Page 65 of Insolence (Eisha’s Hidden Codices #1)

Elodie

M y climax washes over me while her eyebrows pinch together in helpless bliss.

She calls my name. Breathtaking beyond beauty, she’s more resplendent to me than the Mother of Destruction and Regeneration herself.

Her aura flares incandescent with the power of her orgasm. The groan dies in my lungs, my ability to move blunted. Mirror sigils glow on the backs of my hands, triggered by hers. By our soul-tie.

Time seems to slow. My life-force streams into her body like a song.

It’s a devastating rush. The sweetest suffering I’ve ever known. Then she’s bent over me. Her teeth are at my throat, clenching my flesh, vicious and vital. Bruising. Claiming. I am literally and figuratively paralyzed with awe.

“You are mine, Elodie,” her voice gentles inside my head. “You belong to me and me alone. The part of you that lives in this moment of pleasure will always be mine .” Her claim radiates like ripples spreading on water. “ Nobody will ever wrest you from my possession again.”

Our climaxes wind down, and time resumes its normal flow. I know by the lust haze washing everything that I’m drowning in a sea of pheromones right about now. I’m yours, Tiss, I think, helplessly. Do with me whatever you wish.

But something’s wrong.

She gasps, posture going rigid on top of me. Abruptly and with no reason or explanation, reality splits.

Inside our shared connection, part of her grabs me and plunges. We tumble together, our essences still entwined, into a familiar… bittersweet… past.

El

Approximately 4.5 Years Ago

W e lie together, our breath slowing. Passion cooling. My muscles unwind with a familiar, languid heaviness.

The nagging is back with force and urgency. It’s sorrow, I realize. Her sorrow. It stitches along our soul-tie, scraping at the chambers of my heart.

“Hey,” with some effort, my energy sapped, I run a hand down her back. “What did you want to talk about before? Because I know for a fact that you never wind up in this neighborhood by coincidence.”

She adjusts against me, twining her fingers in the short hair curling around my ears.

“You can just say it, love. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.”

She huffs and sits up, throwing her feet off the side of the bed. “Don’t people ever get angry when you pry?”

I heave myself over with all I’m worth. Roll onto my side, cheek propped on my hand. “Sweetheart, have I done something to make you angry?”

Her back is to me. Her posture sags. “No, I’m not angry. I suppose pretending to be makes it easier to say what I’m about to say.” When she glances over her shoulder, her eyes are red and brimming with tears.

Adrenaline floods me at the sudden distress gushing down our connection.

She’s already on her feet. “I’ve been married two years now.

” Whirling around my bedroom, snatching her clothes from the floor.

“My in-laws never stop asking about children.” Dragging layers of fine silk and lace over her body.

“Every month I go without conceiving, their hounding gets worse.” She looks up, cramming her blouse into her skirt. “They’re relentless, Elodie.”

Nope. “El,” I say, clocking the shift back.

“El,” she echoes, sitting on the end of the bed to fuss with her garters and stockings. “They expected an heir by now. Every time my cycle starts, I am blamed.”

“Blamed for what? Not getting pregnant on their schedule?” Catching the shirt she tosses my way, I pull it over my head. “Do they want to watch or something? Make sure you’re doing it right?” Even I’m aware of the empty bravado dripping in my tone.

She rolls her eyes. My trousers land beside me, sending up a small cloud of ochre dust, followed by my crumpled undershorts. She’s through the bedroom door by the time I’ve got my pants pulled up.

“They know about us, El. They know about you .” She spins on me.

Fuck. Cold dread stops me in my tracks.

We’ve tried to be discreet, but we both knew the risk of discovery was never marginal. It wouldn’t be such a problem if she were some lowborn commoner. Like me.

So long as we didn’t cause trouble. Make a scene. A slag like me needs to remember my place, after all.

But for a woman of her status to be married and carrying on with anyone, much less someone of her same sex, it’s beyond inappropriate.

For her to be childless and dallying with me —bold as I am to strut about the city wearing men’s trousers and cropped hair?

An insult of the highest order. To her husband’s family, as well as her father’s.

And they are very, very powerful families.

The poor peregrine and her lost mate come to mind. A gradually realized horror threatens to splinter me, but I don’t yet know to what end. “Tiss, please. We talked about this.”

“No, you talked about it. But it’s not realistic! And this isn’t working anymore.” She motions between us.

“Oh, come on.” I follow her into the kitchen. “If they’ve caught on, then we’ll leave. Just the two of us.” Catching up, I take her arm. Cup her face in my hand. “Go somewhere we can be together.”

“You keep coming back to that, but where could we possibly go? There’s nowhere in this realm or outside of it that would evade Orum’s reach forever—or my father’s—and you know it.”

“There’s Ariter.”

She gives me a pitying look. “Which is far too close to Aronya Dar for my liking.”

“All the easier to get there from here, right?” My hands drop when she says nothing. “Can’t we discuss it for once? We could find Ma’s clan. Lay low for a while. Plan our next move. You always wanted to see the Boglands, right?”

“Sweetheart,” she sighs, ignoring my attempt at humor, “the decision’s already been made.”

“Wait. What decision?”

“I found out yesterday morning. I came as soon as I could get away.”

“What decision, Tiss?” The room spins and my knees buckle. Blood pressure plummeting, I slam my hands onto the kitchen table with a grunt.

Fuck. I did too much after what she took from me. Combined with the unbearable possibility of what she’s saying, I’m suddenly fighting for air. “ Please ,” I choke. “Please don’t do this. Don’t end it.”

She moves closer. Smooths a hand down my spine. “Illiam and I will be traveling for a long while.”

Tears roll down my face, landing on the table in fat drops. “What does that mean? Traveling where?”

“To his family in Cantana, then to Nehel for a time. On to Black City from there. Afterward I’m not sure.”

“That’s the whole damn realm .” I tally the math, figuring she’ll be gone for six months at least, with a trek like that and time at court in Cantana to boot. Gods. Possibly a year.

Hands bracing me, I watch my own tears spatter the rough-hewn wood. “When are you leaving?” Plat-plat-plat.

“I have no idea. You know I’ve fallen out of favor with Madoc and Jedrek, both. I’m barely in the loop as it is. But I’d hazard to say quite soon, with the hullabaloo of packing going on at my house.”

A spark of hope kindles. I wipe my cheeks and straighten. “You’ll be passing back through on your way to Nehel. We could meet in secret. Give me a chance to put a plan in place. By the time you get back, I’ll have sent word to Ma’s people—”

“El—”

“Listen! I’ll have our route mapped out. Supplies packed. Everything will be set. Send word when you return, and we’ll leave that same night.”

“I’m afraid it’s impossible.” She slowly shakes her head.

Impossible? Ice floods my veins at the sorrow dumping down our link, streaming into me. Tearing at the corners of my mind.

“I’ll be closely watched. It’s been made abundantly clear the extent of impropriety I’ve committed by associating with you.” She scoffs. “It’s ridiculous. They can’t even put words to it.”

Our affair , she means.

She and Illiam were betrothed a month after her birth but never got to know each other until after they were wed. Not exactly a love match.

She and I fell in love long before her marriage was finalized. The tie we share is so deeply rooted, so intimate, the word affair seems a meager, shameful thing for something more precious to me than life itself.

“I won’t be seeing you again after this.” She says it softly. Gently. As if she isn’t stripping the flesh from my bones. “I can’t risk it.”

Again the peregrine flashes through my mind. Gods. This is what the poor creature was trying to warn me about.

Horror on top of horror splits the already fragile fracture lines, breaking me to pieces. Rending me completely apart. “But I love you, Tiss. Please. Tell me there’s a way we can stay together.” When she doesn’t answer, doesn’t say “I love you” back, I yank out a chair. Drop into it.

Put my head in my hands.

Her expensive glass earrings clack, telling me she’s shaking her head. She teases her fingers through the short hair at my nape and clicks her tongue.

The stimulation rankles every nerve in my body. Only minutes ago, she was running her hands through my hair with abandon as she worked herself to ecstasy between my legs.

“El, I need to leave now.”

“ No ,” I blurt, tearing my hands from my face. “You can’t— Tiss, please. It’s too sudden.”

She looks miserable for roughly half a second. Then a coolly indifferent mask drops over her visage. “I’ve stayed too long as it is, and I can’t risk being found here. I’m likely being followed, even now.”

My stomach genuinely considers evicting its contents. I’m reeling, struggling to process. Refusing to accept the glaring truth— this is farewell .

“Tiss, please. Don’t choose him over me. Please don’t leave me.” I’m blubbering now. Clutching at her blouse, her arms, and pleading like a wretch. “I don’t think I can live without you! Do you think you can live without me?”

“The decision’s already been made,” she repeats, her expression ruthlessly blank.

I’ve seen the shift in her demeanor many times. She’s who I adopted the tactic from, after all. During the course of our romance, she’s always directed it at other people. At threats. Until now.

“What about our tie?”

“El, stop.”