Page 16

Chapter 16

Rev

Dawn came and I took my time loving her again. I kissed her softly, delicately, in a sear over her skin with my promises of forever, my dedication to her body, my ode to her altar.

Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the blankets tightly in her fists, moaning my name with her face buried deep into the wool. On my knees, I slid my hands over her back, worshiping all of her before me, my world arching in pleasure, begging me for more.

I’d give it.

I’d give everything I had.

I bent forward, picking up momentum and sliding my fingers underneath her body. At my touch, she rocked against me, guiding my fingers exactly to where she needed me. She called out into the gray blankets with a muffled curse on her lips. I left a trail of kisses on her spine before rising up behind her once again to give my offering.

I pressed my fingers into her hips, no longer holding back to let her pleasure build. Instead , I let it ignite, flare, and burn me as I lost all sense of self, of coherence, only existing in that moment where time stood still, and I worshiped her thoroughly.

Her scream of release coincided with mine, and I slumped forward, holding her body to my own for just a few moments longer, unwilling to leave her just yet.

She slumped forward, breathing heavily, turning and pulling me to her chest as she wrapped her long legs around me. Her lungs heaved as she smoothed the hair back from my face, tucking it behind my ear.

I glanced upward at the broken slats to see the faintest hint of a purple sky that drove away the dark. I rested my chin on her breast, laying my kisses there, searching her face for a response. Her eyes were closed, but a smile tugged at her lips the moment I pulled her peaked flesh into my mouth.

“ How do you find the stamina, Baron Revich ?” she asked in a sultry murmur.

“ I’ve had some seven years to dream up scenarios of what I’d do to you when you returned.” I pressed my body into her hips, bringing myself up over her face and tracing under her lips. “ This is just me fulfilling some of those dreams.”

She laughed and shook her head squinting at the sky above. “ We have a little more time. Let’s make it count.”

* * *

I fixed the roof of the barn easily enough. Finding a ladder on the bottom floor, I hauled it to the loft with some nails and a rusted mallet. Karus fell silent, brushing the bits of hay off the blankets as she lifted them high into the air then snapped them taut to fold neatly. Something sifted through her mind, so I waited for her to tell me what it was.

We headed downstairs, checking on the horses and giving them water and some grain we’d brought with us. The morning light lit the cold earth as we left. A wide expanse of snowless ground surrounded us in a circle around the farm and the pastures.

“ Did you see the storm leave us last night, Barons ?” Shey greeted us as we stepped into the cottage, looking for some much needed food. She handed us plates of eggs and toast, ushering us to the fireplace to sit near Figuerah and Nyeimah .

Figuerah swallowed a gulp of tea adding, “ Yes , it’s the strangest thing, Barons . The storm stopped abruptly last night and left Wellyn and Shey’s farm completely untouched by the cold.” She jabbed Karus in the arm with her elbow.

“ How interesting,” Karus muttered through her eggs, then smiled at Wellyn . “ I hope the subsiding storm allows your sheep to graze longer in the fields today.”

He rubbed his hands together, watching out the window. “ I suppose it will. Strange weather pattern indeed. I’ll have to excuse myself and help your friend. The sheep should be out by now.”

I cocked my head. “ Friend ?” I glanced around the room, realizing who was missing. “ Philius ? Did you send him out to open the back door of the barn?”

Wellyn shrugged on his coat at the door. “ That’s right. The tall one with all the curls bundled at the top of his head.”

Mychael joined Wellyn at the window, already buttoning his cloak. “ He left twenty minutes ago.” He turned to me. “ You didn’t see him?”

I shook my head and set down my half eaten food, pulling open the door with Karus right behind me.

“ Philius !” she yelled into the morning air.

She brushed past me, running toward the barn. I was right behind her, calling with her as we entered. All of us began a search over the entire grounds, calling his name into the frozen air, rioting the sheep and upsetting the horses let out to pasture.

“ He’s gone,” Mychael puffed beside me.

“ Help me gather everyone,” I huffed back.

The nine of us gathered in front of the cottage. A taut surface of panic fell over us as we met each other’s gazes, each thinking but unable to voice what we truly feared.

“ He can’t be far,” I started. “ He has thirty minutes on us. He didn’t take a horse and the snow beyond the circle around the farm is deep. Ilyenna , Talon , you start on the perimeter at the road. Rotate clockwise and the rest of us will set up around the remaining area.”

“ What are we looking for?” Ilyenna asked, already turning to leave.

“ Footprints ,” I replied. “ Call out when you find his prints. Do not follow. Stick to the perimeter. We meet back here in fifteen minutes.”

I took Karus’s hand in mine and we headed to the other side of the barn where the foothills met a deep ravine that then climbed upward into the side of another hill.

Karus stalked the edge of the snowfall with me. We searched carefully for any sign of her brother, whom she cursed at continuously in a muttering of obscenities I knew came from a place of fear. She cursed again with something about bringing the Lumens with us next time then halted, grabbing my arm and pointing. A set of tracks led through the snowfall into the steep hillside.

“ Let’s call everyone back,” she said as she turned around, headed for the house.

I stood for a moment in the calm of dawn, my eyes tracing over the path Philius must have taken. A deep foreboding had me clenching my teeth, knowing Philius had taken a route that would lead straight to the abandoned Tectus Trail .