Page 48

CHAPTER 48

AURIA

I t’d been a day since I reassured Glacies in the clearing, and every hour that ticked by since, I thought of her. Why had she been so concerned as to seek me out to be sure I was okay? She didn’t belong in Deadwood with her natural biome being in the Brimstone Mountains, yet she was here. It was no secret that she lingered either. She’d passed over the house with her massive wings and blinding body reflecting the sun about five times.

I hadn’t bothered to ask Bowen if he knew what was up with her, instead enjoying his company while I could. After hours of eating, hydrating, and napping on and off, he’d asked if I was up for a stroll through the forest, reassuring me multiple times that I’d be safe and no other attacks would occur. I hesitantly agreed. That was three hours ago, and we were still riding.

He’d only brought one horse to the house, insisting I ride with him so I didn’t tire myself out too much. I hadn’t objected. Being close to him was quickly becoming my favorite place to be.

Bowen dropped the rein from one of his hands, setting it over mine where it sat on the horn of the saddle. “Are you doing okay?”

I nodded. This was not the first time he had asked. His constant checking in on how I was feeling made my heart flutter. “I’m okay. Would you care to tell me where we’re going now?”

He stayed quiet, returning his hand to the rein.

I heaved a heavy sigh. “Bowen—” I started, but quickly snapped my mouth shut as we crested the top of the hill. The sight before us stole the breath from my lungs.

Rather than make some smart-ass comment, he gently tugged on the reins, stopping the horse as he watched my reaction, my eyes taking in everything in front of us. Or was he admiring my awe? I wasn’t sure. Not when I’d never seen a sight such as this or even dreamed of one remotely similar.

At the base of a towering mountain sat a spring surrounded by crystals of all colors and sizes jutting up from the rock and soil. Every shade imaginable glittered in the setting sun as it cast shadows over the land. Clusters of crystalline spikes darted out of the ground like knives, beautiful yet glaringly deadly.

“This is Iris Vere,” Bowen explained, finally taking his eyes off me to look over the beauty before us. “The Rainbow Spring.”

True to its name, the water glowed a rich pink, swirls of other colors mixing with the fuschia. As if protected by the mountain that loomed above it, there wasn’t a ripple to be seen, the top of the spring like stained glass.

With my mind caught in the trance of its beauty, I hadn’t realized the horse had begun walking again, only stopping once he hit the edge of the spring. There was a small bank where no crystals sprang up from the ground, just wide enough for us to dismount.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, the words barely a whisper as I stared down at the strawberry-colored water.

“There are so many places I want to show you,” he admitted quietly.

I didn’t voice what we were both thinking. That time wasn’t on our side.

“Would you like to get in?”

My head spun in his direction at the question, the saddle creaking as I shifted. “Can we?”

“Some springs aren’t safe to swim in because of the veins of magic that run near the water, but this one is fine.”

“There are others?”

He glanced over his shoulder, like he might see one he could point out. “There are quite a few scattered in and around the Sunward Mountains.”

My eyes widened slightly. “ In ?”

His gaze caught on mine as he turned back to the spring. “We’ve happened upon a couple in the caves, but we don’t go near them for obvious reasons. Between earthquakes and the risky magic buried deep in the earth, it’d be too dangerous.”

“Well, thank you for bringing me to one of the safe ones, I suppose.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, his voice teasing.

“What makes the water this color?” I asked, though I think I knew the answer.

“Minerals. The spring is far enough away from any major pockets that it won’t hurt us, but the crystals hold raw magic that sometimes leaks into the water, mixing with the minerals and changing the water different shades. It’s why we call it the Rainbow Spring.”

I nodded my response, speechless by the idea that this naturally existed, sitting here undisturbed.

He jumped down from the horse, then set both hands on my waist before I could attempt to swing my leg over and lifted me down himself. He removed his hold on me, and my stomach dipped at the craving to have them back.

With our focus now on the calm body of water in front of us, I said, “So how do we do this, exactly?”

“We undress, then get in,” he explained, as if that didn’t include us getting naked or dipping into a pool of magic.

He must’ve sensed my hesitation because he said, “Come on, Princess. Not like we haven’t seen every inch of each other already.” His fingers gripped the hem of his shirt and tugged it up over his head.

Instantly, my cheeks heated. When he noticed the color of my skin matching that of the pink water, a smirk pulled at the side of his mouth.

“I don’t bite,” he added.

“How do you know I don’t?” I asked.

He tossed his shirt in the plush grass behind us, and his bare chest brushed my shoulder, sending tingles down my arm. “Because if you did, you would have already.”

“Maybe I’m waiting to strike.”

He leaned a little closer, his breath smelling of mint and something faintly fruity. “Then take aim, Princess. I’ve been waiting for you.”

A breath of a second later, he shucked his pants off completely, underwear and all, and dove into the spring. I jumped back as water sprayed up at me. Rather than the cold I expected, the droplets were warm as they coasted down my skin to the soil beneath me.

The horse, completely unbothered by us, stepped back up into the grassy meadow and began grazing.

Bowen emerged from the water, wiping his dark hair out of his face. The sight of him wet and knowingly naked below the surface heated my core. He was so painstakingly beautiful in this moment, everything I remembered from our moment in the shower, and fuck, I wanted to wrap myself up in him and never leave.

He sent a smile up at me, and I tried to hide my own, shaking my head with the effort. I tried to shove the utter need for him away with no success. Getting in this spring with him was dangerous, if any other time we were alone together was proof of that. So why was sinking into the warm water with him so enticing? Like an addiction I wanted to form, but had never had a taste of before.

With his eyes glued to mine, he swam backwards until his back hit the wall of crystals behind him. Blues and golds glistened over his tanned skin like a painting, and I wanted to capture the sight forever to keep a sliver of the life I could’ve had with him inked into my memory.

He didn’t encourage me further as I stood there, staring at him as if I could find some sort of confidence in his gaze. It wasn’t that I was nervous to bare no clothes in front of him, but more so the idea of us being alone in the water, with nothing to do but explore each other. That night in the shower had been for a reason, and right now, this was purely for pleasure.

And I was stupid to be robbing myself of it.

I yanked my blouse off, and my breasts were on full display as I bent to pull down my pants. Once those and my shoes were off, I straightened, watching as Bowen drank me in from across the spring. He looked parched, like not even all the water in this spring could sate him of his sudden dehydration.

Slowly, I dipped my toes in. The water was just as warm as it was when it had splashed me, if not more so. Finding the smooth stone bottom, I submerged both my feet, walking toward him. After a few steps, the water was up past my breasts, the waves gently rippling against my skin as I waded forward.

I stopped mere inches from Bowen, staring up at him as he towered over me, despite the spring being somewhat deep. My eyes fell to the tattoos covering every inch of bare skin on his chest and stomach, weaving around the tops of his shoulders and down his arms.

“Are they from stealing?” I asked, bringing a finger up to trail over the one cresting his right peck.

“They are,” he replied, his voice lower, huskier than usual. “Does that scare you?”

I shook my head, finding his eyes again. “I believe people can do bad things for the right reasons.”

“And you assume my reasons are justified when you don’t know what they are?”

My palm flattened to his chest as I drifted closer. “I think you’d do anything to keep your people alive.”

A sort of predatory glint took form in his gaze, and I looked down, focusing on where my hand made contact with his skin. My core heated, every nerve in my body lighting up like a match as my palm tingled against him. His finger hooked under my chin, lifting my head so that I had no choice but to face him.

Everywhere we connected sparked like a life source flowed through our touch alone. Something darkened in my peripheral, and at first, I thought it might’ve been the sun finally disappearing for the day, but upon closer inspection, it wasn’t that at all.

The water was turning a deep purple.

I went to draw my hand away from Bowen, but he grabbed my wrist, holding it in place.

“Why is it doing that?” I asked, confusion and slight panic lacing my words.

“It feels you,” Bowen answered, but provided no further clarification.

Violet ripples collided with our bodies as my brows furrowed. “ Feels me?”

“It’s not just the minerals working alone to cause that color, but the magic, too. It can sense your emotions. How you’re reacting to being in this spring with me.”

The furrow of my brows deepened. None of what he was saying was making this any clearer.

“I saw you in the tunnel,” he admitted. “With the fire magic. How it reacted to you, and you to it. How it didn’t ink you that day in the market.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “It’s just magic?—”

“You don’t have to hide from me, Auria.” With his finger still hooked under my chin, he moved to place his palm against my cheek. “I see you. All the things you try to keep secret, I notice. All the hurt you try to keep bottled inside, I feel.”

“I’m engaged,” I blurted, scared of what his words were doing to me. How they were making me feel. I didn’t want to hurt him when I left, and these feelings he was admitting… They would only lead to heartbreak.

But it wasn’t as if my engagement mattered anymore anyway. Lander and I had both agreed to call it off as soon as the bridge was rebuilt and we made it home, which would be any day now.

“Who do you think you’re fooling? Because it’s not me.”

“I don’t take you as a fool,” I defended. He was anything but.

“Then what do you take me as?” As if an answer to that question might be so simple.

And it truly wasn’t. I didn’t have an answer because I was quickly coming to find that I took Bowen as everything . The reason I was able to step out of my comfort zone and feel safe. The reason I was alive. The reason I’d been second-guessing returning to the place I had grown up—the place that’d only served as my prison. He had shown me what freedom could look like. How the sun felt on my skin if I let myself bathe in it. That my magic wasn’t something to be ashamed of, but rather proud of.

How my heart seemed to skip a beat every time I saw him.

“Give in, Auria,” Bowen murmured, his voice a caress on the part of me that wanted to do exactly that. “Stop holding yourself back from the things you want most in this life and give in .”

And maybe it was the water, or the chill catching on the dusk air as the sun fell behind the horizon, giving us the privacy we desired, or the words he spoke so blissfully that drew my lips to his.

Or maybe it was simply what I wanted, and I was able to do it.

“Fuck this,” I muttered, right before our mouths molded together in an explosion of hunger and need.

My hand slid up his chest to wrap around the back of his neck at the same time his fingers tangled in my hair, pulling me flush against him. Our lips fit together like they were meant to be, and I wasn’t sure if it was me or the spring, but the water seemed to warm around our bodies.

A wisp of air floated up the center of my back, and I realized it was his smoke that caressed me as his tongue slipped past my lips. I welcomed him, my own dancing with his in a rhythm only the two of us could make together. As if that sparked a match, the kiss became ravenous, our mouths became rougher, starved of the other like this wasn’t enough. We were each other’s oxygen, our only source of life flowing between our ravaging kiss.

Our breaths melded together, and he inhaled deeply as he consumed me, pressing his forehead to mine. “I can smell what I do to you.” His hands tightened in my hair, like it was almost painful for him to admit that. “All I want is to taste your sweetness on my tongue.”

A small whimper escaped me at the thought of him doing just that, and he swallowed the sound with another kiss. He pressed his lower body to mine, his hard length a tease where it rested against my stomach. Suddenly, my senses became overloaded with a wave of honey and sugar.

“Make that sound again,” Bowen pleaded, murmuring the words into my mouth before he pulled his lips from mine to pepper kisses down my jaw, to my neck.

He wrapped an arm around my waist as my back bowed, my head tilted up toward the sky as I exposed my neck further for him. He kept me upright when my legs wanted to give out from the surreal need for him, and a wave of dizziness came and went. Never mind the vulnerability in this spring—I didn’t think anything could stop me from wanting more of him. Of this .

Bowen’s other hand tugged at my scalp as he drew his mouth farther south, sucking my breast into his mouth with the smallest graze of his teeth. A gasp sprang from me at the shock, and his tongue lapped over the bud to soothe it. He elicited a thrill from me I wanted to chase, and I got the feeling Bowen would deliver willingly, should I want more.

When he gave a little bite, another moan was pulled from me, causing his fingers to dig into my back. His mouth popped off my breast, and he looked at me with lust-heavy eyes. “It will be my personal goal in life to elicit those sounds from you.” His mouth was back at my neck. “Again.” Another kiss to my collarbone. “And again.” To my jaw. “And again.”

When his mouth finally crashed into mine, another whimper climbed its way up my throat. We were a cacophony of clashing teeth, panting breaths, and heated skin. The arm wrapped around my waist slid away, only for his hand to grab my breast in a pleasuring grip. My nails scratched at his neck, but neither of us seemed to care. Not as his magic slithered around my body in ribbons of black, snaking over every inch of my skin. I was a bundle of goosebumps, every nerve alive and homed in on the two of us.

My palms slid to his chest, and I shoved him backwards so his shoulder blades hit the crystal wall behind him, his hold on me now gone. A look of shock passed over him before my mouth was on his neck, licking and sucking. Rough hands gripped my hips punishingly as my breasts pressed against him.

Bowen moved his hold to my ass, then hooked his hands under my legs to hoist me up. My legs wrapped around him seamlessly, my lips not once leaving his tattooed skin.

I never wanted this to end. Never wanted to think of Amosite again or what a world without Bowen looked like. I’d been robbed of so many things in this life, and I couldn’t let it happen again. Couldn’t be deprived of the feelings Bowen wrung from me.

In between moving my mouth from his neck to his lips, I caught sight of the water turning indigo.

“Don’t think,” Bowen commanded against my lips. “Feel me, Auria. It’s just me and you in this moment.” One hand left my thigh to weave back into my hair. “Get out of that beautiful head of yours.”

Heeding his words, I tightened my grip around his waist, melting deeper into our kiss. Warm smoke coiled around my nipple, tickling the sensitive skin. Our mouths broke apart as my lips parted on a sudden inhale.

“I want to feel you,” I begged, my voice breathless. “More than this.”

“Auria—”

“I know what I want,” I cut him off. “Please.” Don’t rob me of this, too.

I would never.

My eyes shot open at the sound of his voice echoing through my head, but before I could question it, he was gliding his hands down my front, between my breasts and over my belly, causing it to jump at his touch. Then, his hand was between our bodies, poised at my entrance.

Answering the questioning look in his eyes, I nodded. A single finger slid inside me, and my mouth fell open, my breath hitching.

A sensation like no other coursed through my body at the feeling of him, and slowly, he retreated the digit before gliding it back in. On the next pass, he added another finger, and a noise like none I’d heard before fell from me.

His mouth was back on mine in an instant as he pumped his fingers in and out of me at a pace that was torturous. Needing something—anything—to hold on to, my hand came up to his neck. His back leaned further into the crystals behind him, and I was sure they were biting into his skin, but neither of us cared. Not when everything about this moment was earth-shattering.

My forehead pressed against his as my fingers dug into the side of his neck, gripping gently. As if hearing my silent plea, he added a third finger and picked up speed. My thighs felt like slush as I tried to keep myself tangled around him. When my hold almost slipped, his smoke lashed out to support me. The tendril around my breast curled tighter, another gliding down my stomach to flick across my clit.

Another moan ripped through the dusk air, and it only stoked Bowen further. He pressed a kiss to my cheek, keeping his pace steady and fast.

“Just like that.” Please. Please don’t stop.

I wouldn’t dream of it, Princess.

His words in my mind fueled me, and when the ribbon stroked over my clit in a soothing circle, my stomach tightened and my legs went stiff. My scream echoed off the crystals as my head fell to Bowen’s shoulder.

He pressed a kiss to the crook of my neck. “That’s my good girl. Come on my fingers, Princess. Take what you need from me.”

The only thing keeping me up was his power and the hand still wrapped around my thigh as my body shook. My orgasm rippled through me like nothing I ever could have imagined, and once the waves tapered off, I peeled my eyes open to find that the water was back to a deep violet, swirling around our connected bodies.

Bowen slowly withdrew his fingers from me, moving to rest his hand on my thigh. But I didn’t want soft, and I most certainly didn’t want this to end. Not now. Not when I just got my first taste of him.

Lifting my head from his shoulder, I didn’t give him a chance to speak before my mouth was back on his. With my strength coming back, I tightened my legs around him.

Auria .

“No,” I mumbled into our kiss. I didn’t want him to tell me to stop. That we shouldn’t go further. I want more.

And we will. But ? —

He heard that?

“No,” I repeated, but it was nearly drowned out by the sound of flapping wings. Following the noise, a rush of cool air slammed against my back.

Bowen pulled me closer to him, likely to shield my naked body from whatever dragon had decided to interrupt us. It almost broke me as our lips parted and Bowen focused his attention behind me.

“What is it?” Bowen asked.

“ King Tenere is on his way, and he brought company. ”