Page 15 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams (Fated to the Sun and Stars #3)

“When I was at the high temple, Caledon tried to get information out of me—about the Hand, about my powers. The clerics tortured me, and when that wasn’t enough to break me, he ordered them to bring someone in.

It was…” I go to dig my fingernail into my palm, something I’ve always done to steel myself…

but of course, most of my fingernails are gone, torn away by pliers.

It may be months before they grow back completely.

I swallow hard and just say it. “It was Kit.”

Her hand squeezes mine like a vise, cutting off the blood.

“He didn’t die in the purge?” she gasps.

“No, he didn’t.” My throat grows tighter with every word. “They kept him alive, and imprisoned.”

A sob breaks free from her, and she releases my hand, clutching her throat instead.

“Dad? My mom?” she says, and I know what she’s asking. I shake my head.

“There was no sign of them, and he never said their names. I think it was just your brother.”

Tears are flooding my eyes, making her look blurry.

“What happened?” she asks, trembling. “Is he…?”

All I can do is shake my head, and her head drops for just a beat before she looks up again, an awful understanding in her eyes. She knows what’s coming .

“Caledon drained him to try to force me to cooperate. I’m so sorry, Tira. I?—”

I choke on my words, unable to tell her the truth. I killed him. I slit his throat.

Would she understand? Could she ever forgive me? I don’t even know if it was the right thing to do myself. Was I really being merciful, or was I being selfish, choosing the option that was easier on me?

“I couldn’t save him,” I finish. I’m disgusted by my own cowardice, but I tell myself it’s better she doesn’t know the terrible details.

Tira says nothing but reaches out, and I hold her as she leans into me, her whole body shaking as she weeps.

“Of course, I already believed he was dead,” she whispers, in between sharp inhalations. “But that doesn’t make losing him a second time any easier.”

“I know,” I say. What else is there? I’m relieved when she doesn’t ask me any more questions. I feel sick even just thinking about describing the scene—telling her how he looked, how he suffered. I want to protect her from it all, and I selfishly want to protect myself from reliving it.

Eventually, Tira asks to be alone, and once I’m in the corridor, Leon guides me back to our room.

I feel like I’m sleepwalking—like nothing is quite real.

When we’re inside, I lean against the closed door, shutting my eyes and trying to ground myself.

I can feel Leon close to me, not with any of my ordinary senses but with that strange new awareness from the location spell.

I focus on it now, finding the thud of his heart, steady as a drumbeat. It soothes me, making me feel like I can breathe again.

“I couldn’t help but hear most of that,” Leon’s low voice rumbles. “I understand there were things you didn’t want to tell Tira. But you can tell me.”

I open my eyes. “How did you know?”

He shrugs. “Just a feeling. And I know you. You’d want to shield her from the worst.”

“Or shield myself,” I say miserably .

He takes my hand, holding it gently in his. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault,” he says.

The certainty in his words splits me open, and the truth comes pouring out.

“I killed him, Leon. I cut his throat myself,” I look away, unable to meet his gaze.

“Caledon was torturing Kit—draining his magic away. He did it to me just for a minute, so I could know what it was like. But with Kit…it kept going and going . He was in agony. And that bastard said he could keep him like that for days, hovering between life and death, unless I talked. I didn’t want him to have to go through that, so I tricked Caledon and ended his life myself. I made it quick, but still…”

I see the life draining from Kit’s eyes—the life I took from him—and I’m too ashamed to look at Leon. He takes my chin and turns my face toward him.

“Look at me,” Leon says sternly. “You did what you had to.”

“But—”

“Don’t you think I’ve done the same myself?

When I see a brother- or sister-in-arms on a battlefield, fatally wounded but dying slowly and full of pain, begging for the peace of the Eternal Realm, of course I end it for them.

Kit needed mercy in that moment, and you were brave enough to give it.

Not everyone can do that. You acted with honor and compassion. You should be proud.”

His words stitch me back up, holding me together just as I was ready to come apart entirely.

“What would I have done, if you hadn’t come for me?” I murmur, mostly to myself.

“You don’t need to ask yourself that,” he says. “Because I’ll always find you.”

“In this world or the waking one,” I finish, echoing the first time he said those words to me.

A dream. I could treat everything that happened to me in Qimorna as a dream. I could let the pain and the memories slip into the dark corners of my mind and stay there, hazy and undefined. I don’t need to bring them out into the light to examine—at least, not yet .

“Kiss me,” I say to Leon, finding my anchor in his endless gray eyes.

He doesn’t hesitate to pull me to him, lifting my chin and claiming my mouth. I sigh into him, letting him merge us together so I no longer have to exist alone in this body. He’s right there with me, sharing heat and touch and taste.

We stumble to the bed without separating.

The brush of his lips against my jaw, then my neck and collarbone chases away all the tightness in my throat.

I fumble at the buttons on his shirt as he lifts the bottom of my tunic, his fingertips lightly touching my stomach.

I stiffen, remembering the last time I was touched there, when my skin was just a checkerboard of open wounds.

“Leon…”

He senses my hesitation but doesn’t pull back.

Instead, he slides his whole hand across my stomach, leaving it resting there.

I squirm, uncomfortable, but he simply says, “Nothing will stop you being the most beautiful woman in the world to me, Morgana Angevire. Every part of you is precious to me, including your war wounds and scars. Because they are part of you.”

I relent, letting him pull my tunic off me, leaving my stomach exposed.

I look down at the silvery lines and pink patches of healed skin.

I can see the emotions in his eyes as he takes in the damage, cycling through rage, sorrow, and tenderness.

Leon bends his head and kisses me gently just below the navel, trailing soft touches all along the ugly lines of scars.

His hands go to the top of my pants next, pulling them down. As his thumbs graze the inside of my thighs, my breath hitches, desire jolting through me.

He meets my gaze. “Is it too soon? Do you need more time to heal?”

“No,” I say, almost violently. I push myself up onto my knees and climb into his lap, straddling him. I can feel his erection pressing hard against my ass, but he simply lays his head against my breasts as I stroke the nape of his neck.

“I need you, Leon. The thought of you kept me alive in there.” I lift his head, staring into his eyes to emphasize my point. “Now make me forget it all. Wipe it from my memory so it’s just you and me here, now, in this bed. ”

I press myself into him, grinding down against his erection, showing him exactly how I need him.

The movement pulls a low growl from him, and he leans forward, laying me back down on the bed.

His pants are quickly discarded, and I sigh with anticipation as I spread my legs for him, guiding his hard cock into me.

The hunger I feel for him isn’t just physical, it’s in my very soul. I’ve been so alone for so long. I need him to reach inside and touch the deepest parts of me. Only then, when he strokes them back to life, will I truly know that I survived—that I’m really here, safe, with him.

He cradles me in his arms as he enters me, holding me against him so I can feel his skin against mine, his breath on my cheek.

But something is different. As his cock slides home inside me, filling me in exactly the way I crave, it’s like my pleasure is doubled.

The first wave of delicious sensation is joined by the echo of another, and it pulls a gasp from my throat.

My body shudders with the intensity of it and my head drops back.

“Ana?” Leon’s voice is low and rough, struggling to speak through a haze of lust. “Are you alright?”

“What is that?” I ask breathlessly, pushing myself up on my elbows. It shifts our position, causing him to slide deeper inside me. The ripple of sensation strikes again, once, then twice, making me moan.

“A side effect of the location spell,” Leon says, his hands caressing my sides, tracing my ribs.

Having him inside me has unlocked something new—maybe because we’re now physically sharing the same location.

When he leans down and kisses the skin between my breasts, the touch of his lips flutters across my chest. It’s like a ghost of the kiss repeating itself, dancing on my nerves.

“Really?” I stare at him in wonder. “That’s some spell.”

He doesn’t answer, just captures my mouth with his, possessing it as he pulls his hips back then slides into me again.

I make a keening noise as I feel every inch entering me doubled, the echo of sensation dragging the motion out so it lasts for whole minutes instead of seconds.

I grab onto the back of his arms, trying to ground myself against the onslaught of pleasure.

“Is it too much?” he murmurs, and I hear his breathlessness. When I look up, it’s clear his eyes are dark with a wildfire that’s barely contained. He feels this too.

“No. It’s exactly what I need,” I say, laying a hand against his cheek. “Keep going.”

“Like this?” He lifts my hips so that his cock hits just the right spot, sending explosions of ecstasy through my body.

“Yes.” I take a ragged breath, clutching him tighter. “More. Please.”

He fucks me slowly, and for once I’m not impatient.

There’s no rush to climax when the journey there feels this amazing, this fulfilling—this healing.

I savor the weight of his thighs against my legs and the grip of his hand on my hip every bit as much as the gradual, unstoppable climb of my desire.

Being close to him like this is everything I need.

He’s all I can feel, all I want to feel. If I could, I’d stay like this forever.

Eventually, however, his thrusts quicken, stretching me wider as he takes me to the hilt.

I open up for him, my body hungry for all of him I can get as his muscles tighten and he spills into me.

I close my eyes, focusing on the sensation, and so I miss him reaching down for my clit until sensation rockets through me like a lightning bolt.

His groan of satisfaction mingles with my own delighted moans as he sets off fireworks at my core.

I finish with him still inside me, but I don’t open my eyes even when the last ripples of orgasm fade. I’m not ready to return yet—to leave this place of perfect pleasure and comfort, to face the ugliness that lurks at the corners of my mind.

I do open them as Leon withdraws from me. I feel horribly empty without us joined, like I’ve lost the only thing holding me together. But then there’s the creak of bed springs, and a weight settles between my legs. I inhale sharply as fresh pressure, hot and slick, lavers my clit.

I bury my hands in Leon’s hair as he tastes me, making my desire flare anew.

It’s like he can read my mind and knows I’m not ready for this to be over yet.

Every teasing flick of his clever tongue tells me he’ll draw this out as long as I need.

I buck against him, and he grabs my thighs, pulling them across the bed until they hit his shoulders, and he’s all but lost in me.

The heat builds inside me, as if I’m about to take flight right off this bed. All the weight of the last few weeks shrinks away, making me lighter than air.

“I’m close,” I gasp, and Leon slides two fingers inside me, curling them upward as he brings me to the edge with firm, patient strokes.

“Come for me, Ana,” he murmurs, sending vibrations across my skin. “Let me taste how good I make you feel.”

He doesn’t need to say the rest—that he’ll keep on making me feel good, so I never have to go back to that dark place of pain and prison cells. That’s what being with Leon means—always being found, always being put back together again when I’m coming apart.

I see stars when he finally takes me over the edge. Beautiful, sparkling stars that remind me of the clear night sky above the fields of Otscold.