Page 13 of Daughter of the Ninth Line, Part Two (The Lines of Ebrus #2)

Thirteen

Avalon

T his had been the most confusing night of my life, but also one of the best. Vox Vylan was surprisingly good company, once we’d settled on how we were supposed to act around each other.

If he wanted me to fawn over him like his biggest fan, he was probably going to be disappointed, but he seemed happy with comfortable silence.

Was it depressing that I could be so easily won over with ice cream and chocolate? Absolutely. Even now, I could remember the creaminess on my tongue, the sweetness still clinging to my lips. The pure pleasure of a mouthful. Fickle I might be, but I had no regrets.

He was a surprisingly knowledgeable guide about the stars.

Passionate, even. His face lit up as he explained that this meteor shower was caused by debris left behind by a larger comet, which had been a huge rock hurtling across the stars last week.

What we’d see were tiny bits of rock caught in the sky and burning up, making it look like it was showering shooting stars.

The comet that had left behind this meteor shower was called Sucreid, and it moved across the sky only once every hundred and seventy-three years.

Some of the Lines’ magic users believed that the comet itself heralded a time of great change, and a lot of superstitions were born from its appearance in the sky.

I didn’t think we had any superstitions about them up in the Ninth Line, though our library was depressingly grim. There was very little about anyone further back than my father’s grandfather. The histories of my ancestors before that were all gone, lost in a fire long before I was born.

Now, I lay on Vox Vylan’s bed, watching the stars streak across the sky through the giant glass dome that he had instead of a ceiling. There were so many shooting stars now that we didn’t even need his telescope to see. It was magical.

He lay beside me, on the other side of the bed, an appropriate amount of mattress between us, and watched it just as intently. We didn’t need to speak. Words would ruin the moment.

Finally, the meteor shower lessened, and my eyelids began to droop. It was time to leave, even though I was almost sad to do so. Last week, I would’ve been desperate to get out of a space occupied by Vox. Now, I found myself dragging my feet.

I raised myself up on my elbows. “I should go. It’s late, and I’m sure your dorm mates would like to return to their beds.”

He shrugged. “They’ll return when I tell them they can.” His nonchalance really was abrasive sometimes, and I wondered if he knew how pompous that sounded.

I chewed my lip. “Even so, it’s time for me to go.”

He rolled onto his side and watched me with those ice-blue eyes.

I felt their weight on my face like a physical touch.

His shoulders were broad, and his chest was muscular from the amount of swordwork he did.

He might be a rich, bored Heir, but I couldn’t say he didn’t work as hard as the rest of us—harder than some, even—though there was never any chance of him failing.

Of going home in disgrace, broken and useless. Or worse, dead.

His dark hair fell across his forehead, and I wanted to reach out and rub the silky-looking tresses between my fingertips. Wanted to bury my fingertips against his scalp. And more.

So, so, so much more.

They were dangerous thoughts that couldn’t lead anywhere good, but my brain and my lady parts were very much in disagreement about what we should do right now.

My brain said to get up, walk to the door, and thank him for a very pleasant evening.

Then run all the way back to my dorm room, like the coward that I was.

My lower parts—the ones that clenched when he spoke in that deep, husky voice close to my ear while explaining about the meteor shower—said I should push him onto his back, throw a leg over his hips, pin him to his bed, and kiss the hell out of him.

Then fuck him. They were pretty adamant about that last part.

“Your words say one thing, Avalon, but your body is saying something very different.”

Ugh, those husky words again. I sucked in a calming breath, trying not to pant, and clinging to my higher reasoning by my fingernails. I shook my head. “My body doesn’t know what’s good for me.”

He smiled at me. A wide, beautiful smile that lit up his whole face and made my own go slack. Had I ever seen him smile? I mustn’t have, because it would have been burned onto my retinas.

“Maybe your body knows exactly what you need.” He sat up.

“But don’t worry. I can wait for your mind to catch up.

” He rolled off the bed and got to his feet in a lithe manner that I could only dream of replicating.

I climbed off his bed like a drunken fawn and followed him to the stairs that led down to the dorms.

I couldn’t believe I’d been in Vox Vylan’s bed. I took one last look around, committing everything to memory so I could tell Viana and Acacia about it.

Vox looked amused. “Don’t worry, Avalon, you can come back and climb into my bed as often as you like. I promise you an enjoyable time.” He leaned closer so his breath feathered across my cheek. “I’ll make you scream my name so loudly, even the stars will hear it.”

My breath stuttered in my throat, and I turned toward him.

His face was so close to mine, his lips just there, tilted down toward me.

Unable to resist, I lifted up on my toes and brushed my lips across his.

They were softer than I’d imagined, and tasted a little like the chocolate we’d shared.

He remained still, and I lowered myself back to my heels, sucking in a breath and fixating on the top button of his shirt so I didn’t have to meet his eyes.

A finger tucked under my chin, tilting my head back. His hands gripped my hips, then he kissed me. Not a peck, like I’d given him.

No, he owned my mouth, taking and taking and taking until I was breathless and my whole body tingled.

Only his strong hands on my hips, holding me close to his torso, kept me from falling down the stairs on rubber legs.

He pressed himself closer, and I chased his warmth like he was an inferno I wanted to perish within.

When he finally pulled away, my heart was thundering so loudly, it was like I’d just run a hundred laps of the training ring.

My eyes felt too wide, and my hands were trembling softly where they hung at my sides.

His normally icy eyes were simmering with desire, and it felt warmer in the Dome than it had all night. Even the fire looked larger.

“Goddess,” I muttered beneath my breath, my brain synapses glitching inside my skull. I needed a healer, or maybe some serious alone time in the dorm showers.

Vox grinned, making my knees go weak once more.

“Put that away,” I mock chastised.

“Put what away?”

“That smile. It’s dangerous. Represses every single responsible thought I’ve ever had.”

He laughed and wrapped a band of air around my ribs, holding me steady as he led me down the spiral staircase. It was still as quiet in the common room as it had been when I arrived, even though it was close to midnight.

“I’ll walk you back to your dorm,” he told me softly.

My first instinct was to tell him no. He didn’t need to trouble himself by walking me through the perfectly safe halls of the college. But I stilled my tongue, because despite my earlier statement, I wasn’t really ready for the night to end.

He led me out of the dorm and onto the landing, and once again, I felt the subtle brush of whatever element he used to keep the dorm secure. Air, I guessed, but it felt more charged.

Almost as charged as whatever was happening between the two of us. It could all be in my head, though. What experience did I have with flirting and sex and making moves on Heirs?

The silence stretched between us as we made our way down the six flights of stairs. It had never occurred to me that it took the same amount of effort to get to the Dome as it did to the bowels.

We hit the atrium, and Vox moved toward the stairs that went down to the Lower Line levels. “Have you ever been down here?” I asked, and he shook his head.

“Only once. There hasn’t been any other good reason to visit.”

He meant when he’d carried me down to the Twelfth Line dorm.

I’d forgotten, with all the healing and crap that came afterwards.

I didn’t know how to feel about that. On one hand, I preened, because apparently I was a good enough reason, but on the other, it made it blindingly clear that we were from two separate worlds that could never meet in the middle.

Was that something that mattered to me, though?

I didn’t have dreams of power and privilege.

I’d hate living in Fortaare, always under the eyes of others.

I wanted a quiet life somewhere out of the way, preferably by myself.

I guess I’d take Epsy, my stolt, with me too now, but that was it.

A simple life for a simple person, away from my father and politics, Heirs and the war college.

“What are you thinking about?” Vox asked quietly as we descended past the Sixth, then Seventh Line floors.

I chewed my lip, trying to decide how honest to be. Fuck it. I hadn’t made it this far by being a sycophant who spared his feelings. “I was thinking how terrible it would be to be your wife.”

His feet stilled, and he stared down at me, shock written all over his face. “I don’t disagree, but I’m not going to lie and say that doesn’t prick at my pride.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “I think your ego will be fine, Vox Vylan.”

We moved past the Eighth Line’s landing, until finally, we were standing outside my door.

He paused, and I turned toward him. He was looking down at me as if I was a problem he couldn’t quite solve.

Some part of me knew that if he ever did solve the riddle of me, he would move onto the next puzzle or woman or problem.

“Out of interest, why would it be so terrible to be my wife? I promise, my wife will have all the pleasures I could offer her.”

I gave him a crooked smile. “I bet.” There was something about the way Vox carried himself that told me he knew what to do between the bedsheets.

But that wasn’t the aspect of being his wife that I meant.

“Your life is right there under the spotlight, all light and heat and eyes on you. That’s the exact opposite of the person I am. I’d melt under that kind of scrutiny.”

He was silent for a long time, and I wondered once again if I’d offended him.

Finally, he sighed. “I don’t like it either.

But it is the life the Goddess gifted me, even if sometimes it feels more like a prison than a present.

” He lifted a hand and stroked a thumb across my bottom lip.

“It’s a shame, though. Tonight has been surprisingly not tedious.

I would have liked to do it again sometime. ”

Snorting, I shook my head. “High praise from Your Highness,” I mocked. “I said I didn’t want to be your wife, Vox. Not that I didn’t want to do… other things.”

That cocky smirk was back. “What things?”

Instead of telling him, I launched myself at him, kissing him hard on the lips with more enthusiasm than finesse. He kissed me back, holding me easily against his body. Despite the fact the skirts of my dress kept me hogtied, my legs were desperate to wrap around his hips.

He took easy control of the kiss, and soon enough, I was pressed against my door. His hands hiked up my dress, and he hissed into my mouth when his calloused palms reached the warm skin of my thigh. He squeezed the flesh hard, then dragged himself away.

“Fuck, you feel and taste too tempting, Avalon Halhed.” He looked disheveled.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him look anything but calmly in control.

“I have to go to Fortaare for a few days. When I get back…” He trailed off, like he was trying to find the words to explain all the terrible, debauched things he’d like to do to me.

“Think about where you would like this to progress, because Avalon?” He leaned closer to me, until our lips were almost touching again.

“I can’t wait to taste your pleasure on my tongue.

Can’t wait until you’re screaming my name so every single person in Boellium will know that I am fucking you so good, I’ll be branded on your soul forever.

” He brushed his lips lightly across mine. “See you in a few days.”

Then he turned and began the long climb back to his glass tower, while I was left panting at the door to my abandoned dorm.

Goddess, what have I done?