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I couldn’t help the slight quirk of my lips. “Oh, Stargirl, don’t you know I never lose a fight?”

It wasn’t until her eyes widened that I realized I hadn’t called her Stargirl since Daminius.

Chapter Four

Cypherion

“We can’t leave yet,” Vale said the next morning as I strapped my scythe to my back.

“What do you mean?” I asked. My eyelids were heavy, barely having slept on that mat. She’d tried to get me to take the bed.

I’d refused.

Vale waved a hand at me, then across her own body, clad in Mystique leathers. Spirits, I’d been trying to ignore the way they hugged every one of her curves for weeks. Months, truly. Ever since we left Damenal. It was tempting, even more so knowing how her skin felt beneath them.

“We can’t go to Lumin like this,” Vale stated matter-of-factly.

“You suggest we don’t wear our leathers?” The idea made my skin itch.

“We want to blend in, correct?” Vale’s fingers twisted together, the thin silver ring she wore sliding around. She used to have more—adorning every finger. Now, it was just the one she refused to part with, tarnished with age.

I groaned. “What do you suggest?”

Damien had been fucking testing me this entire journey. My self-control, my dedication, my will.

They all suffered as Vale stepped out from behind the partition in the clothing shop on Castani’s market street.

Tan legs slipped between the slits in her flowing skirt, a thin band of skin visible just around her waist above the sage-green material. I could sink my teeth into every inch of her?—

Get it together, Kastroff.

“You can’t wear that,” I said.

She spun toward me with her brows raised. “I don’t allow men to tell me what I can and cannot wear, Cypherion.”

“Spirits,” I grumbled. “I didn’t mean it like that.” If being friends with Ophelia and Santorina taught me anything, it was that women were free to do what they liked with their bodies. “I only meant that it’s winter, and you’ll freeze as we travel the jungle between here and Lumin.”

The top she wore was nothing more than a thin, woven material. Granted, the sleeves were long and cascaded past her hands. But it sat off her shoulders and barely reached the bottom of her ribs.

“Leathers are a better option,” I said, shifting in my seat to hide the obvious reaction of my body to her outfit.

“Mystique leathers will not blend in. Trust me.” Vale turned back to the glass, not meeting my eyes again. She ran her hands over the skirt, a new set of shining silver rings adorning each of her fingers, that tarnished one now appearing dull. “And besides, I’m much more comfortable in this. I’ll have other layers to defend from the cold.”

I almost argued. It was illogical, but the other shelves in the shop were lined with boots and cloaks that appeared warm. And there was a bead of vulnerability buried beneath her words. I am much more comfortable in this. A defense against entering a place that haunted her.

Beside me, my sword and scythe sat with a smaller silver sword she’d gotten from Ophelia, the handle carved with a fancy guard. That wasn’t the type of defense she sought, though.

Grumbling, I pushed to my feet and tried to hide the fact that my cock was stiff within my leathers. “What do I need to wear, then?”

As we purchased the items, I swiped up a deep-blue velvet cloak for Vale. It was lined with a thick, expensive fabric, silver woven through, so when the light hit it just right, it shimmered like the night sky.

Chapter Five

Vale

“I love the skirts you wear,” Cypherion told me, his hands drifting over the chiffon falling around my thighs as I perched on the railing of his balcony. Damenal unspooled across the mountains below.

“Why is that?” I asked with a teasing tilt of my head.