Page 28 of Realm of Crows (Wings of Ink #5)
Twenty
Ayna
A bright morning greets me when I open my eyes after a night tangled in Myron’s arms. We spent hours talking about Iliana Jelnedyn and her hundred and eighty soldiers and what it means when she says more are ready to fight against their own.
We might have an actual trained army at hand by the time we face Erina and Ephegos.
It’s the first real flicker of hope in days.
Tori and Royad already discussed the positioning of the soldiers between the other rebels, and it looks like we might build a formidable human force without Cezux’s help after all.
Not that we don’t need any help we can get.
Blinking away any war scenario, I curl onto my side, studying Myron still nestled into the covers, mussed hair half-covering his face, mouth slightly open, and chest rising and falling with even breaths.
The sunlight gilds his features and the sculpted muscle along his shoulder and arm where he’s draped it over my stomach. I could die watching him sleep.
Trust Myron to wake up in the exact moment my chest is about to burst with contentment about this gifted moment of peace.
In this light, his eyes are two onyx-framed gemstones gazing at me, and the corner of his mouth quirks. “This is what I want to wake up to for the rest of my life.”
Curling his arm around my waist, he pulls me closer until my side is against his front, and he plants a kiss on the top of my head.
“I wouldn’t object.” I’m already melting into him, the lazy circles his fingers make on my stomach enough to make all of me awaken.
Rolling to the side so I face him, I kiss his bare shoulder.
I helped him wash the paint off last night in an extended bath, the thought of which still makes heat creep from my chest straight to my core, but I remember every last ornate black line coiling along his torso, and as I trace the invisible lines with my fingers, Myron knows exactly where my mind has gone.
“I wouldn’t object to what you’re up to.
” A wicked grin stretches his mouth as my fingertips brush the lower areas of his abdomen where the paint ended.
We both didn’t bother to put on clothes after the bath, and I’ll delight in the lack of barrier as I glide lower, relishing Myron’s groan of pleasure as I graze the base of his hardening cock.
I all but get to wrap my fingers around him before he rolls us over so he’s pinning me to the mattress with his weight, and his mouth finds mine in a luxurious, lazy kiss.
My heart is racing, my breathing uneven, and my universe narrows to the feel of him.
Every last inch where our bodies touch, every slow, thorough stroke of his tongue.
His hand lingers on the side of my head, thumb brushing down my temple and along my cheek while mine continues tracing the imagined lines of paint along his shoulder and back.
My other hand is trapped between our hips, still wrapped around his length, but he doesn’t grind into it, for now simply enjoying the intensity of our kisses.
The promise of more, however, is obvious, and I quiver at the mere thought of what it will be like to have Myron thrust into me with the same languid passion.
I’m about to find out, when an impatient knock makes both of us halt mid-motion.
“We’re still sleeping,” Myron growls at the door, but the knock sounds again.
“It’s urgent,” Royad calls from outside, giving a flash of déjà vu.
I don’t hold back my groan of frustration when Myron and I pull apart, neither does he. “We’ll finish this later.” He pauses before removing his hand from my face, pulling back in for a brief kiss.
“Definitely.” Already bemoaning the warmth of his skin, I grab a fresh pair of underwear and a plain woolen shirt before donning my leathers.
When I buckle up my jacket and step into my boots, Myron is already at the door, facing a ready-for-battle Royad .
“We’ve got a problem.” It’s all our general has to say to make my pulse spike with fear.
With a few quick strides, I’m at Myron’s side, picking up my daggers from where I left them on the floor by the sideboard the day before. “What is it?”
Royad is already crossing the empty common room. “Apparently, we weren’t the only ones changing our strategy,” he explains as we follow him into the hallway. “Tori’s scouts spotted guerrilla forces ten miles north of the Askarean border.”
“Shit.” Herinor joins us, coming from one of the side corridors, his swords sheathed at his hip and a grim expression on his face that won’t let on how the night went for him.
“Exactly.” Silas catches up with us, hatchet in hand and black hair braided back like he’s ready to march into battle.
“How many?” Myron prompts as we make our way down the wide set of stairs to the main representation level of the palace.
“Tori says over a thousand. Rogue has already ordered his nearest units to block them, but we’ll need a few faster troops to stall them.”
Herinor shares one look with Myron before commenting, “Can’t the fairies site-hop there?”
“Not enough of them to make a difference. It’s a rare ability,” Royad explains, hand on his sword to keep it from bouncing against his thigh as he practically leaps down the final few stairs and marches on.
“Tori and Clio are already preparing to site-hop some troops in together with a good portion of site-hopping soldiers. Getting a few hundred there in time is optimistic. ”
“Plus the five of us,” I throw in.
Myron grabs my hand, and though he doesn’t say it, I can sense through the bond how he’s fighting not to tell me I can’t go.
I don’t give him time to try to find his voice. “We still count for fifty fairies, don’t we?” It’s a poor attempt at raising all our spirits, but at least Silas’s mouth twitches into a smirk.
“Like fifty each all right.”
We barrel rush past the guards, Rogue’s and Tori’s raised voices drift from the throne room.
“I need you in Aceleau in case something goes wrong,” Tori urges, and I can only imagine they are talking about if something happens to him.
“Nothing will go wrong,” Clio retorts. “We’ve defeated them before; we can do it again. And this isn’t an ambush. We know how many, and we have an estimate of magical forces planted among Erina’s troops.”
She has a point. Rogue seems to think so too because he tells Tori that, if Clio doesn’t go, he will.
That, however, earns a protest from the Fairy Queen, who is standing with the other three around Rogue’s throne like none of them is willing to sit on the carved stone seat.
All of them are wearing fighting leathers, Sanja a version reduced to leather pieces on her arms and shoulders while her belly is wrapped in thick, padded fleece.
At our approach, Rogue’s head whips around, golden eyes assessing us in a fraction of a moment. “Good, you’re all here.”
“Kaira is missing,” I point out as we stop at the foot of the dais near the front of the room .
“I didn’t wake her,” Herinor admits, and I wish I could tell if he spent the night in her room or simply asked Royad to skip banging on her door.
“She’s not missing.” We all turn around as Kaira enters the throne room, clad in leathers and hair pulled back into her usual braid.
“And you better wake me up next time, or you’ll never set foot in my bedroom again.
” The threat is real, and Herinor knows it, judging by the shame crumbling his grim facade. “What’s happening?”
Tori quickly gets her up to speed while we all settle around the large table Rogue wills into existence at the center of the room, map unrolling itself with the pins and figurines in place where we last put them.
Another wave of his hand and the troops move into the position of their actual locations, the soldier rebels under Iliana’s lead a few miles north of Meer, the last ones to show up.
I don’t take a moment to marvel at the lifelike carvings of the pieces. Instead, I train my focus on the marker south of Aceleau, too close to the mountains for it to be a coincidence. “Did they travel through the mountains to get there undetected?”
Rogue and Sanja share a look, then Sanja explains, “They must have been sneaking along the mountain range on the side of the coast for them to remain undetected for so long. Our spies have the borderlands and even Ansoli covered in order to prevent new units from entering our lands.”
That doesn’t wipe the guilty expression from Tori’s face. “We should have been more thorough. We could have spotted them long before they ever entered the lands and tossed them down the other side of the mountains. ”
Silas chuckles into his hatchet-clasping fist. “You don’t actually think you could have found them unless you’d site-hopped into them by coincidence.
” He smooths his expression over when no one else laughs.
“What I meant to say”—he clears his throat—“is that you’ve been spreading your spies and sentries thin, Tori.
” His tone has turned serious. “You spotted them in time to shift troops and adequately respond to the threat.” It’s clear Royad isn’t the only one who knows war strategy among the Crows.
“They must have marched for a week to have gotten this far. Another trap while we’ve been busy scouting the rest of the land and waiting for Cezux to commit to helping us.
Now what are we going to do to stop them? ”
Herinor has been quiet since Kaira’s scolding, probably pondering the merits of arguing she should stay here, while Royad’s focus is one hundred percent on the map and the pieces closest to Erina’s units in question.
“It doesn’t really matter how they got there,” Sanja finally throws in. “What matters is how we deal with them.”
“Wipe them off the face of the earth,” both Clio and Tori agree. I’m not surprised the female is calling for blood, but Tori usually isn’t that hotheaded.