Page 6

REVERIES

GAVREL

E arth and nectar. I trapped my bottom lip behind one incisor, wishing I could taste the sweetness invading the air. My hips moved of their own volition, pushing into the soft heat wrapped around them.

With palms cupping a plump ass, my fingers pressed into warm curves. My cock jerked, seeking more friction.

I nuzzled into the crook of her neck, breathing her in as if she were oxygen.

A low growl vibrated in my throat when I tugged her lithe body closer, her heat tighter against my throbbing cock.

One of her arms wrapped around my middle, her nails digging into my back. The other twined around my nape while her fingers burrowed in my thick strands. Tugging on them. Pulling me into her as if we could melt together.

Rhythmically, her warm center ground against me.

A shudder ran up my spine, pushing a moan along the edges until it burst from my throat .

“Asteria.” The gravelly murmur fled from me.

A plea.

A prayer.

I wasn’t sure, but I needed to be inside her. Now.

I missed her embrace. Craved it.

My eyes snapped open as a sharp squeak broke through my lusty haze.

I was dreaming.

A tangle of messy auburn curls met me. Their soft strands tickled my jaw, catching in the stubble lining the squared angles as I pulled away.

I was most definitely not dreaming.

Slowly, I lifted my head, and my bottom lip slid from my bite. Her honeyed scent clung to my nostrils. I wanted to swim in it. Bite her skin as if she were made of the peaches she so loved, and then soothe the mark with my tongue.

Seryn’s cheeks matched the color of her hair in the early morning light. Her irises burned brightly, the color of a glacial sky. She gulped. “I’m … I’m sorry.”

I wasn’t.

Within me, I felt her need coursing in waves.

She blinked when she realized how entwined we were. As if the warm limbs coiling around my bulky frame weren’t her own.

I didn’t move. Perhaps because I wished to avoid frightening or embarrassing her. But mostly because I didn’t want to. I licked my bottom lip, and she followed my tongue’s path, her nails gently pressing into my scalp and back.

Delicately, her nostrils flared before her eyelids fluttered, a moth ready to flee toward the light.

As she hastily untangled herself, I breathed in, trapping a muffled groan. Standing, I adjusted my arousal as she busied herself with her boots and belongings. With a ticking jaw, I tugged my own on, pulling the laces snug. “Ready?” I asked and secured my baldric across my chest .

Avoiding my eyes, she nodded and turned to leave. The edges of dawn’s radiance spilled over her leather-clad, round backside as she scurried out of the room. At the view, my petulant cock twitched within the confines of my breeches, clearly not wanting to listen to reason.

Fucking void.

This was going to be a long journey.

Correction, it had already been a long journey. Every moment alone with her was torture.

Being near her.

Her sweet scent caressing me.

Sleeping next to her among the grymwoods.

The impenetrable silence and unspoken words between us.

Often, the rarity of quiet moments in my days left me longing for them. However, her reticence was troubling. She was working through her newly resurfaced memories—the pieces slicing through her one after the other as they unearthed themselves.

Aching worry scurried over my skin, and my muscles tensed, my cock somberly settling in my breeches.

Throughout the last several days, she’d been ill-tempered and despondent. I couldn’t blame her. I wanted to take her pain away, but she didn’t want any help from me.

At least, not yet.

Probably never.

I sighed, shifting my pack and weapon on my back as I followed her out of the room. The weight of our footfalls plunked over the inn’s rickety steps as we descended.

Over the turns, the constant effort of evading the consequences of my choices had been exhausting.

Every day, the jagged pieces of regret wedged between my ribs, clawing at the bony cage and trying to dig in. Trying to pierce my heart and drown me in my own blood. My jaw tightened, fists strangling the leather of my baldric.

Oddly, a morbid sense of relief lined the soiled edges of my remorse and shame. Now that Seryn remembered everything—now that she was coming into her powers—a sense of something urgent and terrifying nipped at my heels.

I wanted her to tear my heart in two. Needed her to punish me for everything I’d done over the turns. Help me forget the fear and regrets I carried deep within my mind while everyone else’s conscience was wiped clean every spring at the end of the Dormancy.

My thoughts soured as Melina’s malevolent grin sliced into my thoughts, her cold, delicate fingers stroking over me whenever she pleased.

Uninvited.

She was in Surrelia, along with her lapdogs, Lucan and Ryboas. It was time for me to cut my leash. No longer would I bend to her whims.

To her cruelties.

To my cruelties.

I swallowed, my windpipe dry. Brittle.

With Seryn and Kaden coming into their ember, a spark of—dare I say—hope was kindling within me. They weren’t as fragile as they once were and would only grow more capable over the coming turns.

They had to.

I rolled my shoulders, shifting my rucksack as we left the sleepy tavern.

Seryn peeked at me as I stood next to her on the boardwalk. The dawn painted the lynstone of the buildings in shades of peach and neon pink. She was radiant; the mortified flush on her face still lingered.

Growing up, I’d always been protective of her, as if she were my younger sister.

She was all gangly limbs and mischief. However, over time, things changed.

As a teenager, she’d sought me out more often, and I noticed her bashful glances frequently.

It wasn’t until she’d turned eighteen that I truly began to see her as the beautiful, stubborn woman she had become.

She ignited something deeper within me. As if I blinked and could no longer view her as I once had.

She was more .

I wondered if she remembered the first time we ever kissed two springs ago. The first time she’d come undone in my arms.

We moved through the twisting boardwalks of the city. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the bittersweet recollections as they flit through my mind, but to no avail.

During a beautiful spring day two turns ago, Seryn asked me to walk with her to and from the village. Later that afternoon, we walked home through the grymwoods. I didn’t wish to be away from her, so I foolishly asked her to sit with me awhile and watch the stars paint the twilight.

She talked about adoring the night sky—about Asteria, the Ancient of Stars, weaving her burning ember through the aether.

“I’m sure the stars would worship at your feet … Asteria,” I said.

Fuck.

She’d smoothed her thumb over the crease between my eyebrows, teasing that it would permanently etch into it as fear and longing spun through my mind.

“If you’ll keep touching me, I’ll make sure of it,” I murmured absently.

Fucking Fuck.

One thing led to another, and we collided, the gravity of our orbits too powerful to resist. In a fit of passion, we’d kissed, grasping at each other, and as she rocked against my clothed erection, I witnessed our undoing as she came.

After, she cupped my jaw tenderly and simply whispered, “Finally.”

“Finally,” I rasped in hopeless agreement, the word laced with shame and fear, knowing I would destroy her.

A sharp twinge in my chest brought me back to the present. I scrubbed my hand over the aching scar over my heart. I glanced at Seryn as we walked, and my fingers twitched with the need to touch her now.

But I couldn’t.

I’d lost that privilege.

Long ago, I had stomped on what we had. Tearing the roots up with my bare hands. My nails dug into my palms.

Back then, we’d never fully consummated our relationship.

Unlike Seryn and my brother . A burning knot pulled tight within my chest at the thought.

The muscle in my jaw pulsed, and I squeezed my teeth together until they ached.

She was free to do whatever she desired.

It’s all I’d ever wanted for her, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to tear my fucking heart out because it wasn’t me.

Last night, when she’d asked me to stay—when she allowed my arms to wrap around her—I could have passed on. Given my physical form to the dirt and gone to Surrelia, sated and content.

“Which way?” Seryn inquired as we arrived at a crossroads, her eyes still avoiding mine.

I inclined my head slightly to the right, moving in that direction.

She sighed, following me as we made our way through the winding boardwalks. Closer to the edge of town, we hastily bartered for some dried foods, supplies, and a set of smaller knives with the merchants.

Seryn slipped the sheathed blades carefully under some straps on her tall, black boots.

I swallowed as she stood, my fingers twitching as soft light caressed her curves.

She surveyed Ceto’s gentle beauty, her eyes pensively following a fisherman’s rickety boat as it drifted under the bridge we were crossing.

Jaw ticking, she froze. My hand went to the dagger at my waist as I followed her line of sight.

There, in the window of a shop, was a tall banner.

Melina and the Elders’ likenesses were drawn in admirable detail.

Their hair fluttered as if they stood in a gentle breeze, their gazes gallantly staring off into the distance.

In big, bold lettering, the slogan “Through Dormancy, we blossom!” was scrawled.

Seryn moved toward the propaganda, and I stepped into her path. She sneered; her collarbone painted in angry pink splotches.