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I cared about the tongue in my mouth, the hard lips on mine, the hands clenching underneath me, forming a seat so I could writhe and move and gyrate and wring every last ounce of pleasure out of him.

Which seemed to be working because he was cursing in between kisses and the bites I was placing on his lower lip and then moving to his ear, savaging it between my teeth until I tasted the bright copper tang of blood, and his body leaped inside mine.

“God!”I heard him say, the first halfway coherent comment either of us had made in a while.And then he said it again, pushing me into the back wall of the shower and getting enough leverage to do—

That, I thought, grinning as he began pounding me into submission.

It didn’t work—I don’t do submission—but it was fun having him try.It was alotof fun, and before long, I’d forgotten where we were, the impossible mess we were in, or whether the door was sturdy enough to keep half the base from hearing us because we were getting loud.And then giggly when he finally finished working out the day’s aggression in the most satisfying way possible, and I forgot how to speak again, and so every time I opened my mouth, laughter poured out.

I clung to him afterward, still giggling, and he kissed my neck.“We’re insane,” he whispered, and I laughed some more.Because probably.

It helped these days.

It really did.

I noticed that he was finally clean, mainly because of the time he’d been in the water, but I clung to him anyway, not wanting to move.The spray was somehow still warm and steamy, making the foggy bath something out of another place and time.It could have been my bathroom back in Dante’s, especially if I closed my eyes, which I did for a moment.

“I don’t want to leave.”

I could feel him sigh against my chest, whether in agreement or irritation; I couldn’t tell.But I kind of thought it was the first one.Either way, it caused him to shift position inside me, making me clamp down hard as if I could hold onto him that way, too.

Silly thought to have, but I really didn’t want to go back out there.

“You don’t have to,” he murmured against my hair.“You need to eat, get some rest—”

“And when that’s done?”I whispered.“People are going to want answers, a plan, a way forward.I don’t have that.”

“None of us do.”

“But they’ll expect it from me.I got them into this.”

“You got us into nothing.I did that by even mentioning HQ and those damned portals.And Zara did by attacking us.And Bodil did by dropping us into the middle of that mess in Stratford.

“The only thing you did was not to listen when I said to stay put while I went after Caleb.”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to go into all that again.Just gripped him harder as if I could somehow hold him here.Or will us back home, only home didn’t exist anymore.

Nothing did, and it was all my fault!

“You’re Pythia,” Pritkin said, lifting my chin and searching my face like he’d heard that, even though I hadn’t uttered it.“Not a miracle worker.And all of this was put into play long before either of us were born.”

I held onto him and put my cheek on his shoulder.“And yet we’re having to deal with it.How the hell do we deal with it?”

I thought about what we’d just done, grabbing Caleb and Jonas from under a mountain of dark mages and then outrunning three gods while almost drowning, almost getting speared by some of the Circle’s own defenses, and almost getting crushed to death by thousands of tons of earth.Almost, almost, almost.It had been the mantra of my life since taking this job.

What happened when almost wasn’t good enough?

It has been good enough until now, a familiar voice filtered through my head.And if you’re finished, we need to talk.

“Get out of my head!”I yelled, suddenly furious.And caused Pritkin to flinch.

“Bodil?”he guessed.

“Bodil.”

Goddamn it!

Chapter Fifteen