Page 57 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

Chapter twenty-two

Erix

T he tent Clan Otush had dug up for us was small—not much bigger than the sparse one I had lived in all my years with Clan Katal, and just wide enough for Keera and me to lay our sleeping mats side by side and still have room for our packs in the corners.

I sat cross-legged on mine and reached for my saber, fishing my whet stone from my pack in a set of motions so practiced they were almost like breathing. Keera sat across from me, sprawled out and leaning back on her elbows as she watched me unsheathe Kelvar’s saber and lay it across my lap.

She had handed it to me as soon as she had gotten her own weapon back, and I had to admit I was grateful to have it in hand again. She was the only one I would gladly give my blade to.

Slowly, I ran the stone down the long, curved edge of the blade. The rasp of metal that sang out through the still night air in the tent was like the release of a breath I had been holding for too long.

At first, being outside the walls of Kelvadan had calmed me—made me wonder if I had been imagining the voices in my head growing louder over the past weeks.

But they had crept back in as we rode. Somehow, these four clans’ faith in my ability to restore the desert increased their weight in my skull, as if the desert herself said “See? You must undo your ancestor’s mistakes and fight against his weakness. ”

Now, in the familiar setting of an encampment with the familiar weight of a mask on my face, I reached for old habits to fight the rising tide of madness.

I dragged the stone in a second long stroke across the sword, and a vibration sounded in my head from a plucked string of magic. I glanced up to find Keera contemplating my gloved hands as they moved on my sword.

The flow of her feelings was odd, hesitant in a way her emotions rarely were.

Where they were usually so strong and unapologetic that I had to brace myself from being bowled over by them, they now shot down our bond in short spurts, as if she were trying to contain them. As if she were… embarrassed .

I raised my brows, and although she could not see the expression, I knew she sensed my question.

Keera sighed, folding her legs in and wrapping her arms around her knees. “Is it wrong that I think I missed the gloves… and the mask?”

I paused and looked down, flexing my leather-clad fingers. I had found myself missing the safety of the Viper’s disguise more than I should have, even as I had been trapped behind it. But the words surprised me coming from Keera.

“What did you miss about them?” I asked.

“I miss”—Keera chewed her words, but I waited patiently—“the way things seemed simpler, when I wasn’t a queen and you were not a man, but a symbol I was supposed to hate.”

Slowly, I set my sword and stone aside and reached out. So lightly I barely touched her, I ran my finger across Keera’s bare forearm, where she had rolled up her sleeves.

“But you knew I was a man. Did you hate me?”

A faint shiver ran up her spine, and she closed her eyes and shook her head. “No.”

The word was barely a whisper, but I heard it clearly .

“Even when I didn’t want to, I could see your face under that mask. And I understood why you wore it, even before I realized I did.” Keera’s face twisted. “Now, I wish I had a mask.”

My fingers went from stroking her arm lightly to squeezing it. “Tell me.”

Keera screwed her eyes shut. “I was named the Champion of Kelvadan because I was supposed to give the people hope, but the same power that allowed me to give them that belief in me makes them fear me. I lost control at the Trials in our duel, and I saw the way the people looked at me after I ruined the crops and nearly split the throne room in two. The archons judge my every decision. Even out here in the clans, my blood rises and I break bones when I’m meant to be keeping peace.

Just like my own parents thought I was too dangerous, the people of Kelvadan are starting to see the disadvantages of my passion.

I’m not a good queen. I’m too… too much. ”

My blood rose in a whirlwind. I rocked forward onto my knees and reached for Keera’s face, cupping both her cheeks in my gloved hands.

Her eyes snapped open, bright in the dim light.

After a day of sun and exertion, her cheeks were darkened with the beginnings of sun burn, like the desert had kissed her skin, and I was almost jealous.

“The desert doesn’t apologize for what she is, and I would never want her to. Her harshness is her beauty, and those of us that love her adore her all the more for it. Do not make yourself less for lesser men.”

Her hands reached for my face, and she didn’t bother removing my mask, just pushing it up so her lips could find mine. I opened to her immediately, letting her exploring tongue lick into my mouth and tangle with my own.

My hands traveled to her waist as I sat back, hauling her into my lap as I went.

She came willingly, straddling me on our sleeping mat.

Even through all our layers, I could feel the heat of her body—her core as she pressed herself against me.

My blood rushed to the spot where her weight pressed down on me so fast, I could hear it rushing in my ears.

The first time I had ever touched Keera like this, I had spilled in my pants with my desperation—and if she didn’t stop making those delicious noises into my mouth, this might end the same way .

I used my hand at her jaw to separate her lips from mine, the other hand coming to pull my mask the rest of the way off. I met her eyes, bright as she panted, the black in the center nearly eclipsing that molten gold.

“Don’t apologize for who you are,” I murmured, inches from her lips. “I never want you any less than I have you now—than I had you the first time.”

Keera sighed, letting her head fall back as I traced my fingers across her collar bone and let them dip into the hollow of her throat.

“These clans and their lords,” she breathed as my hands drifted lower. They brushed over her breasts, which jolted as she inhaled sharply. Already, her nipples poked the thin fabric of her tunic, and I teased them by tracing circles just around the edges with my thumbs.

She swallowed, trying to regain her words, and I resisted the urge to cut her off by covering a breast with my mouth right through the fabric of her clothing.

“They look at you like they believe in you to set things right. The archons don’t look at me like that. They and the ambassadors watch my every move like they are waiting for me to fail. Maybe you were meant to be king.”

I growled, my hands tightening around her rib cage. “The only part of being a king I would ever want is with you as my queen.”

I pulled the neck of her tunic to the side roughly, exposing one of her breasts to me.

Satisfaction rolled down my spine at the sight of the flush spreading across her chest. I leaned forward to trace it with my tongue, groaning in satisfaction at the salt and earthy taste that was just Keera clinging to her skin.

I reached her nipple and pulled it into my mouth.

A choked whimper escaped Keera, and one of her hands flew over her mouth to muffle the sound.

I hummed in satisfaction, the vibrations making Keera jerk in pleasure.

I released her breast with a pop, letting my opposite hand give the other attention.

“Maybe I should make you make more of those noises, so everybody in the camp knows that their Lord Viper serves the Queen of Kelvadan,” I rumbled, reaching for the edge of Keera’s tunic and lifting it over her head.

“I could spread you open and lick you until you scream so loud that the desert herself knows I kneel before you.”

Keera licked her lips and stared at me through hooded eyes as her chest heaved. Hunger coursed up my spine and pooled in my cock. I tipped her back and cupped the back of her head as I laid her out beneath me.

She sighed as I ran my fingers through her braid, untangling it so her hair fanned out around one side of her head. Then I brushed over the other side of her scalp, scratching through the dark hair that was just beginning to grow back there.

I straddled her thighs. Tracing one hand down her chest, over her sternum, and toward the planes of her stomach, I lifted the other to my mouth to pull my glove off with my teeth.

Her breath caught, and I hesitated.

“Keep them on,” she said, her voice already hoarse.

The fire in my belly flared brighter, and the bond between us shivered with tension.

I removed my finger from my mouth, instead lowering it to her face and pressing it against her lower lip.

Her mouth opened easily for me, and I dipped the tip of my gloved finger into her mouth, pressing the leather-clad pad down on her tongue.

“Did you ever wonder what it would be like for me to touch you like this, back before you knew my name—before you knew who I was underneath the mask?”

I removed my finger from her lips in favor of stroking my palms over her ribs and down her sides. Keera shuddered.

“You shared my dreams,” she breathed. “You know I did.”

Her own hands drifted up to pluck at my tabards, and I wasted no time stripping them off, so I was naked from the waist up.

Then, I returned my gloved hands to their perusal of her skin.

My fingers dipped into the hollow of her navel and traced over the soft swell of her hips, rounder now than they had been when we first met in a way that made my mouth go dry.

Instead of moving my hands to where I knew Keera wanted them, I instead placed them on her knees. She made a pained noise of frustration, only to cut it off with a gasp of pleasure as I dragged my gloved palms up her inner thighs .

“I thought you promised to lick me until I screamed,” she protested weakly, and I drank in the way she squirmed.