. Her mouth opens for me as her head tips back, her breath coming in short, hot gasps against my lips and tongue, her hips driving into my hand so hard I have to bend my knees to brace myself.

And when she crests, I feel it with my whole body. Her lips open, breaking our kiss, and her entire body trembles as the wave carries her away. She makes a gasping sort of cry, like a last breath, as her arms tighten around my shoulders and her fingers dig into my skin.

My skin. Alarm pulses through my body, cold fear against the fever heat of arousal. Alindra gasps against my chest, the soft curves of her body shivering through the thin layer of fabric separating us. I pull my hand back, letting her skirt fall, and look down. I already know what I’m going to see in the murky half-light seeping through the crack of the doorframe. Or what I’m not going to see.

My illusion is gone. Voids damn it. I clench my jaw as Alindra draws a shaky breath, and suddenly the back of my throat tastes bitter. I’m horribly aware of Alindra’s arms around my shoulders, of her fingers trembling against the scars that run down my side. Of her breath on my ruined flesh, the mangled atrocity of my body that I’ve tried so hard to keep hidden.

I was thinking with my thrice-cursed cock, and I lost my grip on my magic. I can’t even remember the last time I let an illusion fall on accident, let it dissipate into the darkness, and now here I am, with nothing to hide the horror Alindra’s prince made of my body.

I step back, ripping my body away from the warmth of hers. Alindra gasps, and there’s a flare of light as I rebuild my illusions, the white shirt hiding me once again. Behind her, my sentry uniform hangs against the wall like an accusation. The uniform I can’t ever wear again, because who am I kidding?

The handsome, charming Phaedron who served as the World’s End sentry is dead.

“I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I— I can’t.”

My hand trembles, and I squeeze my fingers into a fist to make it stop. The room feels cold now, without the heat of her body pressed against mine. Against my illusions.

What in the nine hells have I just done? All of my arguments rush back to me like fire licking across old parchment. Alindra can’t stay here, it would kill her to stay here, and what kind of a fool would I have to be to think I could leave the Lands Below and live with her up there in the sun? I can’t even hold onto my illusion while a woman climaxes in my arms. Hells, I can’t even hold a woman in my arms. I don’t even have arms, plural. I’m ruined, broken. What do I have to offer the Worlds Above?

I take another step back. Alindra makes a low, whimpering sound like an animal in pain. My cock pulses beneath the tight laces of my pants, practically screaming at me to stop, to go back, to sink into this beautiful woman and spend the rest of the night thrusting between her hot, slick thighs.

While she looks up at a mess of scar tissue. I shiver.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

My palm meets the door. Alindra makes another sound, a gasping sort of inhale. It’s too dark for me to see her face, thank the voids.

“Try to get some sleep,” I say, as I push the door open and walk through, grinding my teeth together and trying to ignore the sharp ache of my cock as it reminds me, over and over, of the exact taste and texture of Alindra’s lips.

I spin on my heels, shove the door to Rowan’s room open, and then slam it behind me. Heat races across my skin as I press my back into the closed door and close my eyes. My cock beats out a tune against the lacings of my pants, ignoring my gritted teeth and all the better reasoning I can throw at the bastard.

Fine. I yank at the lacings with my remaining hand, my fingers stiff and clumsy. My cock springs free, and I grab it roughly with my fist. The burst of pleasure my own touch gives me almost makes my eyes roll back in my head. Voids below, I’m ready to go off like a feast day firecracker.

Stupid. I’m so fucking stupid. I tighten my grip, then tug on my cock, grinding my teeth against the stupid, stupid waves of pleasure rocking through my body. My hips lift, thrusting into my own fist, and I clench my jaw to keep from making a sound, even as my breath turns ragged.

Alindra fills my mind, the taste of her mouth, the slick heat between her folds, the way her breath brushed my skin as she gasped her pleasure. Stupid. Fuck. I’m so stupid, and I want her so fucking bad. My hips slam into my tight fist, a piss-poor substitute but as close as I dare get to this woman who can’t possibly stay, who could do so much better than me—

My orgasm explodes across the room, ripping a low growl from my throat, spilling my hot seed all over my fist. I collapse back against the door, panting as my chin sinks to my chest. My cock twitches sadly in my fist, and my eyes sting.

I wipe my hand on my pants, then stagger forward, fumbling for the lantern. I’ve just made a hot mess of Rowan and Arryn’s room, and I’m not about to leave a trail of my seed spread all over my brother’s floor. My shin bangs into something hard. Pain explodes inside my skull; I clamp my jaw against the curse rising in my throat, then stagger backward and collapse on Rowan’s bed.

The sound of muffled sobbing drifts through the wall between our two rooms, rising like fog off a river. My shoulders curl forward, and I catch my head with my hand.

---