Page 65 of Contested Crown

Calm down, a voice hissed. I spun, twisting my arms and looking at my skin.

“Basil?”

You are… exhausting… Too much… thinking…

I pulled off my shirt, rushing over to a long mirror hung on the wall and searching every inch of my skin. Two pieces of Basil had rejoined, a thick line of tattoo that looked like a scar welding them together.

“Are you back?”

Silence answered my question. I sighed, rubbing my hands across my face.

Cade came out of the shower to find me poking at my own skin, prodding at two pieces of snakeskin, as though I could physically move the tattoos across my body.

“What’s going on?” He frowned, using the towel to dry his pale white hair.

I opened my mouth to tell him about Basil, tell him the snake might still be alive, but the words dried up in my mouth. When Basil died, it was as though a piece of Cade had disappeared too.

“These two pieces have moved together.” I pointed at them, where they now sat a few inches above my navel.

Cade rushed forward, frowning. He brushed his thumb across the skin, goose bumps rising on my flesh.

“It might be chance. We’ve seen the pieces move when I push magic onto you.” But he sounded uncertain, hope blurring his words.

“We’ll have to see if it improves,” I said.

Cade nodded, his hand still on my body. His thumb continued stroking, moving from checking on the tattoo into small, intimate circles. My cock gave a twitch of interest.

Cade looked up, his eyes crinkling. “Maybe he’s not dead.”

“I think I heard him,” I said. “But only twice. And when I tried to talk to him, he wasn’t there.”

“You think it was really him?” Cade asked.

“I don’t know.” I wanted to say yes, but a niggling part of me wondered if I wasn’t just hearing what IthoughtBasil would say.

Cade’s face fell.

“I’ll let you know if I hear him again,” I promised. I covered his hand with mine. “It’s not a no. It’s a maybe.”

With his free hand, Cade let go of the towel, and I realized he was still naked from the shower, his skin damp and fresh.

“We have all this time before dinner. You were saying something about relaxing?” He grinned, teasing.

“Yeah. I can think of plenty of ways to spend a few hours. Parcheesi. Poker.” I crowded close, threading my fingers through his damp hair. He smelled fresh, and I pressed my nose into his throat, murmuring against his skin. “Chess.”

He let out a low groan, his groin thrusting forward. I could feel his cock, already hard, dragging against my jeans.

My lips found his skin, and I pressed hard, sucking kisses against his throat. I wanted more. We stumbled backward, landing on the bed. I let my hands roam, desperate for contact with him.

Cade relaxed into my touch but then wrapped one of his hands around my wrist, holding tight. He pulled my palm to his mouth, pressing an open kiss to the center, then sucking on my fingers, his tongue working lazily against the fingertips.

I moaned, trembling above him. He pulled me down for a rough kiss, and I went eagerly. Then, he moved his mouth to the side, breathing into my ear.

“Tonight. We need to know what’s going on tonight.”

I nodded, and he went back to pressing kisses along my jaw, nipping and biting at the skin. We couldn’t afford another situation like what happened with Leon. If something was going on, we needed to know about it now, not after the trap had been sprung.

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