Page 48 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams (Fated to the Sun and Stars #3)

“Fattening a lamb up for slaughter,” Damia says, her voice thick with disgust.

“Yes, and when he’s slaughtered that poor child, he might just be powerful enough to use the tokens the dryads talked about,” says Ana.

“So Oclanna is queen, Caledon’s on his way to becoming even more powerful, and we have no idea where any of these artifacts are,” Alastor says, staring around at us. “Is it me or are we losing this war before it’s begun?”

“Alastor,” I say sharply. “You don’t always have to say everything that goes through your head. ”

“That’s a bit like asking a fish not to swim,” Harman says. “But anyway, he’s wrong.”

“I am?” Alastor asks, bemused.

“Yes, because we only need to topple one piece of whatever Caledon’s building—ruin one part of his plans—and everything falls apart. We just need to work out exactly where the weak spot is in all this and hit it hard.”

“Harman’s right,” Ana says. “Caledon wants us hopeless and afraid, because that’s when we’ll be easiest to defeat. But the fight’s far from over yet.”

MORGANA

I hang back as the others return to the Crossed Keys, not sure I’m ready to face Leon. But eventually, I can’t stall any longer, and I return to the inn.

I’m just coming through the doorway when I recognize Damia’s voice in the hall around the corner. She’s talking to someone in a low, flirtatious tone I’ve never heard her use before, and I pause mid-step.

“Careful, Wadestaff. Barb might have gone all soft where you’re concerned, but you haven’t pulled the wool over my eyes.”

“Oh, we’re back to Wadestaff now, are we? What happened to calling me Corrin?”

“Momentary madness. I forgot I only use the first names of people I trust.”

“You seemed to trust me enough back when I had my hand on your?—”

Deciding I’ve eavesdropped enough, I keep walking toward them, deliberately making my footsteps louder than usual. When I turn the corner, Corrin and Damia are standing far apart, looking away from each other. I simply nod at them before climbing the stairs.

I’d laugh, if I wasn’t so surprised. I never saw the spiky, serious Damia falling for a man like Corrin.

But then maybe she hasn’t . She might be attracted to the crime lord, but she said herself that she doesn’t trust him.

And if she never lets herself trust him, any relationship is doomed before it even begins.

Trust him like you trust Leon…right?

My treacherous brain brings my thoughts right back to him. Deciding to trust Leon was one of the biggest leaps I’ve had to take, and this is the first time I’ve seriously questioned whether it was the right decision.

The last time he kept something from me, it was because he wanted to decide my path for me—taking me to the Lyceum to grow my magic.

This time, he said he had the opposite intention.

He wanted me to still feel like I had a say.

I wouldn’t say that makes it all okay…but maybe it does make it a little easier to see his point of view.

Even if he went about it the wrong way, he was trying to give me choices instead of taking them away.

I told him that people have often lied to me because they thought I was weak, and I was quick to put him in the same boat with them.

But that’s not what happened here. His actions had nothing to do with how strong I am and everything to do with my freedom.

And then there’s the fact I’ve felt our relationship was different for a long time but never asked him about it outright.

Why didn’t I question those changes more?

Because it all felt so natural, I suppose.

So right. I don’t dislike being moored to Leon; I love it.

I just wish it had happened differently.

I concentrate on the thud of his heartbeat in my awareness, telling me he’s in our room.

He stands up when I enter, his gray eyes searching out mine, even though he doesn’t need to read them to know how I’m feeling.

He’s not surprised, then, when I go to him, and let him take me in his arms. He rests one hand on my waist and strokes the other along my spine.

“I thought I was putting your happiness first,” he says.

“I know,” I say. I reach out for that connection between us, deliberately trying to send a message along it, asking him to hear my thoughts like I’ve heard his.

“I always loved how you pushed me—believed I was strong in ways no one else did. ”

His eyes widen, and I know he’s heard me. I let out a shaky breath, exhilarated by this new closeness, and keep going.

“But you have to treat this relationship like it’s strong too. That means it has to be honest, no matter how ugly or painful or difficult the truth might be. You have to believe that we’ll survive it, because what we won’t survive is anything built on lies. Even ones you think help keep me safe.”

“I know,” he echoes my words, holding my gaze as steady as an anchor in a wild, shifting ocean. “I see that now.”

“You can’t protect me from everything—especially not emotionally,” I tell him.

“You have to realize I’d do anything for you,” he says, breaking our mental conversation to speak out loud. It’s like he thinks it will ring clearer if he actually says the words.

“I do realize that,” I reply, running a hand along his jaw. “And of course I feel the same.”

“So you’d do anything for me except forgive me for my mistake,” he says wryly.

“That’s the first time you’ve called it that,” I point out. I sigh, knowing I’m not angry about this anymore, but I still need things to change. “Just promise me that if you’re going to do anything for me, you’ll include me in it. Promise that we’ll never have any more lies between us, ever.”

Leon has kept things from me, but he’s always kept his promises to me too. He’s never gone back on anything he’s sworn to me, not since we went to Filusia all those months ago.

“I promise,” he says, and then says it again in my mind.

“I promise, my love.”

“Will I always be able to hear you?” I ask, still in awe of our minds being joined like this.

“When you choose to. Now that you know about the mooring, you’ll be able to consciously let me in, and choose which thoughts to send to me.

” A touch of unease mars his features. “But Ana, the more we do that, the deeper the mooring will grow. We’ll only become even more closely bound. Is that what you want? ”

I smile. “Of course it’s what I want. Leon, you were already a part of my soul before the mooring; you already had my heart and mind. This just makes it tangible. I’m ready to spend a lifetime in your arms, and even then it won’t be long enough.”

“How about we start with the next few hours?” he asks playfully, pulling me closer.

He lowers his lips to mine, gently easing my mouth open for better access.

He kisses me long and sensuously, stoking my desire with slow strokes of his tongue against my own.

It’s so heady and intense, I nearly forget to breathe.

Kissing him has always been amazing, but this is on an entirely new level.

Only then do I realize that however the mooring connected us before, things have changed.

“I can feel your pleasure,” I send along the mooring. “I can feel it mixing with mine.”

It’s no longer an echo, but instead the two forces—my desire and his—have been brought fully together to make one powerful cocktail of sensation.

“It’s magnificent,” he says, and I feel his waves of enjoyment as I experimentally flick my tongue against his and then bite down gently on his lower lip.

I moan, unable to stay silent under the onslaught of sensations.

“All this just from a kiss,” I think to Leon, astounded. “How are we ever going to leave this bedroom?”

“Let future us worry about that,” Leon responds, his hands deftly working to remove my dress, then sliding the shift over my head.

I feel the surge of hunger he feels as he feasts his eyes on my naked body.

Then I let him taste my own raw need as I liberate him from his clothes, running my hands over his hard, sculpted chest.

“I want to try something,” he growls, ushering me toward the bed, managing to run his hands all over my body in the process.

“What is it?” I breathe excitedly. The power of his pleasure doubled with mine has me almost feral, and I’m already soaking wet, aching for him before I’ve even been properly touched.

He relays his idea directly to my mind, and I feel my face flush .

“Really?” I ask, even though my whole body is already tingling at the thought.

“It’s exactly how I want you,” he says, his eyes glittering. “Are you going to deny me?”

I shake my head and let him pull me down onto the bed. My breathing hitches as he lies down and I climb on top of him, hesitating for just a moment as I rest there, my knees on either side of his stomach.

“Now’s not the time to be shy,” he growls, and I squeal as he pulls me further up by my thighs, until his head is nestled between them.

I don’t have time to be self-conscious, because he’s already pulling my hips down, bringing my aching core into contact with his mouth.

I let out a noise I don’t think I’ve ever made before and immediately grab the headboard for support, worried I might shatter apart from the sensation of his lips moving against me.

“So beautiful,” his voice is like silk, caressing my mind. “I’ll never get tired of tasting you, my love, of making you scream.”

I squeeze my thighs tighter, rocking against him as I ride the shockwaves rolling through my body, feeling the pressure build. I knew he liked making me feel good, but I had no idea he enjoyed it this much.

I would do anything for Leon, and he’d do anything for me. But right now, this is all we need from each other: the celebration of his pleasure and mine, taking from each other’s bodies and feeding it back across the mooring in a never-ending loop.

“I want to feel your pleasure as you feel it” is what he’d said to me when he proposed this idea. “I want to feel you climaxing again and again until you can’t hold yourself up anymore.”

It means he doesn’t stop when I fall over the edge the first time.

He holds tight onto my thighs, keeping me in place.

My spasms of ecstasy have barely faded before he becomes a demon with his tongue again, slipping it inside me, probing the soft depths and stroking my inner muscles still quaking with aftershocks of bliss.

When I come again, he makes a low, rumbling growl against my flesh, the vibrations only prolonging my climax. Then he releases me, letting me away from him to collapse, panting, onto the mattress beside him. It’s then I see that he finished too.

“But I didn’t even touch you,” I say, amazed. I reach out and stroke him lazily, his cock twitching in my hands.

“It was the mooring,” he says triumphantly. “I felt all of it, every moment of your pleasure, just like I’d hoped. What you experienced…” he shakes his head at the memory, as if he has nothing to compare the full-bodied, earth-shattering orgasms to.

“I think it’s safe to say I enjoy myself,” I grin.

He chuckles. “I can see why you keep me around.”

He’s already hard again in my hand, and I slip downward, positioning my head beside his hip. With a wicked grin and building anticipation, I lower my lips to his cock, beginning to suck.

“Let’s see if this goes both ways,” I say, letting Leon’s pleasure carry me away.